A delegation of Cambodian Planning Ministry led by Minister Chhay Than
on March 7 visited the northern province of Nam Dinh to study the
model of rural area development.
At a working
session with the delegation, Deputy Director of the Nam Dinh provincial
Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Phung Hoan
briefed his guests about the province’s advantages and difficulties in
building modern rural areas.
The Government’s National
New Rural-Area Programme has 19 development criteria for rural areas to
get the status of “new.”
Among them
are the development of transportation and irrigation facilities and
housing, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and social and
political stability.
Hoan said 96 communes (or 47 percent) in Nam Dinh are developing following this model.
By the end of 2012, over 4 trillion VND have been mosilised for
building new style rural areas with more than 1.3 trillion VND coming
from the State budget.
To date, 4 communes have met 15 criteria and 7 communes met between 11 and 13 criteria, Hoan said.
Minister Chhay Than said Nam Dinh’s experience in building modern
rural areas, especially in infrastructure development, is very useful
for his country.
The Cambodian Government has paid due
attention to agriculture and rural areas, especially poverty reduction,
he said, adding that the country’s poverty rate shrank significantly to
19 percent in 2012.
However, the minister said,
Cambodia is seeking suitable polices for agricultural development in
the context that the sector makes up a large amount in gross domestic
product ( GDP ).
Later on the day, the Cambodian
delegation made a fact-finding tour of a new rural area model in Hai
Trung commune, Hai Hau district.-VNA