Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong speaks at the conference in Tam Ky city, Quang Nam province, on September 7 (Photo: VNA) Quang Nam (VNA) – A conference was held in TamKy city, Quang Nam province, on September 7 to review the 10-yearimplementation of the national target programme on new-style rural areabuilding in the south-central coastal and the Central Highlands regions.
The two regions comprise 13 provincial-levellocalities with more than 15 million people, accounting for 16 percent ofVietnam’s population, and over 40 ethnic minority groups.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentNguyen Xuan Cuong said building new-style rural areas is the most successfulamong all the national target programmes, and the Party and State have fundedtrillions of VND every year for each locality to carry out this work.
According to a report at the event, after nearly10 years of implementing the national target programme, the south-centralcoastal and the Central Highlands regions have been funded with about 365trillion VND (nearly 15.9 billion USD) from the central budget and differentsources.
So far, 604 or 42.41 percent of the 1,424communes in the two regions have been recognised as new-style ruralareas.
Four out of the eight south-central coastallocalities, namely Da Nang city and the provinces of Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh andBinh Thuan, have reached the targets for 2020 assigned by the Prime Minister.Meanwhile, two of the five Central Highlands provinces, namely Dak Nong and LamDong, achieved their targets set for next year.
The two regions currently have the rate ofcommunes earning the new-style rural status lower than the national average,which indicates that they are lagging behind other regions nationwide in thiswork, heard the conference.
Minister Cuong said the south-central coastaland the Central Highlands regions hold the most typical features for buildingnew-style countryside as they have the largest space for developing agricultureand fisheries. Therefore, it is necessary to promote new-style rural areabuilding here to capitalise on their advantages and potential and make theirdevelopment level on par with that in northern and southern regions.
At the event, participants proposed measures toencourage local smallholders to take part in production chains, associate agriculturewith tourism development, and boost hi-tech farming adaptive to climatechange.-VNA
VNA
