Nam Dinh(VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, head of the Steering Committeefor National Target Programmes, has handed over the Prime Minister’s decisionsrecognising four districts of the northern provinces of Nam Dinh as new-stylerural areas.

The recognition of thefour localities – Nghia Hung, Xuan Truong, Truc Ninh and Giao Thuy – has raisedtotal new-style districts and cities of Nam Dinh to five out of total 10. HaiHau was the first one receiving the title in 2015.

At the same time, theprovince currently has 200 out of 209 communes and towns recognised asnew-style rural areas.

Addressing theceremony to hand over the certificates on April 21 in Nam Dinh city, Deputy PMHue suggested that Nam Dinh province should focus on building socio-economic infrastructureto make it more modern and convenient.

The province shouldalso pay more attention to boost production by strengthening the application ofadvanced technology in agriculture, while protecting the environment.

The locality isstriving to become a new-style rural province in 2020. To this end, theprovince will speed up the project to restructure its agricultural sector toenhance added value and sustainable development of the sector, while buildinghigh technology agriculture models.

Along with Statebudget, the province will also mobilise social resources to develop itssocio-economic infrastructure to improve locals’ living conditions.

In the 2011-2017 period,Nam Dinh spent nearly 16.5 trillion VND in new-style rural building programme,of which only 27.7 percent came from the State budget.

Locals donated nearly3,000 hectares of farming land and over 200 hectares of building land for roadand irrigation expansion as well as public works.

The nationaltarget programme on building new-style rural areas, initiated by the VietnameseGovernment in 2010, sets 19 criteria on socio-economic development, politics,and defence, aiming to boost rural regions of Vietnam.     

The list of criteria includes the development ofinfrastructure, the improvement of production capacity, environmentalprotection, and the promotion of cultural values.      

According to theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development, so far, Vietnam has 2,853recognised new-style rural communes, accounting for 31.96 percent of totalcommunes. Of which, 295 communes fulfilled all criteria of the programme’s newstandards for the 2016-2020 period.-VNA