Up to 85 percent of villages nationwide will be accessible by vehicle by 2015 as stated in a national programme designed to support disadvantaged communes and villages to develop infrastructure.

The programme, which forms a component of the National Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction (Programme 135), got the Prime Minister’s approval recently.

It is divided into two phases with the 2012-2015 period focusing on reducing the poverty rate by 4 percent a year and helping local people deserve a per capita income equivalent to 50 percent of rural people’s average.

From 2016 to 2020, infrastructure serving production, business and livelihoods in localities with extreme difficulties, including border communes and hamlets, will be reinforced to hasten socio-economic development and improve local people’s living standards toward rapid but sustainable poverty alleviation.

Concrete measures to be taken will include raising local residents’ awareness about household-based economy, encouraging technology applications, increasing credit and market access and promoting effective use of land, among others.

Budget for the programme in 2014 and 2015 will see a 1.5 times higher than the sum allocated for 2013 and be adjusted up in the following years depending on the affordability of the State budget.-VNA