National conference reviews 10 years of building new-styled rural areas

A national conference was organised in the northern province of Nam Dinh on October 19 to review 10 years of implementing the national target programme on new-style rural areas, under the chair of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the conference. (Photo: VGP)
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the conference. (Photo: VGP)

At its seventh session in August 2008, the 10th-tenure Party Central Committee issued Resolution No. 26 on agriculture, farmers and rural areas. This resolution set the target to unceasingly improve the material and spiritual lives of rural residents, with faster progress in disadvantaged areas. It also aims to build new-style rural areas with modern socio-economic infrastructure, with 50% of all communes to be recognised as new-style countryside by 2020.

In order to realise this resolution, the Government approved a national target programme on building new-style rural areas for the 2010 - 2020 period. It also launched an emulation movement calling on the whole nation to join hands in the work.

Thanks to efforts of the whole political system and society, great achievements have been obtained over the past decade. Notably, the new-style countryside building target has been reached almost two years ahead of schedule. As of October 2019, 4,665 communes, or 52.4% of the total nationwide, have been recognised as new-style rural areas, 2.4% higher than the target set for 2020. Among them, 63 communes have satisfied advanced criteria.

Eight provinces and centrally-run cities have had all of their communes winning recognition, namely the provinces of Nam Dinh, Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Thai Binh, Dong Nai and Binh Duong, and the cities of Da Nang and Can Tho. Meanwhile, 109 district-level localities in 41 provinces and cities have also gained the title.

The annual per capita income in rural regions rose three-fold, from VND12.8 million (over US$550 at the current exchange rate) in 2010 to VND35.9 million in 2018. The income gap between rural and urban areas also dropped from 2.1 times to 1.8 times during the period. The household poverty rate in these areas has also declined sharply, by an average of about 1.5% each year.

Rural socio-economic infrastructure has been improved considerably, thus, gradually meeting people’s daily and production needs and keeping up with local development demands. After more than nine years, over 206,740km of rural roads have been constructed or upgraded across the country. In addition, cultural and social aspects have received more attention. The rate of collected solid waste has been increasing, from 44.1% in 2011 to 63.5% at present.

Over the last nine years, more than VND2.4 quadrillion has been mobilised for building new-style countryside, with 27.7% from the State budget, 57.6% from loans, 4.9% contributed by businesses, and 9.8% donated by people.

The conference on October 19 was also meant to establish orientations and tasks for carrying out the work in the years to come.