Phan Thi Phuong is the party secretary of La Van Village, Phong Tho District in the northern province of Lai Chau. For more than ten years, she has devoted her time visiting every household in the district to help eradicate poverty.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The HCMC government has set a goal of lowering the poverty rate to 3.06% by the end of this year as higher living standards require a more comprehensive anti-poverty program.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Nearly half a million poor households in HCMC, Hanoi, Haiphong, and Can Tho will get free TV set-top boxes by June 1 as part of a digital TV development program approved by the Government.

In his address at the 12th National Party Congress, Bui Quang Vinh, Minister of Planning and Investment, stressed the need for Viet Nam to speed up its institutional reform toward a prosperous, creative, equal and democratic nation.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The Government will support sending members of households whose farm land is taken back by State agencies to foreign countries for guest work from September this year, according to a new decree.

VietNamNet Bridge – A plan to replace non-refundable financial aid with lending policies that can effectively run hunger elimination and poverty alleviation programmes for ethnic minorities is being prepared for submission to the Prime Minister,

 VietNamNet Bridge – Family poverty has placed a priceless collection of paintings by Ton That Dao, a former member of the Hue royal family, in jeopardy.

 Review of social welfare policies recommended; Australia aids restructuring effort; VN, US boost humanitarian ties

 VietNamNet Bridge – Three years since Viet Nam started to introduce agro- insurance policies back in 2011, bottlenecks still remained and there was plenty of work to be done to protect farmers from natural disasters.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam is implementing 17 policies to help the poor but these policies are not very effective. There should be stronger measures to assist needy people to escape poverty in a sustainable way.

 VietNamNet Bridge – There is no obstacle for overseas Vietnamese to buy and own houses in Viet Nam, asserted Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Tran Nam.  

 VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam had over 2.1 million poor households and over 1.4 million families living near the poverty line in 2012, accounting for 9.64 percent and 6.57 percent of the population, respectively.

Under the Vietnam television digitalization plan until 2020, the State will help about two million poor and on-the-brink families and those under the preferential treatment policy buy set-top boxes to decode digital TV signals.