Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Ha Noi, Mar. 8 (VNA) -- Life for the minority people in Central Highlands Gia Lai province has constantly improved as a result of remarkable achievements the local people have made in their efforts to realise the Doi moi, Renovation, policy charted by the Communist Party in 1986.

Official statistics show that Gia Lai's yearly average gross domestic product, GDP, growth rate was 10.4 percent during the years of renovation. Gia Lai, one of the poorest provinces in Viet Nam, has strived for sustainable development from a very low starting point.

The province's population is comprised of 20 minority groupings, mostly Gia Rai and Ba Na that account for 49.5 percent of the total population. These two have always been in the vanguard of implementing such national programmes as the sedentary programme, the afforestation programme, the employment programme and the poverty alleviation programme.

With government funds, the local people have zoned off 123,296 ha in the western part for growing rubber, coffee and tea for export, a four-fold rise over 1990, said K'So Ni, former Chairman of the then Gia Lai-Kon Tum province People's Committee.

Thousands of minority people have been provided with stable jobs since the province zoned off large sugarcane and cashew-growing areas in Ayun Pa, An Khe and Krong Pa districts.

Gia Lai's areas covered with hybrid corns are now expanded to 14,000 ha, a nine-fold increase over 1995, while its double-crop wet rice areas total 14,160 ha with a yield of 2.94 tonnes/ha from 1.88 tonnes/ha a decade ago.

The province has built 188 irrigation projects capable of watering 31,904 ha of wet rice fields. They planted almost 20,000 ha of forest and about six million scattered trees to help raise forest coverage from 42.4 percent to 47.9 percent in 1998.

Now, 137 of the total 170 communes and 400 hamlets with 91,500 households have access to electric power; 94.7 percent of its communes have built sealed roads, 100 percent of communes and hamlets have schools, 81.76 percent of the communes have medical stations, 68 percent of local residents have access to safe water, and 4,367 households earn a yearly income of between VND 100 and 500 million and 53 families earn more than VND 500 million a year.

During the 1996-2000 period, Gia Lai increased investment for socio-economic growth by 4.4 times more than the 1991-95, with 16.1 percent coming from the State budget. Its commercial banks mobilized VND 644 billion last year, a rise of 150 percent over 1995.

The province's poverty rate went down to 16 percent in 2000 from 35 percent in 1995, while about 19,000 minority households were resettled down with help from the local administration.

Gia Lai has also channelled VND 37 billion to 480 projects to create stable employment for more than 15,000 minority people. It has further spent almost VND 1 billion as its 'debt of gratitude' fund building 95 houses and repairing 3,012 houses for those who have rendered great services to the nation.

The province now has about 500 schools with 6,000 classrooms to accommodate 300,000 pupils and students. It was recognized as completing the national illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization programme in 1998.--VNA