Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ speaks at a meeting of the Central Steering Committee on National Target Programmes in 2016-2020 in Hà Nội yesterday. — Photo dantri.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — The number of poor households in the country dropped by 1.5 per cent in 2017, according to the Steering Committee on the National Target Programmes.

This number is higher than the expected target set by the National Assembly, 1.3 percent to 1.5 per cent.

The country has also mobilised almost VNĐ400 trillion (US$17.7 billion) from the State budget, enterprises, organisations and individuals for the cause of new rural area building and poverty reduction.

Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ, while chairing the meeting of the Central Steering Committee on National Target Programmes in 2016-2020 in Hà Nội yesterday, asked member ministries of the committee to be more active, determined, creative and aggressive in sustainable poverty reduction.

Bùi Sỹ Lợi, vice chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Social Affairs, praised the Government’s efforts in poverty reduction in 2017, saying he was especially impressed by the fact that the Government had called on enterprises, organisations and individuals to make donations of more than VND126 trillion ($5.6 billion).

For his part, Huệ said the remarkable achievement was the completion of the legal framework document for the phase 2016 – 2020 in terms of new criteria for new rural area models and multi-dimensional approaches for sustainable poverty reduction. The framework also includes new models for agriculture restructure and climate change adaptation and sustainable livelihoods.

“The important thing is that member ministries and localities have to be active when implementing programmes and ensuring efficiency in investment,” he said.

In the next two years, Huệ required the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to work on the new criteria set for “poor districts”.

“The new criteria should be able to encourage localities to try and escape poverty, not encourage them to maintain poverty to enjoy supporting policies like they do currently,” Huệ said.

According to the Ministry of Investment and Planning, in 2018 the country would try to reduce the rate of poor households from 1 to 1.5 per cent per year, basing on the multi-dimensional poverty approach.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyễn Xuân Cường said the building of new rural areas needed to focus on improving income for residents while still protecting the environment and conserving local cultural characteristics.

The country would try to have 15,000 agriculture co-operatives by 2020, he said. — VNS