Ho Chi Minh City officially implemented a project to improve living condition for residents in outlying districts including Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh, Nha Be and Can Gio.
The project will be carried out in the period 2016-2020, aiming to reinforce available achievements in five above-mentioned districts and greatly improve standards of the government’s rural development plan to higher sustainable level.
City leaders confirmed that localities strived to perfect standards as per the government’s plan in five past years yet the highest target is to improve material and spiritual lives of inhabitants in countryside regions narrowing the living condition gap between urban and countryside.
In the first phase of the plan from 2010 to 2015, the gap was narrowed considerably.
Before 2010, income of people in outlying district is equal to 55 percent of their counterparts in urban, yet in 2012, the income rose by 76 percent and in 2014 it soared by 79 percent.
After five year implementation of the government’s rural development plan, income of outlying districts increased by 1.8 time averagely compared to time before (around VND40 million per capita per year, higher than the country’s standard)
The achievement resulted from the city’s right policies and determination of people in the country thanks to the government’s infrastructure investment to offer favorable condition for production. The target for the period 2016-2020 is to build proper socioeconomic structure and production methods connecting agriculture growth with industry, services; countryside development with urban and environment protection.
The plan for the next period will focus on raising income to over VND63 million (US$ 2,816) per person per year; fighting poverty access to medical insurance and training; eliminating environment pollution, planning residential quarters with scenery.
For the period 2016-2020, the city will invest in over VND40,600 billion to raise standard quality in rural regions. Of the amount, 40.3 percent comes from state budget or equal to VND16,300 billion and the remain comes from social contributions. It is estimated that each commune will spend VND726 billion in improving quality to bring new face to rural areas.
National assembly deputies said at a meeting with administrators of Nha Be District that it needs to re-structure production with vision of building production system or chains through cooperating farmers and cooperatives or cooperating between farmers and enterprises to apply high techniques in agriculture production; accordingly, it will raise product value and competition and then build brand names later.
The city should have more proper policies for each period to give incentive to farmers and attract investors to pour capital in rural areas.
Individual producers made most of stimulus packages in last time but the next time, the plan will concentrate on expanding cooperatives and other models. Locality administrators have learnt lessons from building rural development plan during five year to better the second period.
Additionally, implementation of the plan must base on specific features of each district, commune and village from which each locality can have major products aiming to raise inhabitants’ income sustainably.
For instance, District Cu Chi is suitable for planting ornamental tress and followers, fishes as well as ecological tourism and river tourism. Moreover, the district should develop handicraft to create specific tourism products. The district should pay attention to traffic connection for investment attraction and environment protection.
