Promoting the leading role in new rural construction in the Red River Delta and North Central regions

MANY GOALS ACHIEVEMENTS AHEAD OF TIME

After more than 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 26-NQ/TW of the Party Central Committee (10th tenure) on agriculture, farmers, and rural areas and 9 years of implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Construction for the 2010-2020 period, up to now, the whole country has 4,475 communes (accounting for 50.26% of communes) meeting new rural standards, 84 district-level units in 37 provinces and centrally-run cities (accounting for about 12.65% of the total number of districts, towns, and cities nationwide) have been recognized by the Prime Minister as meeting standards or completing the task of building new rural areas; the national average has reached 15.26 criteria/commune and the whole country no longer has a commune with less than 5 criteria.

Thus, we have completed the objectives of the National Target Program on New Rural Construction for the 2010-2020 period 18 months earlier than the Resolution of the 12th National Party Congress and the plan assigned by the National Assembly. This is the basis for the Prime Minister and the Central Steering Committee of National Target Programs to decide to summarize 10 years of implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Construction for the 2010-2020 period in 2019.(1 year earlier than planned), spend the entire year 2020 researching and promulgating the content and legal framework to implement the New Rural Development Program for the period after 2020.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue

To prepare well for the National Summary Conference (scheduled for early December 2019 in Nam Dinh province - PV), it is necessary to organize an in-depth summary for each region to carefully evaluate the results achieved, draw lessons from successful experiences, point out the limitations that need to be overcome, determine specific goals and solutions for new rural construction, suitable to the actual conditions of each region, thereby determining the general goals and tasks for the new rural construction program of the whole country in the period of 2021-2025 and orientation to 2030.

Therefore, the Conference to summarize the National Target Program on new rural construction in the Northern mountainous region for the period 2010-2020 (held in early August) and today is the Conference to summarize the National Target Program on New Rural Construction in the Red River Delta and North Central Coast for the period 2010-2020, which plays a very important role in deeply evaluating the results of each region.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue visits booths introducing new rural products of localities. Photo: Duc Anh

Sharing at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue emphasized that each region has different conditions, even each province and city has different starting conditions. While the provinces and cities in the Red River Delta have the most favorable conditions in the country, the provinces in the North Central region (especially the mountainous and coastal localities in all provinces; communes and villages in the West of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces) face many difficulties when starting to build new rural areas and are often affected by severe natural disasters.

However, after 9 years of implementation, with the continuous efforts of Party committees, authorities at all levels, social forces, especially promoting the creativity and community spirit of the people, the Red River Delta and North Central regions have achieved many very important achievements in new rural construction, contributing significantly to the overall results of the whole country.

By the end of July 2019, the whole region had 2,386/3,474 communes (accounting for 68.7% of communes) recognized as meeting new rural standards.(up 47.58% compared to the end of 2015),much higher than the national standard (50.26%); in the region, 10/17 provinces and cities have achieved and exceeded the 2020 target assigned by the Prime Minister.

The average criteria/commune achieved 17.4 criteria, higher than the national average; since the beginning of 2018, the whole region has no more communes with less than 05 criteria; the whole region has 41 district-level units recognized by the Prime Minister as meeting the standards/completing the task of building new rural areas (accounting for 48.8% of the total number of recognized district-level units nationwide), of which the Red River Delta has 35 units (Nam Dinh alone has 10/10 recognized district-level units); the whole region currently has 01 commune recognized as a model new rural commune (Viet Dan commune, Dong Trieu town, Quang Ninh); 510 rural residential areas have been recognized as model new rural areas, of which Ha Tinh alone has 290 areas, Quang Ninh has 206 areas. Ha Tinh and Quang Ninh are also two pioneering provinces in the region as well as the whole country in building model gardens. Up to now, Ha Tinh has 3,382 model gardens, Quang Ninh has 1,526 model gardens (out of a total of 4,913 recognized model gardens in the whole region).

New rural areas are having positive changes.

In the context of many difficulties, the achievements in building new rural areas in the Red River Delta and North Central region are the outstanding efforts of the entire political system at all levels. The results of 09 years of building new rural areas have helped the rural infrastructure system of the region to be complete, synchronized and interconnected, increasingly meeting the production and living needs of the people.

"In particular, the Red River Delta and North Central regions are where the brightest spots, the most innovative breakthroughs, and the most effective methods of new rural construction in the country converge in recent years, and are the starting point for the proposal to the Prime Minister to issue new mechanisms and policies that have been and are being implemented very effectively," Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue noted.

The Deputy Prime Minister cited effective methods at the grassroots level such as: The One Commune One Product Program originating from Quang Ninh; building model new rural residential areas and model gardens originating from Ha Tinh; building new rural areas at the village and hamlet level in difficult areas originating from Nghe An and Thanh Hoa; environmental protection work and rural landscape construction originating from Nam Dinh, etc. and currently, it is a place to explore new issues, as a premise for researching the content of new rural construction for the period after 2020.

