Sustainable development of mountainous areas
Ha Noi, Oct. 16 (VNA)-- The Vietnamese Government has joined the international community's commitment to "Making efforts for the mountainous areas' sustainable development", better investing in programmes, policies, effective solutions for the development of mountainous areas.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai renewed the commitment at a meeting held in Ha Noi on Oct. 16 in response to the International Year for Mountainous Areas.
Mountainous areas make up three-fourths of Viet Nam's territory, home to ethnic minority groups and more than 23 million people out of the nation's over 80 million population.
The Vietnamese Government has defined socio-economic and cultural development in the mountainous areas as an integral part of the national development strategy, said PM Khai.
The Government leader further said that's why Viet Nam has recorded achievements of great importance in socio-economic and cultural development in the mountainous areas, gradually improving the living conditions, material, spiritual and cultural, of ethnic minority groups in the mountainous areas, and bringing down the poverty rate there to 26 percent. The medical network has expanded to 93 percent of the mountainous villages, while all the villages have built primary schools of their own, 97 percent of the villages are accessible to motor roads, and electricity supply benefits 50.7 percent of households.
Viet Nam's mountainous areas are facing many challenges in the development process, including pressure of population and inappropriate exploitation of natural resources. Forest, soil and water resources have been overtapped. Because of the inferior background in economic and cultural development of the mountainous areas to the lowland, the gap of development between the mountainous areas and the plains as well as among the different parts of the mountainous areas tends to broaden.
Under the national socio-economic development strategy for the 2001-10 period, socio-economic development in mountainous areas is set to be associated with shifting the economy of self-supply to commercial production, through speeding up infrastructural construction, adjusting the structure of the economy, protecting and improving the natural environment, and conserving biological diversity.--
