According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, roughly 90 percent of the funding, VND 9.85 trillion (USD 433.4 million), will be taken from loans. Of the remainder, VND 243 billion (USD 10.7 million) will be provided by the national program on new-style rural building while VND 204 billion (nearly USD 9 million) will be sourced from the private sector and community donations.
Some 80.7 percent of the total will be allocated to support rural production and business while 12.3 percent will be budgeted for housing and transport projects.
The province hopes to have 63 communes meet 15-18 out of 19 criteria and none satisfy below 10 criteria.
To this end, Long An plans to continue raising public awareness of new-style rural building and accelerating the social movement to join hands to build new-style rural areas between 2016 and 2020.
At the same time, the province will boost hi-tech agriculture as part of efforts to restructure local agriculture and improve incomes for local people. It will also work to support the development of the cooperative economy, cooperatives and effective business models, promote links between production and distribution and get farmers involved in large-scale farms.
It is increasingly challenging to implement the new-style rural building program as standards are higher than previously and funding is limited, said Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Van Can.
Last year, Long An had 59 communes, or 35.5 percent, recognized as new-style rural communes, achieving 14 criteria on average. More than 90 percent of the communes reached the standards on irrigation, electricity access, information access and communications, employment, security and defense.
Source: VNA