Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs Implements Tasks For This Year

Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs hosted a meeting in Hanoi on January 11 to review what it did last year and devise plan of activities for this year. The Committee has allocated more than VND7 trillion to upgrade infrastructure facilities in remote and ethnic regions. 90 safe water facilities were newly built while thousands of poor households benefited from plants, breeds and fertilizer grants. The money was also used to support more than 400,000 poor and near-poor families to buy crops, fertilizer, equipment, and develop some effective production models. In his remarks, Minister-Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs Do Van asked local authorities to work harder to ensure rapid and sustainable socio-economic development in these areas, especially regarding farmland and water shortage settlement, and jobs change for more than 80% of needy families. He requested localities to reduce the proportion of poor households in the ethnic minority and mountainous regions by 3-4% per year from now to 2020. The Committee aims to promote social economic growth in ethnic regions towards sustainable development, poverty reduction, and narrowing gaps between regions. (http://english.vov.vn/ Jan 11)