| THE PRIME MINISTER OF GOVERNMENT ------- | SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM Independence - Freedom - Happiness ---------- |
| No. 26/2008/QD-TTg | Hanoi, February 05, 2008 |
DECISION
PROMULGATING A NUMBER OF MECHANISMS AND POLICIES TO SUPPORT SOCIO-POLICIES TO SUPPORT SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MEKONG RIVER DELTA PROVINCES AND CITIES TILL 2010
THE PRIME MINISTER
Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;
At the proposal of the Minister of Planning and Investment in Report No. 3263/TTr-BKH dated May 14, 2007,
At the proposal of the Minister of Planning and Investment in Report No. 3263/TTr-BKH dated May 14, 2007,
DECIDES:
Article1. - To promulgate a number of mechanisms and policies to support socio-economic development in Mekong River delta provinces and cities (including Can Tho city and Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Dong Thap, An Giang, Kien Giang, Soc Trang, Hau Giang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau provinces) till 2010 as follows:
1. Major objectives and norms till 2010:
- The regional GDP will grow at over 11%/year on average.
- The rate of poor households (by new standards) will be 10-11%.
- The rate of under-5 malnourished children will be under 20%.
- Over 95% of children of primary school age will go to school. The rates will be respectively over 85% for lower secondary school pupils and over 50% for higher secondary school pupils. One hundred percent of schools and classrooms will be solidified and over 70% of schools and classrooms will reach national standards. Professional secondary school enrolment will annually grow at over 20%. The rate of university and college students will rise to over 120 students/10,000 people.
- Around 38-40% of laborers will be trained.
- Ninety percent of communes will reach national healthcare standards. Eighty percent of communal health centers will have doctors.
- Ninety percent of urban inhabitants and 75% of rural inhabitants will have access to clean water.
2. Key tasks to develop a number of key branches and domains
a/ Industry:
To develop industrial production towards prioritizing the agro-forestry- aquatic product processing industry in order to make key products for export. To exploit gas potential off the southwestern coast for development of the gas-electricity-fertilizer industry; to ensure the progress of construction and commission of gas-fired power plants in the region and speed up the construction of Ca Mau fertilizer plant. To develop the mechanical engineering industry in service of agro-fisheries production and shipbuilding. To develop the production of construction materials such as cement, brick and tile, and ready-made concrete structure for building of dwelling houses in the region.
b/ Agriculture-forestry-fisheries:
To stabilize the rice-growing area with good irrigation conditions for intensive farming with higher productivity; to put into mass production high-quality rice for export. To strongly develop cultivation of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental trees in localities where conditions permit, formulating areas specializing in fruit trees, flowers and ornamental trees of export value.
To develop aquaculture, creating commodity production areas with high outputs for export; to strive for a total aquatic output of over 2.2 million tons by 2010, over 60% of which will come from aquaculture. To encourage all economic sectors to invest in building large production areas of quality aquatic breeders.
To protect and develop coastal mangrove forests and Phu Quoc primitive forest; to restore and plant cajuput forests in low-lying and aluminous areas of Dong Thap Muoi (Plain of Reeds), Long Xuyen Quadrangle, western Hau River and Ca Mau peninsula; to plant coastal protection forests; to plant breakwater trees in flooded areas, along rivers and canals, and in residential clusters and lines of flooded areas.
c/ Development of trade, services and tourism:
To expand the trade network for sale of commodity farm produce. To develop wholesale markets and markets for cross-border trade with Cambodia. To strive to double the entire region's 2005 total retail sales and service turnover by 2010. To boost the export of aquatic products, farm produce, flowers and fruits; to improve rice variety quality as well as harvesting and processing technologies to raise the rice export value. By 2010, the region's total export value will reach USD 6.2-6.5 billion, of which aquatic exports will fetch USD 2.2 billion. The average export value will reach over USD 350/person/year.
To step by step promote the sale of agro-forestry and aquatic commodity products in appropriate forms of partnership and contract between farmer households or cooperatives and enterprises on the principle of mutual agreement and benefit. By 2010, over 60% of farmer households will produce and sell commodities under contracts with buyers' specific addresses; by this mode, processing and trade enterprises will have stable input materials for production and business.
To expand such forms of organization as cooperative, production enterprise, club and professional association for support of production and sale. To form societies for cooperation in production and sale and prompt exchange of market and price information in order to protect the interests of producers and traders. To work out solutions for each branch and domain on product quality improvement, trade promotion, brand establishment and protection, forming stable and sustainable markets.
