THE PRIME MINISTER
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No. 1971/CT-TTg
SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM
Independence - Freedom – Happiness
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Hanoi, October 27, 2010
 
DIRECTIVE
INTENSIFYING ETHNIC WORK IN THE PERIOD OF NATIONAL INDUSTRIALIZATION AND MODERNIZATION
 
THE PRIME MINISTER
 
Over the past years, Party committees and administrations at all levels and mass organizations from central to local level have concentrated on directing and organizing the implementation of ethnic work, creating an important improvement in the awareness and responsibility of the entire political system and social consensus on this work. The socio-economic situation in ethnic minority and mountainous areas has seen comprehensive changes: the poverty rate of ethnic minority households has much reduced (4-5% per year on average); material and spiritual lives of ethnic minority people have been remarkably improved; infrastructure facilities have been built and consolidated; more attention has been paid to houses, residential land, production land and daily-life water; positive improvements have been made in educational, cultural and healthcare services for the people; the political system has been step by step consolidated; cadres in charge of ethnic affairs have been trained, contributing to raising the effectiveness of ethnic work.

However, ethnic minority and mountainous areas, especially deep-lying, remote, border and island areas, still face numerous difficulties and challenges. Specifically, intellectual and development levels of ethnic groups are uneven, and the quality of their human resources remains very poor; the hunger and poverty rates in ethnic minority areas are still high (over 50% in many areas); the quality and effectiveness of education, training and healthcare are limited; infrastructure is slow to develop and incomplete, especially transport, irrigation, electricity, communication and other essential infrastructure facilities; economic and labor restructuring is slow, production activities are on a small scale, unplanned and uncompetitive while people's lives are fraught with difficulties.

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