Hai Phong voters concerned about agriculture development   

Voters in the northern port city of Hai Phong asked the Government and the National Assembly to help the city work out a detailed plan for agriculture and rural development during a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday, Oct 18.

Dung showed his consideration for the opinions and aspirations that voters in Hai Phong city's Kien Thuy District said they wanted to lodge with the upcoming eighth session of the 12th National Assembly.

He told voters that the Government was building a plan to support cities and provinces, including Hai Phong, to speed up the structural shift of animal and crop production, apply modern science and technology into production, and strengthen investment in socio-economic infrastructure development, especially roads, electricity, health and education.

Viet Nam has set targets for 20 per cent of the country's communes to meet the new rural requirements by 2015 and for half of all communes to meet the requirements by 2020.

Dung said building new rural areas was important for the country's rapid and sustainable development.

The Government was also considering an adjustment to the payment policy for commune officials while intensifying efforts to implement vocational training programmes and generating jobs for rural labourers, he added.

Earlier, voters said they wanted the Government and the NA to continue implementing stronger investment policies to further develop agriculture and rural areas to speed up the structural shift of animal and crop production and to develop large scale, commodity-based production.

This should be done in parallel with more investment in road construction, irrigation projects, cultural centres in villages and communes, and incentives such as agricultural land use tax exemptions and reductions to farmers, they said.

Voters asked the Government and the NA to support their communes in the completion of land use planning and the development of infrastructure. They also want to mark the boundaries of residential areas and to work out appropriate payment policies to attract talented workforces to the communes and districts.

At the meeting with voters, PM Dung said Viet Nam had effectively completed the established targets and duties set for this year, especially in preventing economic decline, curbing inflation and achieving a high economic growth rate of 6.5 per cent.

He emphasised that Viet Nam had escaped from its status as a poor and less developed country in the first decade of the 21st century. The 11th National Party Congress would ratify many important documents, including a target to bring the country into a modern industrial one by the second decade of the century, Dung added.

Belarusian legislative delegation begins visit   

A delegation from Belarus's House of Representatives led by its chairman Andreichenko Vladimir Pavlovich begins an official visit to Viet Nam today, Oct 19.

The four-day visit is made at the invitation of National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong.

Viet Nam and the Republic of Belarus established diplomatic relations in 1992. The two countries have signed many agreements to create favourable conditions for bilateral co-operation.

Economic and trade relations between the two countries remain modest with respect to the two countries' potential.

During the first four months of this year, bilateral trade turnover was US$22.3 million, representing an increase of 1.5 times against the same period last year.

The figures were $120 million and $124.6 million in 2009 and 2008, respectively.

VN to host meeting of ASEAN statistical offices   

Viet Nam will host the 11th ASEAN Heads of Statistical Offices Meeting in response to the first ever World Statistics Day which falls tomorrow, Oct 20.

The three-day meeting, which will begin on December 7, is expected to attract the participation of heads of ASEAN statistical offices, representatives from the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) and the statistical offices of Japan, the Republic of Korea and China.

Do Thuc, acting general director of the General Statistics Office, said the meeting would concentrate on discussing concrete co-operation programmes between statistical offices with a view to building an ASEAN Statistical Community by 2015.

United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon previously invited President Nguyen Minh Triet and ASEAN member countries, UN organisations, regional and international organisations as well as the world as a whole to hold activities in commemoration of the World Statistics Day with the common title "Commemorating the Achievements of State Statistics".

The meeting will be one of many activities held as Viet Nam holds the chair of ASEAN in 2010. The General Statistics Office will host the meeting.

Military delegation visits Romania

A high-ranking delegation from the Defence Ministry of Vietnam, headed by Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lieut Gen Nguyen Huy Hieu, is on a three-day visit to Romania beginning yesterday.

The Vietnamese delegation was received by Admiral Gheorghe Marin, Commander-in-Chief of the Romanian Army.

The group had a working session with a high-ranking delegation from the Romanian Defence Ministry, headed by Viorel Oancea, Defence State Secretary. The two sides agreed to further boost bilateral ties in national defence.

The Vietnamese delegation plans to visit a number of factories and technical establishments that supply materials and spare parts to Romania's defence sector.

The delegation's trip aims to expand friendship and co-operation in national defence and increase bilateral co-operation in technology. The two sides also discussed issues of mutual concern.

Tuyen Quang urged to rise from underdeveloped status

The Tuyen Quang provincial Party Committee needs to devise specific measures to shed its status as an underdeveloped and poor province, said Party leader Nong Duc Manh at the province’s XVth Party Congress (2010-2015 tenure) that began on October 19.

Addressing the congress, Party leader Manh praised Tuyen Quang’s five-year socio-economic development achievements as well as its efforts to reach targets adopted at its previous Party Congress.

The congress should analyse advantages and disadvantages to draw up effective measures to boost socio-economic development and improve local people’s living standards, Mr Manh stressed.

However, Mr Manh pointed out limitations including the low per capita income (equivalent to only 60 percent of the country’s average), failure to fulfill 8 of its 28 set targets, low paced economic restructuring and development of services, low competitive capacity and the poor quality of education, training and human resources.

The Party leader called on the province to promote socio-economic development by investing in disadvantaged areas, boosting potential industries, diversifying high-quality services and encouraging economic sectors to develop tourism.

It is essential to ensure social welfare, reduce poverty and improve the quality of Party members and enhance the “Studying and Following President Ho Chi Minh’s moral example”, Mr Manh emphasised.

In his report, Secretary of the Tuyen Quang provincial Party Committee, Nguyen Sang Vang, said over the past five years, Tuyen Quang has maintained an annual economic growth rate of 13.5 percent with per capita income of US$702 per year. Remarkable progress has been seen in industry, agriculture, trade, service, economics, education, healthcare, culture and social welfare while political stability and national security and defence have been reinforced and leadership capacity has been enhanced, thus bringing a facelift to the province.

The same day, the 10th Congress of the Bac Kan provincial Party Committee (2010-2015 term) was held, in the presence Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem with 324 delegates representing 23,000 Party members.

Over the past five years, the Bac Kan provincial Party Committee has recorded significant socio-economic achievements with an annual average economic growth rate reaching 11.2 percent. The province has made headway towards cultural and social development, poverty reduction and social security thereby remarkably improving local people’s material and spiritual lives

The congress reviewed reports from the ninth Party congress and aims to work out orientations and tasks for the 2010-2015 period to help Bac Kan get out of its underdeveloped status by 2015.

The Vinh Long provincial Party Committee also opened its ninth Party Congress (2010-2015 tenture) the same day with the participation of 306 delegates representing 26,000 Party members.

In his speech, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung highlighted the significant achievements the province has recorded over the past five years with a GDP growth rate hitting 11.3 percent per year and per capita income of US$1,000 per year.

Apart from reviewing activities from the previous term, participants discussed solutions for socio-economic development throughout 2015 with a focus on turning Vinh Long into a province with a relatively high economic growth rate in the Mekong Delta region.  

VNN/VOV/VNA