Prioritize the construction of agricultural infrastructure for disadvantaged areas

Bac Kan province will deploy ten projects to support communes and villages in ethnic minority areas, households, businesses, and cooperatives operating in complicated areas. Among them is a project to develop sustainable agricultural and forestry production, promoting the strengths of regions producing goods along the value chain.

The program will support forest protection contracts for more than 57,000ha, support the protection of more than 67,000ha, the planting of more than 560ha of production forests, and subsidize rice for nearly 4,630 participating poor households and ethnic minority households to protect and develop forests.

Resources from the program will support the development of precious medicinal herb growing areas associated with processing in the Ba Be district, with a total capital of about VND 200 billion. In addition, Bac Kan province supports agricultural production by promoting startups and businesses and attracting investment in ethnic minority areas.

The locality also resolved the shortage of residential land, housing, production land, and running water. The goal is to support 479 households without houses or temporary, dilapidated houses.

In addition, the province will support job change for more than 200 households, implement 25 centralized domestic water supply projects, supply water to more than 2,600 households, and distribute domestic water supply to nearly 1,400 families.

From the capital of the National Target Program for economic and social development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas by 2024, Bac Kan province also invested in 7 projects to stabilize the population of about 626 households.

The program's most significant resources will focus on investing in essential infrastructure to serve production and life, with 368 projects. Of these, 200 traffic projects, 97 irrigation projects, 45 cultural houses, five schools, and several other small-scale projects.

Along with infrastructure construction, Bac Kan province also devotes resources to developing education and training, improving the quality of human resources, preserving and promoting traditional cultural values of ethnic minorities associated with the tourism calendar, taking care of people's health, improving the health of ethnic minorities, implementing gender equality and solving urgent problems for women and children in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, etc.

Mrs. Trieu Thi Thu Phuong, Head of the Ethnic Committee of Bac Kan province, said that ethnic minorities make up more than 80% of the local population. The lives of ethnic minorities are still tricky, especially in rural and remote areas.

"Resources from the national target program will help the province have resources to support people and businesses in developing production and investing in essential infrastructure," Ms. Phuong said.

With resources to support production development, Bac Kan province will prioritize building a linkage model between people, businesses, and cooperatives. It focuses on growing and processing medicinal plants, planting extensive timber forests, producing agricultural products associated with OCOP products, and creating high-quality endemic products aimed at export.

The total capital of the National Target Program for economic and social development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in 2024 of Bac Kan province is nearly VND 820 billion. The central capital is more than VND 754 billion, the provincial budget capital is nearly VND 41 billion, and the credit capital is more than VND 23 billion.

Vietnam has three national target programs: rural development, sustainable poverty reduction, and socio-economic development in mountainous and ethnic minority areas.

National target programs implemented synchronously in localities have created opportunities and conditions for people with low incomes to access essential social services, raise people's knowledge, create jobs, and improve quality labor sources.

According to a report from the Ministry of Finance, the allocation of local budget counterpart funds to implement national target programs has yet to ensure the minimum ratio as prescribed by the Prime Minister's decisions.

The disbursement rate of national target programs in 2023 is lower than expected. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance requests localities to regularly organize meetings with investors and project management boards on implementing and paying public investment capital for projects and promptly resolve difficulties.

Recently, the National Assembly has allowed each locality to have two districts to pilot the capital mixing of national target programs. Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang assessed that the whole country will have 104 districts showing the new mechanism, creating a premise for localities to boldly implement it, significantly increasing the disbursement rate of public investment capital.