In the mountainous ethnic minority area of ​​Nghe An, there are still 76 communes with special difficulties.

Nghe An is focusing on building a new rural area project in the border area. Photo courtesy of Sach Nguyen

The Prime Minister has just approved Decision No. 861/QD-TTg on the list of communes in Region III, Region II, Region I in mountainous ethnic minority areas for the period 2021-2025.

According to this decision, the whole country has 3,434 communes in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in 51 provinces and centrally-run cities, including: 1,673 communes in region I, 210 communes in region II and 1,551 communes in region III.

Of which, Nghe An has 55 communes in area I (communes in the initial stages of development), 76 communes in area III (communes with special difficulties), and no communes in area II (communes still facing difficulties).

Communes in Region III and Region II approved in this Decision, if recognized as meeting new rural standards, will be identified as communes in Region I and will no longer enjoy the policies applicable to communes in Region III and Region II from the effective date of the Decision of the competent authority recognizing the commune as meeting new rural standards.

Previously, according to Decision 582/QD/TTg, dated April 28, 2017, approving the list of extremely disadvantaged villages, communes in region III, region II, region I in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the period 2016-2020, Nghe An has 46 communes in region I; 112 communes in region II; 94 communes in region III, with a total of 1,175 extremely disadvantaged villages.

* Criteria for classifying ethnic minority and mountainous areas according to development level in the 2021-2025 period are determined as follows:

Commune in region III (particularly difficult commune)A commune belonging to an ethnic minority and mountainous area is subject to the provisions of Article 2 of Decision No. 33/2020/QD-TTg that has not been recognized as meeting new rural standards and has one of the following two criteria:

1- Has a poverty rate of 20% or more (except for communes in the Mekong Delta region with a poverty rate of 15% or more or with more than 150 poor households of ethnic minorities).

2- Has a poverty rate from 15% to less than 20% (in particular, communes in the Mekong Delta region have a poverty rate from 12% to less than 15%) and have one of the following criteria:

a- Over 60% of poor households are ethnic minority households out of the total number of poor households in the commune;

b- The number of ethnic minorities between the ages of 15 and 60 who cannot read or write in Mandarin is 20% or more;

c- The number of employed workers who have not received training for 3 months or more accounts for over 80% of the total number of employed workers;

d- The traffic route from the district center to the commune center is over 20 km long, of which over 50% of the km has not been paved or concreted.

Commune in area I (commune in initial development)A commune in an ethnic minority and mountainous area is subject to the provisions of Article 2 of Decision No. 33/2020/QD-TTg and has one of the following two criteria: 1- Has a poverty rate of less than 10%; 2- Has been recognized as meeting new rural standards.

Commune in region II (commune with difficulties)Belonging to ethnic minority and mountainous areas are the remaining communes after determining communes in region III and communes in region I.