VietNamNet Bridge - The Vietnamese Government has placed people at the centre of its agriculture and rural development strategy, a government official has affirmed at a conference with international donors.

Accordingly, the main targets of the 2007-2020 rural development strategy are to increase incomes for farmers, reduce the number of poor households, improve rural people’s living conditions, and develop infrastructure in rural areas among other goals.

The Research Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy has formulated a roadmap for the implementation of the strategy, which will be carried out in three phases.

Between 2007 and 2012, the strategy is dedicated to creating more jobs for rural people, which will be supported by accelerating agricultural production structure shift and the development of industry-related occupations.

From 2013 to 2018, priority will be given to promoting production of specific farm produce, increasing the number of rural businesses, boosting non-agricultural activities in rural areas and speeding up the urbanisation of rural areas.

Since 2019, efforts will concentrate on developing a bio-agriculture.

Bill Tweddell, Ambassador of Australia, which is one of the donors of Vietnam ’s agricultural and rural development, pointed to the fact that rural people will still rely mainly on farming production and agriculture-related industries even when the agricultural sector’s contribution in the national GDP drops.

Therefore, the Vietnamese Government should still give priority to investment for rural development in its future economic growth and poverty reduction strategy, the ambassador stressed.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the agriculture sector has recorded remarkable changes in the 2000-2007 period.

These included an annual growth rate of 5.4 percent in agricultural and fishery production value, an average income rise from 11 million VND in 2000 to 16 million VND per farm household, and the drop in poverty percentage from 19 percent in 2000 to 14.7 percent of rural households in 2007.

The sector has contributed 20 percent of the country’s GDP and created 1.2-1.5 billion jobs a year.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Bui Ba Bong attributed these to the government’s preferential policies on land, tax, investment, credits and human resource training granted to the agricultural sector.

However, the government official also acknowledged that a wide income gap still exists between rural people and city dwellers, education and healthcare services are of low quality, jobs are lacking, and environmental pollution is growing in rural areas.

(Source: VNA)