He made the statement while chairing the 10th meeting of the Steering Committee on stabilising locals’ lives in the four central coastal provinces on October 17.
As of October 4, provinces paid over 6.19 trillion VND (269.1 million USD) to affected residents, or 97.4 percent of the damage (nearly 6.36 trillion VND) and 94.1 percent of the total amount paid in advance.
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has devised a plan to offer vocational training, job creation, and support to the people who wished to work abroad, at a total cost of more than 1.7 trillion VND. The plan will be sent to the Finance Ministry to report to the PM for considering an advance of the sum.
Statistics from June 1, 2016 – September 20, 2017 showed that there were 24,053 people from these localities to go to work abroad, mostly in Taiwan (China), the Republic of Korea and Japan. They work in fishing vessels, industrial manufacturing, and nursing services.
Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue offered vocational training courses for fishermen.
Apart from compensation payment, which has been basically completed, Deputy PM Binh underscored the need to allocate budget to long-term livelihoods such as poverty reduction, marine environment restoration, infrastructure for navigation and climate change response while ensuring security and strictly dealing with acts of inciting social disturbances.
In the near future, ministries and agencies need to guide provinces how to devise a list of projects in priority order and upgrade fishery logistics infrastructure to serve aquaculture in the four central provinces.
More than 260,000 people who earned their living from the sea in the four central coastal provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue were affected by a marine environment incident that caused mass fish deaths in April last year.
In late June 2016, Taiwanese-invested Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Limited Company admitted responsibility for the incident and pledged 500 million USD in compensation.
VNA