Hanoi (VNA)🦩 – For over 10 years of building new-style countryside, rural areas across Hanoi have gained a facelift, and the capital city is set to push ahead with the efforts in the coming time.

Hanoi is home to a large natural area, many rural communes, a large number of craft villages, and diverse types of production. As a major science-technology centre, it boasts numerous advantages for developing large-scale agriculture, high-tech farming, and big concentrated farming zones to raise rural residents’ life quality. Between 2010 and 2020, Hanoi had six districts and 355 communes (92.9% of all communes) recognised as new-style rural areas, creating a prerequisite for it to continue the national target programme on new-style countryside building in the 2021 - 2025 period. Thanks to considerable resources prioritised for rural areas, the numbers of communes and outlying districts meeting new-style countryside standards have risen sharply. Fifteen of the 18 rural district-level localities, or 83.3%, have won the status so far, namely Dan Phuong, Dong Anh, Thanh Tri, Hoai Duc, Quoc Oai, Gia Lam, Thach That, Thuong Tin, Thanh Oai, Phuc Tho, Soc Son, Phu Xuyen, Chuong My, Me Linh, and Son Tay. The city has submitted dossiers to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the central council for new-style rural area verification to apply for the recognition of three remainders – Ung Hoa, Ba Vi, and My Duc. Given this, Hanoi is striving to reach the programme’s target for 2021 - 2025, all rural districts named new-style rural areas, right this year. Meanwhile, the districts of Dan Phuong, Gia Lam, Dong Anh, and Thanh Tri are now eligible for the advanced new-style countryside status and waiting for the Prime Minister’s recognition. Hoai Duc and Thanh Oai are striving to obtain this status in 2024. Hanoi hopes to overfulfil the target of having five advanced new-style rural districts for the period by the end of 2025. Regarding new-style rural communes, all the 382 communes citywide had received the recognition by the end of 2021. Those meeting the advanced standards number 111 (71%) at present while there are 20 model ones (25%) compared to the target of 80 for 2025. To implement the national target programme, Hanoi has promoted agricultural restructuring. As a result, the farming area of annual plants has decreased 2.84% from 2000 to 228,568ha. While the production value of livestock husbandry has grown continuously to reach almost 20 trillion VND (852.1 million USD), up 1.82 trillion VND from 2020, the proportion of pig farming has declined and that of poultry and cattle farming has been on the rise. In addition, local authorities have facilitated production chains. Of the 149 existing chains in the city, there are 57 of animal products and 92 others of crop products. Hanoi has stepped up mobilising capital from different sources to help people develop production and business activities, with nearly 46.8 trillion VND raised between 2021 and 2020. Nguyen Thi Tuyen, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, said the city has applied itself to boosting rural areas so as to narrow their development gap with urban ones. It has also gained much experience during the implementation of the national target programme. Among the 14 major tasks and measures set for 2025 by the municipal Party Committee, Hanoi will prioritise resources for the building of new-style rural districts, advanced ones, along with advanced and model new-style communes. The Party Committee will increase and improve the effectiveness of communications to enhance solidarity, sense of responsibility, and consensus in the public, thereby bolstering new-style countryside building, Tuyen noted. The national target programme on building new-style rural areas was launched by the Vietnamese Government in 2010 with a view to promoting rural development nationwide. A new set of criteria for new-style rural communes and another for advanced ones for the 2021-2025 period were issued on March 8, 2022 under the Prime Miniter’s Decision No.318/QD-TTg. Accordingly, a new-style rural commune has to meet 19 criteria in different fields, including planning, socio-economic infrastructure, economy and production, society, culture, and the environment. The criteria are specified for different regions. An advanced new-style rural commune must satisfy all criteria of a new-style rural area and reach higher standards./.