Nam Dinh (VNA) – Prime MinisterNguyen Xuan Phuc highlighted that there is no such thing as the end for the buildingnew-style rural areas programme while addressing a national conference held inthe northern province of Nam Dinh on October 19.

In his speech, the Government leader affirmedthat the programme, carried out since 2010, has made historic breakthroughs,giving a facelift to rural areas across Vietnam, raising the stature offarmers, considerably improving their lives, and continuing to restructureagriculture in a modern and sustainable manner.

Over the last more than nine years, thisprogramme has successfully capitalised on the combined strength of thepolitical system and the people, he noted.

He attributed its success largely to people’scontributions, adding that tens of thousands of kilometres of rural roads havebeen constructed without any pennies spent thanks to locals’ donation of theirland, money and work.

However, PM Phuc also pointed out shortcomingsof the programme and suggested solutions.

He stressed that all localities must not becomplacent about what they have achieved, but have the consistent viewpointthat building new-style rural areas is just the beginning and it doesn’t havean end point.

The PM also requested localities nationwide tolaunch an emulation movement on building new-style countryside for 2021 – 2025.

According to Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Nguyen Xuan Cuong, the programme has helped turn many rural areasinto good places for live.

Data show that the new-style countrysidebuilding target has been reached almost two years ahead of schedule. As ofOctober 2019, 4,665 communes or 52.4 percent of the total nationwide have beenrecognised as new-style rural areas, 2.4 percent higher than the target set for2020. Among them, 63 communes have satisfied advanced criteria.

Eight provinces and centrally-run cities havehad all of their communes winning the recognition, namely the provinces of NamDinh, Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Thai Binh, Dong Nai and Binh Duong, and the cities ofDa Nang and Can Tho.

Meanwhile, 109 district-level localities in 41provinces and cities have gained the title.

In particular, with all of their communes anddistrict-level localities meeting all criteria, Dong Nai and Nam Dinh havecompleted the task.

The annual per capita income in rural regionsrose three-fold, from 12.8 million VND (over 550 USD at the current exchangerate) in 2010 to 35.9 million VND in 2018. The income gap between rural andurban areas also dropped from 2.1 times to 1.8 times during the period. Thehousehold poverty rate in those areas has also declined sharply, about 1.5percent each year on average, to 7.38 percent now.

Rural socio-economic infrastructure has beenimproved considerably, thus gradually meeting people’ daily and productionneeds and keeping up with local development demand. After more than nine years,over 206,740km of rural roads have been constructed or upgraded across thecountry. Cultural and social aspects have also received more attention./.