Hanoi (VNA) – Hanoi has achieved many targets regardingagricultural development and building new-style rural areas after 10 yearsimplementing the National Target Programme on Building New-Style Rural Areasand the municipal Party Committee’s Programme 02-Ctr/TU.

The city so far has six districts recognized as meeting all criteria fornew-style rural areas, which are Dan Phuong, Dong Anh, Thanh Tri, Hoai Duc, GiaLam and Quoc Oai. At the same time, 325 out of 386 communes of the city, or84.2 percent, also earned the title. The rate is much higher than the nationalaverage of 50.8 percent. All the remaining communes have also met at least 10criteria.

As such the city has fuflfilled the target on new-style rural areas setby Programme 02-Ctr/TU two years ahead of schedule.

At the same time, the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector recordedan average growth of 3.34 percent a year in the 2010-2018 period. Totalagricultural production value reached 259 million VND per hectare per year in2018, fulfilling the target of 250 million VND set by Programme 02-Ctr/TU twoyears ahead of schedule. The figure was up 117 million VND per ha per yearcompared to 2010.

Hanoi has pinpointed land accumulation as the main breakthrough inagricultural development toward commercial farming, creating large materialgrowing zones, thus facilitating the building of new-style rural areas. Thecity has merged nearly 80,000 ha of farming fields.

An important criterion for new-style rural areas is new productionmodels. The city has seen the introduction of 133 hi-tech agriculturalproduction models and 135 safe food chains from production to sales, which haveproven effective in enhancing economic value of agricultural products.

Along with the development of agricultural production and new-stylerural areas, the living conditions of rural residents have constantly improvedover the past years. Per capita income in Hanoi’s rural areas currently stoodat 46.5 million VND a year, an increase of 33.5 million VND from the level in2010. The rate of poverty among rural households has dropped to 1.81 percent,and even under 1 percent in some districts, such as Quoc Oai (0.46 percent),Gia Lam (0.56 percent) and Hoai Duc (0.92 percent). The systems of medicalfacilities, schools and cultural establishments have been improved over theyears, contributing to enhancing the living conditions in rural areas.

According to Nguyen Van Chi, standing deputy chief of the city officefor new-style rural areas, the municipal Party Committee has organized 55inspections and working sessions with localities and relevant agencies in orderto timely tackle difficulties and obstacles arising in the process of building new-stylerural areas.

The municipal People’s Council has issued 14 resolutions on the work,and approved increasing budget allocation for the development of agricultureand rural areas and farmers.

“Besides support from the State budget, Hanoi has successfully mobilizedcapital from organisations, enterprises, households and individuals for the new-stylerural area building programme. Such contribution amounted to 14.7 trillion VND,or 19.3 percent of the total investment in the programme,” Chi said. He addedthat urban districts also provided aid worth 633 billion VND to poor ruraldistricts.

Hanoi has set the target to have 100 percent of rural districts andcommunes recognized as new-style rural areas by 2030, with at least 5 districtsand half of the rural communes meeting criteria for model rural areas.

The city also aims for an annual growth of 3 – 3.5 percent inagricultural production, and a per capita income of at least 75 million VND ayear for rural residents.

The National TargetProgramme on New-style Rural Development was launchedin 2010. It sets 19 criteria fornew-style rural areas covering infrastructure, production, living standards,income, culture and others./.