CONTINUE TO HAVE MANY INNOVATIONS AND GOOD PRACTICES TO REPLICATE

In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue also noted the shortcomings that need to be overcome in the coming time. That is: The results of new rural construction between provinces and cities in the region have quite a large difference, while Nam Dinh has 100% of communes and districts meeting new rural standards and many provinces and cities have over 80% of communes meeting the standards (Bac Ninh, Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Thai Binh, Vinh Phuc, Hanoi,...), some provinces still have less than 50% of communes meeting the standards (Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue, Quang Binh).

In some provinces, the achievement of the targets is still relatively low compared to the region and the whole country (Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Thua Thien Hue); Hai Phong city has resources and favorable conditions, but up to now it is the only locality in the Red River Delta region that has not had a district-level unit recognized as meeting the standards/completing the task of building new rural areas, with only 64.03% of communes meeting the standards.

To promote the new rural construction movement, the People's Committee of Nghe An province has had breakthrough policies to mobilize all resources. Photo: Document

In some places, the countryside is changing in the direction of concretization, not preserving the identity and traditional values ​​of the typical countryside; due to high population density, the Red River Delta and North Central regions are under great pressure from environmental pollution. In addition to the amount of waste from agricultural production and rural residents' daily life, this is also an area where nearly 300 industrial parks, more than 600 industrial clusters and many craft villages with large amounts of waste are concentrated, many places have caused serious environmental pollution, greatly affecting the quality of life of the people.

In addition, the security and social order situation is not really sustainable, in which complicated serious crimes tend to increase and have not been completely controlled; in some localities, the poverty reduction results are not really sustainable and there are still cases of re-poverty; some places show satisfaction with the results achieved, the new rural construction movement has shown signs of slowing down recently; there is still a mindset of waiting and relying on the resources of the Central Government, there are still places that mobilize people beyond their capacity in new rural construction,...

In the spirit of Resolution No. 26 of the Party Central Committee (10th tenure): agriculture, farmers, rural areas are strategic; new rural areas are fundamental; agricultural restructuring is key; farmers are the subject of new rural area construction, in the remaining months of 2019 and 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue requested that Party committees at all levels, authorities and people of localities continue to promote the achievements, overcome limitations and difficulties, and direct implementation to achieve higher goals.

Continue to do a good job of propaganda and raising awareness for cadres, party members and people in new rural construction, with the spirit of:Building new rural areas has a starting point, but no ending point., avoid complacency, self-satisfaction, especially in communes and districts that have been recognized as meeting new rural standards, which can lead to neglect of work. Each locality must consider this a regular, long-term task, on that basis, promote democracy and the role of the community in building new rural areas. In particular, the provinces in the Red River Delta and North Central Coast need to continue to promote the leading role of the whole country, constantly innovate, put forward many initiatives and good practices to popularize and replicate.

Each locality must regularly review each target and criterion to have a plan and roadmap to improve the quality of the following criteria to meet standards in the direction of ensuring quality and sustainability, especially criteria directly related to the quality of life of rural residents...

Leaders of the Central and Provincial New Rural Development Coordination Office visited the clean vegetable growing model in Nam Anh commune, Nam Dan district. Photo: Xuan Hoang

Promote the restructuring of the agricultural sector towards improving productivity, quality and value of key local agricultural products; promote joint ventures and linkages to form value chains, attracting more businesses to invest in rural areas; continue to improve the efficiency of rural economic development, in which, take organic and biosafety agricultural production, environmentally friendly as the foundation associated with the development of industry, services, and rural tourism; promote the effective implementation of the OCOP Program associated with the advantages of each locality, in order to contribute to rapidly increasing income for rural people.

The Red River Delta and the North Central region need to continue to have strong steps in developing the rural economy to help the provinces in the region escape the middle-income trap, gain experience, and promote effective replication nationwide.

It is necessary to promote new rural tourism tours and routes associated with historical and revolutionary sites as well as sea tourism highlights to create widespread value and improve the quality of tourism products in each locality. From there, it will contribute to rapidly increasing the number of domestic and international tourists visiting rural areas to truly experience the peaceful and livable countryside of Vietnam.

One of the movements that has been widely replicated in Nghe An in recent times is the construction of flower roads to contribute to beautifying village roads and alleys, which has been implemented by many localities, bringing a more beautiful and friendly rural environment. Photo: PV

Continue to improve essential infrastructure to serve production development and people's daily life in rural areas; pay special attention to building green spaces in rural areas, especially promoting the movement of planting shade trees and flowers on village and commune traffic routes.

"The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is requested to continue to preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to absorb the opinions of delegates; at the same time, focus on researching and evaluating the national criteria for new rural areas at the commune and district levels, the current model new rural commune criteria, from which to calculate adjustments and supplements to ensure suitability for the period 2021 - 2025. In particular, provinces and cities need to urgently and proactively develop a medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021 - 2025, in which specific resources for new rural construction are identified" - Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue noted.