QuangNam (VNA) - Promoting rapid and sustainable development in ethnicminority and mountainous areas, and narrowing the development gap between themand other areas is the Party and State’s consistent policy in the national socio-economicdevelopment, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh has said.

The Deputy PM asserted this at a forum on ethnic minority development held inthe central province of Quang Nam on August 20, which was jointly organised by the Committeefor Ethnic Minority Affairs,the provincial People’s Committee, the UN’s office in Vietnam and the WorldBank in Vietnam, and development partners.

Themed “Ngoc Linh ginseng - value chain approach for social and economic development in the ethnic minority areas”, the event saw the participation of nearly 400delegates from ministries, sectors, localities, enterprises, along with experts,scientists and representatives from international and development organisations.

During his speech, Deputy PM Binh highlighted the significance of the event,saying that it helped collect experience in growing Ngoc Linh ginseng from growers.

He agreed with the assessment of socio-economic development in Vietnam’s ethnicminority areas by representatives from the World Bank.

TheVietnamese Government is paying special heed to directing the implementation ofprogrammes to support ethnic minority communities, he stressed.

Ministriesand sectors, especially the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, need to roll out more breakthroughmeasures, focusing on mobilising greater sources for socio-economic developmentin ethnic inhabited areas, he said.

More attention should be paid to production development in ethnic minority andmountainous areas in the direction of approaching value chains, promoting innovationand startup activities, and creating jobs.

Local-levelleaders were advised to actively seek opportunities and learn from lessons andexperience in socio-economic development from other localities to find theirown directions in a creative way, towards promoting rapid and sustainable developmentin their localities.

The Deputy PM encouraged Quang Nam and other localities to jointly call for theinvolvement of enterprises in expanding cultivation of Ngoc Linh ginseng, whichwas recognised as a national product.

According to the World Bank's report on Poverty Reduction and Prosperity inVietnam, the rate of poor households among ethnic minority communities in Vietnamfell to 44 percent in 2016 from 57 percent in 2014.

Inorder to narrow the development gap, it is necessary to have new policies,programmes and approaches, including value chain-oriented production, focusing onproducts of ethnic minorities, especially non-timber forest products(NTFPs).

Ngoc Linh ginseng is one of the typical NTFPs with high economic value. On September2015, the Government approved a project on conserving and developing Ngoc Linhginseng - the Vietnamese ginseng by 2030 with a total investment of over 9trillion VND (387.1 million USD). Ngoc Linh ginseng was officially recognisedas a national product in June 2017.

At the forum, domestic and foreign experts discussed how to further promotepoverty reduction and sustainable forestry development; and proposed strategiesand measures for developing Ngoc Linh ginseng products in Vietnam’s ethnic minorityareas.

The Vietnamese ginseng was one of eight preciousand endangered flora genes covered in Quang Nam province’s conservation programmefor 2014-2020, including Ba Kich (poor ginseng or codonopsis),pepper, cinnamon, large rattan and white corn.

Nam Tra My district of Quang Nam alone has developed 27 farms of Ngoc Linhginseng on a total area of 932ha, growing 800,000 natural ginseng plants andherbs. These farms plan to produce 1,000 tonnes of ginseng by 2025.-VNA