To develop tourism in order to tap the region's particular potential, build tourist and recreational complexes, and attach ecotourism to landscapes and historical relics; to develop tourism in Ca Mau mangrove forest and Dong Thap Muoi; to develop marine and island tourism, concentrating on Phu Quoc island.
To strongly develop various services to meet development demand. To improve the quality of education, health, finance, banking, insurance and consultancy services.
d/ Education and socio-cultural domains:
To raise people's intellectual standards, promote an inter-branch society and education, especially university, college and vocational education. To upgrade and found a number universities and colleges.
To intensify training of science workers and technicians. To build a number of qualified institutes and centers for research into science and technology, firstly biotechnology in service of the region.
- To invest in building and upgrading provincial-level hospitals in order to improve healthcare service quality and reduce workload for higher-level hospitals; to accelerate the construction and modernization of specialized hospitals in Can Tho city to serve the entire region. To build and upgrade district-level hospitals and grassroots health stations. To upgrade detoxification centers in key localities in association with vocational training for detoxified persons. To prevent and promptly control epidemics; to control the growth of and step by step reduce social diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. All villages will have medical workers. The rate of hospital beds will reach over 20 beds/10,000 people.
- To develop and preserve the national cultural identity. To build provincial-level culture-information centers, build and upgrade local radio-television stations, improve and build grassroots radio stations (prioritizing deep-lying, remote, border and ethnic minority areas), to expand the program for broadcast in Khmer language and its broadcast time volume.
- By 2010, the urban unemployment rate of working age laborers will be under 5%. The rural working time will be raised to 85%. Trained technical workers and laborers of higher qualifications will account for over 15% of rural workforce; the life expectancy will reach 72.
e/ Science, technology and environmental protection: To prioritize the development of scientific and technological research institutions and breeder farms and nurseries. To increasingly apply scientific and technological research achievements to production, especially agricultural production and aquaculture.
By 2010, 100% of newly built production establishments will apply clean technology or have pollution reduction equipment, and treat waste up to environmental standards.
To basically complete the improvement and upgrade of rainwater and wastewater drainage systems in urban centers, industrial parks and export-processing zones. Over 40% of urban centers and over 80% of industrial parks and export-processing zones will have concentrated wastewater treatment systems up to environmental standards, over 90% of solid waste will be collected, and over 60% of hazardous waste and 100% of hospital waste will be treated.
To adopt mechanisms for coordination among provinces and cities in the region and for cooperation with countries in the Mekong River sub-region in exploiting, using and conserving Mekong River water sources for sustainable development.
f/ Human resource development:
- To implement the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 20/2006/QD-TTg dated January 20, 2006, on development of education, training and vocational training in the Mekong River Delta till 2010. This is a strategic task, aiming to raise people’s intellectual standards and train human for the Mekong River delta in the coming years.
- Human resources must be developed in a comprehensive manner from raising people's intellectual standards, increasing the quantity and improving the quality of learning and training of all educational levels, diversifying forms of vocational training suitable to each target group, each branch and trade to be develop in each locality, building a contingent of qualified leaders, managers entrepreneurs, adopting proper mechanisms policies in order to attract talents and highly qualified science workers and technicians. To regularly supplement, and adopt policies to effectively employ, cadres of central agencies and enterprises based in localities, assigned to work for provinces or districts, and assign district cadres to work for communes, to shift handcore cadres.
The local budget will annually set aside a certain fund for vocational training; to encourage enterprises to provide vocational training, to provide loans and create conditions for poor students to have access to vocational training.
To build and restructure the vocational training system toward training practicing technicians at different levels and with different training durations (technical workers, skilled technical workers and highly qualified technical workers) to attract lower and upper secondary school graduates and demobilized soldiers.
To organize diversified forms of training with appropriate models. To encourage the socialization of vocational training. To pay attention to closely combining vocation training with job generation for vocational graduates.
g/ Infrastructure construction:
- Irrigation
To implement the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 84/2006/QD-TTg dated April 19, 2006, approving the adjustment and supplementation of the master plan on irrigation for the Mekong River delta in the 2006-2010 period and orientations toward 2020; to prioritize investment in building key irrigation works in order to rationally and efficiently use and exploit Mekong River water sources for agricultural production, aquaculture and natural disaster prevention and control. To work out a strategy on management, exploitation and conservation of freshwater sources of Tien and Hau rivers.
