The Steering Committee for Central Highlands Affairs, ministries, key economic sectors and leaders of Central Highlands provinces agreed to focus on overcoming difficulties to maintain a high GDP growth rate for the region.

The agreement was reached at a conference of the Steering Committee for Central Highlands Affairs to review work done in the first six months of the year, which was held in the resort city of Da Lat on July 16.

The conference was chaired by Le Hong Anh, Politburo member, Minister of Public Security and head of the committee.

Provinces in the region will focus on disbursement of capital from Government programmes to assist businesses and farmers to speed up programmes and projects being implemented in the region in order to accelerate business and production and maintain economic growth in each locality and the whole region.

The conference agreed to accelerate policies which benefit ethnic minority people and poor households, such as assistance in production, allocating land, building houses and ensuring a safe water supply system, in order to fulfil 2009 targets.

The committee assigned practical ministries, sectors and economic groups to help the provinces implement a number of projects which are decisive at present and for the future for the region. The projects included replanting forests with 100,000 ha of rubber, assigning forest management and protection to the community, building roads to communes, improving vocational training and generating jobs, as well as mobilising funding for programmes to give all communes and villages access to electricity.

Ministries, sectors and localities suggested such solutions as adjusting funding to execute projects, revising related legal documents, and curbing internal migration.

According to Le Hong Anh, the simultaneous implementation of these measures would help ensure stability in the region, as well as its sound development through the second half of the year, and in the years to come.

According to the committee, despite many difficulties in the first six months of the year, the Central Highlands was still stable in terms of politics and security, and the region’s economy saw a GDP growth rate of 11.35 percent and an export value of 647.9 million USD. Over 43,000 people got jobs and over 2 million ha of forests were allocated to people for management and protection./.