On January 25, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued a directive to give guidelines on speeding up the implementation of the Government’s poverty alleviation programs.  

The PM urged relevant ministries, departments, cities and provinces to prioritize the tasks of promotion in order to raise the people’s awareness of the importance of poverty alleviation. Relevant authorities at all levels are urged to create more policies to support the poor striving for a better life. Any city or province that has losses to the fund allocated to its poverty alleviation programs due to mismanagement or failure to fulfill the assigned tasks related to poverty alleviation must be accountable to the PM. Mr. Dung also requested that relevant authorities at all levels create more favorable conditions for poor people to gain access to basic social services like running water, housing and land.  These strategies are to be implemented through appropriate health and education policies and programs. By doing so, the country can gradually narrow the gaps in social welfare, income and the standard of living between urban areas and rural, mountainous and remote areas, added the PM. Mr. Dung also directed the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Welfare to take initiative in setting up schemes to allocate more funds to poverty alleviation programs in 2008 including investment projects in 58 wards that are facing the current poverty rate of over 50 percent. The reduction or exemption of tuition fees for poor students from now on will be taken into consideration in accordance with policies "giving direct support to the poor".

Notably, poor people will be entitled to a 2 year heath medical insurance policy, according to the PM.  Those who have just escaped poverty will be allowed to enjoy medical insurance policies for two years after they began overcoming it. In rrelated news, yesterday, Deputy Standing Prime Nguyen Sinh Hung, chaired a meeting to assess the Mekong Delta’ results of socio-economic performance in 2007. Mr. Hung highly appreciated the regional achievements. Specifically, the GDP of the Mekong Delta accounted for 12.71% of the entire country, while industrial and building sectors all attained a high growth rate over 20%. During the year, the region attracted a total investment and development capital of over VND87,562 billion (US$5,479,131,000). The regional gross output of food reached 18.64 million tons while its gross output of aquatic and seafood was 2.4 million tons, of which breeding and growing amounted to 1.5 million tons.
 
Despite such achievements, the Mekong Delta still has to to cope with such problems as poor infrastructure, shortage of funds for public works, and the living conditions of the people living in remote areas and of the ethnic minorities are still very poor. The Deputy PM directed that in 2008, the Mekong Delta will mobilize all the resources to invest them in socio-economic developments, striving for a higher economic growth rate over the previous year. At the same time, more funds will be offered to key public works including communication, irrigation, medical and education developments.
Mr. Hung also urged the municipal authorities of the provinces in the region to speed up hunger eradication and poverty alleviation programs in remote areas and in regions where there are Khmer people.

S.G.G.P