Prioritize public investment policies for agriculture, farmers, and rural areas.

(Baonghean.vn)- Voters in Nghe An province recommend: The Government should continue to have priority policies to develop agriculture and rural areas, increase investment and repair canal and ditch systems to serve irrigation for farmers.

Regarding this issue (in official dispatch no. 2635/BNN), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development responded:

In recent times, the National Assembly and the Government have had many policies, mechanisms, and incentives to support investment from the State budget as well as incentives to attract social investment in the agricultural sector, farmers, and rural areas; to support farmers in developing production and consuming agricultural products. These policies have been implemented consistently and continuously improved in the direction of creating an increasingly favorable environment to effectively attract capital sources into this sector. Thereby, it has had a great impact on the socio-economic development of rural areas, helping rural infrastructure to develop strongly, changing the face of many rural areas. The material and spiritual living conditions of a large number of rural residents have been improved, gradually narrowing the gap between rural and urban areas.

Resolution No. 26/NQ-TW of the 7th Conference of the Central Executive Committee, 10th term on agriculture, farmers and rural areas; Resolution No. 26/2012/QH13 of the 13th National Assembly on continuing to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of implementing public investment policies and laws for agriculture, farmers and rural areas have determined: Increase development investment for the agricultural and rural areas to ensure that in the next 5 years it will be twice as high as in the previous 5 years.

Harvesting rice with a combine harvester in Hung Tan, Hung Nguyen. Photo: document

Total state investment capital for agriculture and rural areas in the 2011-2015 period reached about 610,959 billion VND (including the centralized budget, government bonds and ODA). Total social investment capital for agriculture in the 2011-2015 period reached 304,500 trillion VND, equivalent to 1.71% of GDP and 5.4% of total social investment capital. In particular, the National Target Program on New Rural Development mobilized about 851,380 billion VND (state budget 31.34%; credit 51%; enterprises 4.9%; people and community contributed 12.62%). The National Target Program on Clean Water and Rural Environmental Sanitation mobilized about 37,625 billion VND.

In addition, the Government has implemented direct support policies for farmers such as subsidizing irrigation fees (an average of over 4,000 billion VND/year); spending an additional 7,000 ÷ 8,000 billion VND from the annual budget reserve to provide emergency support in cases of natural disasters and epidemics. Supporting preferential credit loans to implement programs to solidify canals, develop rural transport, aquaculture infrastructure and craft village infrastructure in rural areas (an average of 5,000 billion VND/year).

Perspective of Dien Thanh drainage culvert (Dien Chau district) under the Project to Restore and Upgrade the Northern Nghe An Irrigation System when completed. Photo courtesy

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development identifies mechanisms and policies as important solutions, so it will continue to review and improve mechanisms and policies to create new momentum for agricultural development, support restructuring of the sector, promote new rural construction, focusing on land, credit, trade, tax, agricultural insurance policies, and especially policies to attract social resources to invest in agriculture and rural areas.

Priority in 2017 is to develop and complete policies that directly impact investment in rural agriculture, including: Law on Irrigation and documents guiding its implementation; Decree replacing Decree No. 210/2013/ND-CP on policies to encourage enterprises to invest in agriculture and rural areas; Circular guiding the implementation of Decree No. 15/2015/ND-CP on investment in the form of public-private partnership (PPP) in the agricultural sector; Decree on policies for developing small-scale irrigation, in-field irrigation and water-saving irrigation./.

Gia Huy

( Synthetic)