Vietnam to Provide More Support to Poverty Reduction for Ethnic Minorities

Over the past years, Vietnam has implemented policies to boost socio-economic development among ethnic minorities. However, the poverty rate remains high among the groups. To reduce the poverty rate and improve the spiritual and material lives of ethnic minorities, Minister and Head of the Ethnic Minorities Committee Giang Seo Phu talked about solutions for the future. According to Minister Phu, although impressive results have been achieved in improving the lives and reducing the poverty rate among ethnic minorities thanks to the implementation of State policies, there remains a big gap in development between mountainous ethnic minority-inhabited regions and the rest of the country. He added that despite encouraging support from the State for ethnic minorities, the investment resources are still very modest. For example, Program 135 on boosting socio-economic development in ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous extremely disadvantaged regions, the allocation of capital has only totaled up 64% compared with the initial figures. By late 2015, many policies for ethnic minority people will no longer be valid while there remains a big demand for poverty reduction. Therefore, the Ethnic Minorities Committee is suggesting plans and policies for the Prime Ministers approval in the 2016-2020 period. Sharing his ideas regarding the mobilization of resources for socio-economic development in ethnic minority-inhabited mountainous regions, Minister Phu said that the upcoming policies will increase loans and reduce free assistance. All the resources will be collected the State budget, capital mobilized from society, organizations and enterprises. In addition, he suggested a policy to encourage credit loans for ethnic minorities to develop production and business. Recently, the Prime Minister has decided to add an additional VND4-6 trillion to realize policies on ethnic minorities. Therefore, Minister Phu called on relevant ministries, agencies and localities to reduce red-tape, especially the procedures relating to disbursement of capital, so that the implementation of the policies could be accelerated. (Dangcongsan.vn June 10)