Communes with outstanding basic infrastructure construction debts will not be recognized as meeting the standards for new rural development.

To strive for approximately 50% of communes nationwide to meet the new rural standards by the end of 2019, while ensuring the quality of assessment, review, and recognition, the Central Steering Committee for National Target Programs requests the Steering Committees for National Target Programs in provinces and centrally-administered cities to direct relevant agencies, units, and localities to implement key solutions in the coming period.

Communes with outstanding debts for basic infrastructure construction will not be recognized as meeting the standards for new rural development. (Illustrative image)

Accordingly, the review and improvement of the quality of verification, assessment, and recognition of communes meeting the new rural standards in the area will ensure that the results of implementing the indicators and criteria for communes being considered and recognized as meeting the standards fully meet the requirements of the National Criteria Set for New Rural Communes in the 2016-2020 period; in particular, paying special attention to thoroughly evaluating key criteria such as criterion No. 10 on income, criterion No. 16 on culture, and criterion No. 17 on environment...

Specifically, absolutely no communes with outstanding debts for basic infrastructure construction in the new rural development program will be considered or recognized as meeting the standards for new rural development.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front Committees at all levels organize surveys to gather public opinion on people's satisfaction with the results of building new rural communes, in accordance with the guidelines of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front. The process of gathering public opinion must ensure openness and transparency, so that the results of building new rural communes are of high quality, genuine, objective, not driven by a pursuit of achievements, and bring practical benefits to the lives of rural people.

At the same time, strengthen inspection and supervision in the construction of new rural areas; effectively promote the supervisory and social critique role of the Fatherland Front, political and social organizations, and community supervision of the construction of new rural areas.

The self-assessment, verification, evaluation, recognition, and announcement of communes meeting the standards of new rural areas must ensure compliance with the requirements and regulations stipulated in Decision No. 2540/QD-TTg dated December 30, 2016, of the Prime Minister on the promulgation of regulations on the conditions, procedures, and documents for considering, recognizing, and announcing localities that meet the standards of new rural areas and localities that have completed the task of building new rural areas in the 2016-2020 period. Under no circumstances should the prescribed steps be skipped or omitted for the sake of achieving targets.

After three years of implementing the National Target Program for New Rural Development (2016-2020), the whole country now has 3,687 communes recognized as meeting the new rural development standards (accounting for 41.3%) and 60 district-level units recognized by the Prime Minister as meeting the new rural development standards; among them, Dong Nai is the first province in the country to have 100% of its communes recognized as meeting the new rural development standards.