Ben Tre inaugurates development plans for 2020

Mr Nguyen Van Hieu, the Chairman of Ben Tre Provincial People’s Committee, on Thursday, March 10, 2011, resided over an open meeting including officials from the provincial departments and chairpersons of district People’s Committees and Ben Tre City. The meeting is intended to publicize Ben Tre province’s economical and social development plans for the duration between now and 2020. The plans have been approved by the central government and signed into effect by the Prime Minister on January 13, 2011.

According to the plans, Ben Tre is to keep pace with other provinces in the region in economical and social development, with the GDP growth rate at 13.8% annually along with the urbanization expanding by 30%.

To achieve the above goals, the province plans to restructure its economy toward bigger industrial and services volumes and gradually decreasing its agricultural volume.

Also to uphold to that, another goal is set to achieve 66.3% of trained workers and a rate of 287 students per 10,000 residents. So, the finest resolution to the goal should be to build two universities, three colleges, two professional job training schools, nine permenant training centers and ten job training centers covering all districts in the province.

In addition, the province should also push for further investment to develop technical infrastructure focusing mainly in transport, irrigation, water supply and drainage, waste treatment, environment protection, communication. Other areas of interest include development of a complete healthcare network, poverty and hunger eradication and socvial security guaranteeing, scientific and technological development, etc.

For the plans to be truly realized, Ben Tre should carry out 6 groups of actions. They should be undertaken by setting up several 5-year and 10-year plans; budget appropriation must be oriented for the most important and urgent projects; investment promotion must not be widespread but should be concentrated to strong-point and edgy areas.

Translated by Truong Hung