Present at the workshop were Party Central Committee member and President of the Vietnam Farmer’s Union Thao Xuan Sung; Party Central Committee member and Minister-Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs Do Van Chien; and Party Central Committee member and Secretary of the provincial Party’s Committee Bui Van Tinh, along with delegates from 21 provinces.
An overview of the workshop.
The event provided an opportunity for the central government and cities and provinces to review socio-economic development in mountainous areas and areas of ethnic minority groups over the past years. At the same time, delegates shared experiences and challenges in fulfilling tasks in each locality and how they can work together to develop these areas in the following years.
After the 15-year implementation of Resolution No.24, dated March 12, 2003, issued by the 9th Party Central Committee and the 25-year implementation of Directive No.45, dated September 23, 1994, of the 7th Party Central Committee’s Secretariat, infrastructure in mountainous and ethnic minority people areas have been more developed. The education, healthcare and cultural services in those areas have also seen progress, improving the ethnic minority groups’ living standard.
As of the end of 2018, the poverty rate among ethnic minority households declined by over 3 percent from the previous year to 25.5 percent. At the same time, the infrastructure have been significantly improved as 98.6 percent of the communes have concrete roads leading to communal People’s Committees’ offices and 99.8 percent of the communes and 95.5 percent of the villages have access to electricity.
To fulfill its tasks in socio-economic development in mountainous and ethnic minority people areas, the Vietnam Farmer’s Union has built more than 10,500 demonstration models in VietGAP-based horticulture, husbandry and aquaculture alongside over 170,000 models of production combining with distribution in a value chain.
At the workshop, the delegates made recommendations to more effectively implement socio-economic development policies in mountainous and ethnic minority people areas in the north and to help the union scale up projects which encourage farmers in H’mong ethnic minority villages to engage in tourism.