A road in Thoại Sơn District. The province wants more of its districts and communes to be recognised as new-style rural districts or communes. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of An Giang plans to mobilise VNĐ6.5 trillion (US$275.4 million) for the new-style rural area building programme for 2021-25, according to its People’s Committee.

It would focus on acquiring land and reviewing and zoning public lands to be able to solicit investment from businesses, Trần Anh Thư, its deputy chairman, said.

To meet the new-style rural area standards, communes and districts must meet 20 criteria related to infrastructure, irrigation, electricity, environment, income, education, healthcare, social security, culture, and others.

The province and its districts and communes have focused investment to meet each criterion.

Thư said: “An Giang Province will effectively apply investment support policies … to attract investment … and encourage enterprises to invest in rural infrastructure in build - operate - transfer form. This will help develop a convenient transport network connecting roads in hamlets and communes with national highways and provincial roads, creating favourable conditions for the transport of agricultural products.”

It would speed up agricultural and rural economic restructure, foster the use of technology in agriculture and focus on products it has advantages in to enhance its competitiveness and economic efficiency, he said.

It would also focus on improving the quality of vocational training to provide enterprises with skilled workers, he said.

It would strive to ensure two more districts, Châu Mới and Châu Thành, meet all the criteria for being recognised as new-style rural districts, he said.

Three others, Thoại Sơn District and Châu Đốc and Long Xuyên cities, have already met the standards and would be improved to enable at least one meets the raised standards for new-style rural districts by 2025, he said.

The province would strive to turn 75 per cent of hamlets in communes with “special difficulties” and border communes into new-style rural hamlets and get another 28 communes recognised as new-style rural communes by 2025, he said.

It wants to have more than 75 per cent of schools achieving national standards in terms of facilities and the number of poor households reducing by 0.5 percentage points per year on average until 2025.

The province also expects to have 90 per cent of its population having health insurance, and 95 -100 per cent of households in rural areas having access to clean water.

It said the national target programme on building new-style rural areas has spread across the province, giving rural areas a facelift and improving living conditions.

Sixty-one out of its 119 communes achieved the new-style rural commune status by the end of last year, an increase of 48 since 2015. — VNS