The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) plans to resettle 250,000 households currently living in calamity-prone areas and border zones as well as on islands during the 2009-2015 period.

The plan was unveiled by MARD Minister Cao Duc Phat at a conference reviewing a resettlement programme that was carried out in the 2006-08 period under the Prime Minister’s Decision 193/2006/QD-TTg.

In the reviewed period, 69,265 households have been helped to move to resettlement areas, and 20,149 households have been placed in existing hamlets and villages.

The Government had spent more than 2 trillion VND on the work in the reviewed time.

Minister Cao Duc Phat hailed localities for providing assistance to new residents to stabilise their lives in their new, better location.

However, he asked the localities to work harder, and continue to assist those being relocated, especially to develop household-based production to further improve their living conditions in the new homes./.