Quang Ninh (VNA) – Viet Dan commune in Dong Trieu township has becomethe first model new style rural commune in the northern province of Quang Ninhafter fulfilling advanced criteria for a new style rural area.

Standards for a model new-style rural commune issued are advanced criteria of the National Target Programme on New-styleRural Area Building.

According to Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the People’s Committeeof Viet Dan commune Do Dinh The, the commune has 270 hectares of orchard trees,most of the areas are planted with custard-apples.

The commune’s income per capita in 2018 reached 55.8 million VND (2,400 USD),doubling the figure recorded in 2015 when the commune was bestowed with thenew-style rural area status, he said.

Besides, all of the local roads have been concretised, upgraded or repaired,while medical stations, kindergartens, primary schools were built in line withthe national standards.

In the past time, a wide range of campaigns have been launched to encourage theinvolvement of local residents in building their model new-style rural area,including “lightening the rural roads” and “green Sunday”, among others.

Dong Trieu township has been apioneer in the building of model new style rural areas after it was recognisedas the first new style rural area in Quang Ninh in 2015.

Together with developing its Viet Dan, An Sinh and Binh Khe communes to becomemodel new-style rural areas, Dong Trieu has worked hard to promote the buildingnew-style rural area campaign in many other communes.

The township mobilised 1.8 trillion VND to develop local infrastructure, inwhich 800 billion VND came from individuals and organisations. Many local residentscontributed thousands of square metres of land and thousands of man-days toconstruct model roads, gardens, and cultural houses.

Dong Trieu has 90 kilometres of rural roads, and 18 kilometres of concretisedirrigational system. All of the communes have satisfied standards on powergrid, as well as the rate of households with regular and safe use ofelectricity. More than 98 percent of local families have safe houses.

For production development projects, the township is developing the OneCommune-One Product (OCOP) programme, while supporting projects to improveproduct quality, and branching out brands for local key products likecustard-apple, litchi, and several flowers and ornamental trees in accordancewith VietGAP standards.

Quang Ninh was the first locality in the country to implement the OCOPprogramme in 2013, and local OCOP products have been gaining popularityrecently.

The province has mobilised more than500 billion VND to support the development of products under the programme. Bynow 140 organisations have been involved in the OCOP scheme, developing 351products, with 138 of them winning high-quality rating.

The OCOP programme has helped change local production practice towardscommercial scale while facilitating market management. In fact, it is aneconomic development programme for rural areas focusing on increasing internalpower and values, contributing to the implementation of the National TargetProgramme on New Rural Development for 2016-2020.

Last year, the by the Prime Minister issued criteria for model new-style ruralcommune in 2018-2020. There are four groups of criteria that a rural communeshould meet in order to earn the title. They include criteria on production,income and household poverty rate, education, health care and culture, environmentalprotection, and security-order and public administrative service.

The National Target Programme onNew-style Rural Area Building, initiated by the Government in 2010, sets 19criteria on socio-economic development, politics, and defence, aiming to boostrural regions of Vietnam. The number of criteria was increased to 20 in2015.    

The list of criteria includes the development ofinfrastructure, the improvement of production capacity, environmentalprotection, and the promotion of cultural values.- VNA