Almost one third of communes recognised as new-style rural areas
As many as 2,720 communes, or 30.48 percent of the country’s total, have been recognised as new style rural areas as of the end of May 2017, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Hanoi (VNA) – As many as 2,720 communes, or 30.48 percent of the country’stotal, have been recognised as new style rural areas as of the end of May 2017,according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
Thefigure showed an increase of 389 communes since the end of 2016. Meanwhile, 34districts nationwide have received the title, with four newly-recogniseddistricts this year.
Onnational-scale average, a commune has met 13.8 categories out of the overall 19criteria on socio-economic development, politics and defence in order to berecognised as a new style rural area.
Toaccelerate the programme, the MARD has submitted to the Prime Minister a pilotproject on environment protection in building new style rural areas indisadvantaged localities, border and island communes in 2017-2020.
Asignificant goal of the project is to build clean water supply and garbagetreatment models.
Theministry has also completed a guidebook on how to implement the new-style ruralarea criteria in 2017-2020.
Thenational programme on building new-style rural areas was initiated by theGovernment in 2010. It sets out 19 criteria, ranging from infrastructuredevelopment, production capacity improvement, environmental protection andcultural value promotion.-VNA
The Mekong Delta province of Long An has set a goal of having 89 communes recognised as new-style rural areas by 2020, accounting for 53.6 percent of its total communes.
In 2017, the Central Steering Committee for 2016-2020 National Target Programme targets at least 2,765 communes (or 31 percent of the total communes) to qualify as new style rural areas.
An additional 325 communes were recognised as new style rural areas in January - April, 2017, a rise of 3.6 percent compared to end of 2016, announced the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (MARD).
The summer youth volunteer campaign 2017 was launched in the Central Highland province of Dak Lak on May 28 with a view to encouraging youngsters to build new-style rural and civilised urban areas.
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Illustrative photo (Source: VNA) 
