Provinces spend big on new rural development

Hanoi (VNA) – Nearly 5.2 trillion VND (229.3 million USD) will be spent on building new-style rural areas in the southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau in 2018-2020, heard a conference in the locality on December 26.

Priority will be given to promoting agricultural restructuring and poverty reduction, ensuring social security, improving the quality of education and health care services, protecting the environment and treating environmental pollution in rural areas.

The locality aims to have 14 more communes to meet new-style rural area criteria by 2020, lifting the total to 37. It also hopes to have three out of six districts and cities to be recognised as new-style rural areas.

To realise the targets, communication campaigns to raise awareness of the scheme will be expanded, as will efforts to call for resources.

Thanks to the programme in 2011-2017, a total of 801 km of rural roads and more than 315km of canal, 73 cultural infrastructure facilities and 17 rural markets were constructed and upgraded.

Total investment capital for the programme in the period was estimated to exceed 8.7 trillion VND (383.6 million USD).

In the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong, the programme of building new-style rural areas also recorded remarkable achievements in 2017.

The locality mobilised more than 10.8 trillion VND (476.2 million USD) from various sources in the year for the efforts.
Dak Nong has five out of 61 communes acknowledged as new-style rural areas. It aims to have more four in 2018.

At a meeting with local officials on December 26, Head of the Central Steering Committee of the National Target Programme on New Rural Development Pham Le Tuan asked the locality to pay heed to meeting criteria on the environment, including providing more locals with hygienic water and improving wastewater collection and treatment.

Measures should be devised to expand the coverage of health insurance in the locality, multiply effective production models and promote the role played by private enterprises in the movement, he said.

The national target programme on building new-style rural areas, initiated in 2010, sets 20 criteria on socio-economic development, politics, and defence, aiming to develop rural regions.    

The list of criteria includes the development of infrastructure, the improvement of production capacity, environmental protection and the promotion of cultural values.-VNA