The central province of Binh Thuan has a population of over 1.2 million people belonging to 35 ethnic groups, including 34 minority ethnic groups with a total of 104,066 people, accounting for nearly 8.4% of the province's population. The ethnic minorities live in 15 communes and 32 villages in 8/10 districts, towns and cities of the province.

Implementing the Party and State's guidelines and policies on socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas, Binh Thuan province has implemented 13 specific policies in the ethnic minority areas, besides the country's general policies.

The province has implemented the following policies: The policy to build and comprehensively develop the economy and society in ethnic minority areas by 2005 according to Resolution No. 04-NQ/TU of the Provincial Party Committee;

The policy on building a team of ethnic minority officials in Phu Quy island district until 2025; the subsidy regime for ethnic minority students in mountainous and remote villages and communes; the policy on advance investment in seeds, materials and essential commodities to support production development for ethnic minority households;

The policy on developing rubber trees in ethnic minority areas until 2019; policy on providing free Binh Thuan newspapers to policy beneficiaries in mountainous and remote areas; policy on socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas in the age of industrialization and modernization, the 2011 - 2015 period; policy on visiting and giving gifts to a number of ethnic minorities on the occasion of Lunar New Year and traditional New Year of ethnic minorities; policy on forest protection contract mechanism; policy on investment in infrastructure in ethnic minority areas in 2021 - 2025.

Thanks to the capital resources from the central and local budgets, Binh Phuoc province has invested over 1,200 billion VND in building facilities to serve socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas; has granted over 15,000 hectares of production land (1 hectares/household on average) to ethnic minority households; has built 5,543 houses for ethnic minority households.

The local government has also provided interest rate support to 3,160 households to borrow to buy 4,680 cows, worth more than 22 billion VND; supplied seeds, supplies, and essential goods worth 18.7 billion VND/year.

To date, 100% of communes in ethnic minority areas in Binh Phuoc have had paved roads leading to the commune center; 100% of communes have been covered by television and radio waves; 98% of households have had access to national power grids; and 88.3% of households have had access to safe water.

In addition, 100% of communes which are home to ethnic minority people have cultural houses; 100% of villages and hamlets of ethnic minority people have community houses. The communes where 100% of their population are ethnic minority people meet national health standards. !00% of ethnic minority people in difficult areas and poor households are granted health insurance cards.

The rate of students dropping out of school in ethnic minority areas has decreased; The proportion of school-age students has increased. Up to 100% of communes meet the standards of universal primary education at the right age and universal education at lower secondary level.

As for poverty reduction results: By the end of 2022, there were only 2,801 poor ethnic minority households, accounting for over 10% of the total number of ethnic minority households and 32% of the total number of poor households in the province.

The number of near-poor ethnic minority households was 3,341 households, accounting for over 12% of the total number of ethnic minority households and 23% of the total number of near-poor households in the province.

Khanh Vy