Diversify investment resources

(Baonghean) - To build new rural areas, in addition to mobilizing people's strength, localities need a huge amount of investment capital to build welfare works. Therefore, each commune must combine many resources from the central to local levels and the support of organizations, businesses and people...

By the end of 2014, the whole province had 33 communes meeting the NTM standards, 63 communes meeting 15-18 criteria, 137 communes meeting 10-14 criteria, 166 communes meeting 5-9 criteria, and 32 communes meeting 3-4 criteria. The above results were partly due to the investment of the Central Government with 248,559 million VND (3 times higher than in 2013), of which the Government bond capital supporting development investment was 225,000 million VND, public capital was 23,559 million VND; the province allocated the budget to support the construction of rural roads with cement (196,000 million VND). Thanks to that, it has encouraged localities to launch the movement of building NTM. Along with that, the district budget was 129,400 million VND; the commune budget was 74,200 million VND; Capital for integrating programs and projects in the area is 359,728 million VND; credit capital is 85,000 million VND; enterprise capital is 38,000 million VND; People's contribution is 278,900 million VND. Total mobilized and integrated capital to implement the program in 2014 includes 1,410,000 million VND.

Construction of an export garment factory in Thanh Tien commune (Thanh Chuong).

According to Mr. Nguyen Ho Lam, Deputy Chief of the Standing Office of the Provincial Steering Committee for the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, said: "The reality of the communes that reached the New Rural Construction target in 2014 shows that on average, a commune that reached the target had a total investment of no less than 200 billion VND. That is not including the value of land donated by the people. Meanwhile, the investment capital from the State (Central and provincial levels provided about 4 billion VND/commune). Thus, to meet the investment capital for building the New Rural Construction target, localities must be flexible and mobilize investment capital from many sides to complete the set goals." Typically, Thanh Tien commune is one of 8 communes in Thanh Chuong district selected to "reach the target" of the New Rural Construction target in 2015, and is currently actively mobilizing investment capital for the remaining 2 criteria: traffic roads and cultural facilities.

Starting to build the new rural area since 2010, at this time Thanh Tien has only achieved 6 criteria, so completing 19 criteria is a very heavy task for the locality. Because agricultural production is the main source of income for the people here, but the output still faces many difficulties, prices are unstable, greatly affecting the income of the people. Therefore, the contribution to building the new rural area is also limited. However, in Thanh Tien, there is an advantage in calling for the support of children living far away to build their homeland. In the past 5 years, the commune has attracted children living far away to support 15 billion VND; of which Thanh Tien Primary School alone has an investment value of 6 billion VND supported by Mr. Nguyen Ba Thang - a son of the homeland; Traffic Construction Corporation 4 supported the construction of the communal Martyrs' Temple with 5 billion VND, supported the construction of cultural houses for 13 hamlets with 1 billion VND, supported the construction of the communal kindergarten with 1.2 billion VND...

Thanh Chuong farmers bring machinery into production after land consolidation and plot exchange.

Over the past 4 years, the total mobilization of internal and external resources to build the new rural areas of Thanh Tien commune has been more than 71.5 billion VND. Of which, the province's integrated program capital is 24 billion VND; the district budget is more than 1.1 billion VND; the commune budget is nearly 4.9 billion VND, enterprises 15 billion VND; and people's contributions are nearly 26.6 billion VND. Up to now, Thanh Tien has achieved 17/19 new rural criteria.

As for Thanh Lien commune, although it was not initially selected by Thanh Chuong district People's Committee as a pilot commune among the first 8 communes of the district. However, the Party Committee and People's Committee of the commune have flexibly found their own way to build new rural areas to speed up the progress of achieving the criteria. However, the difficulty of Thanh Lien is that it mainly has to rely on internal resources to build new rural areas. Because it has not been made a pilot commune, the investment budget from higher levels for the locality is very small. Up to this point, the district has only invested 150 million VND in installing internal bridges and culverts, and there has been no other investment source from higher levels. The reason why Thanh Lien has almost achieved 17 criteria is because since 2010, the locality has integrated programs and projects within the goal of building new rural areas, such as 1 irrigation dam worth 11 billion VND; 1.5 km of asphalt road worth 1.5 billion VND; Upgrading and renovating the transformer station in the commune worth 6 billion VND,... After 4 years of implementing the new rural construction, up to now, the total mobilization of internal resources, people's strength and external resources (integrated programs) to build the new rural area in Thanh Lien commune is more than 60 billion VND.

Mr. Dinh Viet Nam, Vice Chairman of Thanh Lien Commune People's Committee shared: The commune has not yet met the criteria for traffic and schools, but the most worrying thing is the difficulty in investment capital. There has been a decision to build a 2-storey primary school with 16 classrooms, with a total investment of nearly 14 billion VND, but so far there has been no capital. The Commune People's Committee is considering mobilizing investment capital to build a kindergarten first because the cost is less (5 billion VND)...

In 2014, Thanh Chuong district mobilized 234.9 billion VND to implement the construction of new rural areas. The mobilized resources were mostly invested in developing rural infrastructure, mainly traffic works, irrigation works, schools, communal cultural centers, village cultural houses, environment... Although there are still many difficulties, the State budget is still focused on investing in agriculture, rural areas and localities have mobilized and mobilized the internal resources of the people and the whole society to participate in the construction of new rural areas.

Completed construction of new rural market in Quynh Nghia (Quynh Luu).

In Quynh Luu district, the total capital mobilized and integrated to implement the program in the entire district in 4 years includes 5,565 billion VND, of which: budget capital invested according to the programs is 1,299 billion VND (direct budget investment for the program is 93,089 billion VND, support for cement for road construction is 13,720 billion VND; district budget directly invested in the program is 8,092 billion VND). In addition, people contributed and donated over 286.5 hectares of land (including residential land and production land), over 47,315 square meters of surrounding walls, architectural works, over 319,587 working days; people built and upgraded houses and auxiliary works themselves, estimated at over 2,500 billion VND. Despite the general difficult economic conditions and limited State investment resources, the Party Committee, government and people of the district have made efforts to build new rural areas, gradually achieving the set goals.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dinh, Head of the Department of Agriculture of Quynh Luu district, said: To achieve the target in 2015 and the following years, the district continues to promote administrative procedure reform, creating the most favorable conditions to call for investment resources from domestic and foreign enterprises, organizations and individuals to invest in the area. Be proactive and creative in diversifying investment resources, taking advantage of favorable conditions, integrating programs and projects to attract investment resources, especially support from the Central, the province and international organizations to build new rural areas. Prioritize the implementation and integration of investment support mechanisms and policies of higher levels for the goal of completing the contents and criteria of new rural areas in the area, especially for communes determined to complete in 2015.

Reality shows that investment capital for new rural construction is a concern for many localities, but through research in specific areas, if the Party Committee and government unite, together with the consensus of the people, many resources will be combined, creating a combined strength for the development of each rural area...

Article and photos:Quynh Lan