Hanoi (VNA) –Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on September 18 discussed adraft resolution app🍸roving a master plan on socio-economic development in ethnicand mountainous areas as well as regions with extreme difficult situation inthe 2021-2025 period.

According to Do Van Chien, Minister-Chairman of the Government’sCommittee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, the plan was essential to overcomeshortcomings and promote the comprehensive development of ethnic minoritypeople. The implementation of the project will contribute toincreasing incomes for people, contributing to sustainable povertyreduction and basically solving some pressing issues of people living inextremely difficult socio-economic regions, he said. Among the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam, 53 are minorities with morethan 13 million people, accounting for 14.6 percent of the country’spopulation. Ethnic minorities are living in 56 of the 63 provinces and citiesnationwide. Although the ethnic minority and mountainous areas in thenorthwest, Central Highlands, southwestern and western central coastal regionshold a strategic position in the country’s socio-economic development strategyas well as guarantee security, they still have the lowest quality of humanresources, Chien said. He also said the regions had lowest access to basic socialservices and a high poverty rate. Chien blamed this on the fact the ethnic minority people live inthe border and mountainous areas with severe climate and poor infrastructure. High costs of production and circulation of goods have made itdifficult to attract social resources for socio-economic development. The low efficiency of using investment capital and failure toexploit the potentials of the regions has also deterred their development. Thanks to implementation of policy to support infrastructuredevelopment for ethnic minority and mountainous areas and poverty reductionmodels, the living standards of local residents has improved remarkably. One such model is a fish farm built in the reservoir of the hydropower plant in Lai Chau which provides employment and salaries for a number ofresidents in the Than Uyen district. In 2018, it helped see a reduction of 5 percent of the number ofpoor households living in poverty compared to the previous year.  By the end of last year, there were 24,195 poor households,accounting for 25 percent of the total households in the province. In 2018, two districts, Tan Uyen and Than Uyen, were no longer onthe list of the poor districts of the country. Ha Ngoc Chien, Chairman of the NA Council for Ethnic MinorityAffairs, said the majority of council members agreed with the necessity ofbuilding the master plan as mentioned in the Government’s report. “It is essential to have a policy strong enough to attractinvestment in these regions, aiming at narrowing the development and incomegap,” he said. Basing on supervisory results on the implementation of policies tosupport socio-economic development for ethnic minority and mountainous areas in2016-2018 period, Chien said, the project would help enhance the effectivenessof policies and investment resource of the State and society. The total capital for the project was estimated at 335.4 trillionVND at the minimum level. However, the NA Council for Ethnic Minority Affairsproposed theGovernment to clarify the foundation for resource estimate because the projectfailed to show list of investment.

The council also suggested the Ministry of Planning and Investmentto make a report on resource assessment before submitting to the NA forapproval.
The Government should make clear the State budget spendingincrease compared with the 2011-2022 period and how to guarantee the i♓nvestmentresource.

Chien said the NA Council for Ethnic Minority Affairsproposed theGovernment to amend the project and submit to the eight session of NationalAssembly for consideration./.