THE PRIME MINISTER

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To promulgate a number of mechanisms and policies to support the socio-economic development in northern midland and mountainous provinces to 2010 (including Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Son La, Hoa Binh, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen, Bac Giang, and Phu Tho provinces and western districts of Thanh Hoa province (consisting of Quan Hoa, Quan Son, Muong Lat, Ba Thuoc, Lang Chanh, Cam Thuy, Ngoc Lac, Thach Thanh, Thuong Xuan, Nhu Xuan and Nhu Thanh) and western districts of Nghe An province (comprising Ky Son, Tuong Duong, Con Cuong, Anh Son, Tan Ky, Que Phong, Quy Chau, Quy Hop, Nghia Dan and Thanh Chuong) for the achievement of key socio-economic development targets and tasks set for the region.

1. Targets:

a/ To achieve an economic growth (GDP) rate of over 12% in the region.

b/ To give priority to development of socio-economic infrastructure; improve the provision of social services for economic development, contributing to improving people's living standards and gradually narrowing the gap with other regions across the country; to strive by 2010 for all communes to have access to telephone in commune centers, 70 - 75% of rural dwellers to clean water, 90 - 95% of communes to the national power grid, 80 - 90% of households to electricity, and most households to broadcasts of the Voice of Vietnam and Vietnam Television.

c/ To eliminate soon the incidence of clinically or seasonally hungry households; to reduce the percentage of poor households (according to the new poverty line) by more than 3% a year on average; to bring this percentage down to 20% by 2010.

d/ To complete by 2010 the universalization of lower secondary education across the region; to raise the percentage of school-age children going to school to 85 - 90% at kindergarten level, 97 - 99% at primary level, 85 - 90% at lower secondary level, and 45 - 50% at upper secondary level; to improve the learning and accommodation conditions of boarding schools for ethnic minority pupils and semi-boarding schools for home-stay pupils.

e/ To create a positive change in the labor structure and human resources quality; to strengthen vocational training, striving for the trained labor percentage of 25 - 30% and all commune cadres to be given technical and professional training by 2010.

f/ To better tackle social problems, increase general knowledge levels of the population, markedly improve the spiritual life of the people, especially ethnic minorities.

g/ To protect forests, water resources and eco-system; to use and protect natural resources and the environment for ensuring economic growth, poverty reduction and life quality improvement.

2. Principal tasks:

a/ Regarding agriculture, forestry and fisheries

- To make and implement plans on food production for more efficient and exhaustive use of land and climate and other advantages of each region and sub region; to expand the water rice acreage, reduce sloping-land farming.

- To continue to form consolidated specialized farming areas for commercial production (of tea, coffee, mulberry, sugarcane, fruit, medical herb, aromatic plant, flower and vegetable, etc.) on an appropriate scope and in association with processing industries using advanced and modern technology for higher quality of produce and better competitiveness of goods for export and domestic consumption.

- To develop husbandry, especially cattle raising, associated with processing industries and market outlets, improve the value and competitiveness of products.

- To restructure three types of forest, identify a reasonable area of protection forests to be strictly protected through classification; accelerate the growing of production forests; to maintain good care and protection of existing forests, develop new forests, including watershed protection forest, economic forest and raw-material forest for processing industries as planned; to develop watershed protection forests upstream the Da River for stable water supply for major hydropower projects in the region.

- To complete the allocation of land and forests in association of sedentarization; to arrange residential and production land for long-term stability, stop the slash-and-burn farming practice; to properly combine the expansion of fixed farmland with sedentarization and provide people with access to clean water.

- To develop new plant and animal species, new farming techniques, practice intensive farming, increase crop cycles, promote the use and conservation of land resources; to develop services of agriculture, forestry and fisheries extension and plant and animal breeding establishments to suit local conditions for commercial production and hunger elimination and poverty reduction; to properly organize processing and post-harvest preservation work; to increase the training of farmers to make them change backward habits of production and properly employ farming techniques transferred to them.

- To develop fresh-water aquaculture in reservoirs and lakes, and the rearing of fishes in cages in rivers and streams.

- To develop irrigation systems for agricultural production.

- To properly implement investment projects on agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos in areas bordering Vietnam.

b/ Regarding industry and construction

- To elaborate and implement master plans on development of industries in the northern midland and mountainous region to 2010; on development of the system of power transmission and distribution grids; on development of small and medium hydropower plants; on development of new and renewable energies in northern midland and mountainous provinces; on development of key products in mechanical engineering, metallurgy, chemical and other key industrial products for northern midland and mountainous provinces to 2020.

- To elaborate and implement a scheme to boost industrial extension activities and develop industrial extension centers in the northern midland and mountainous region.

- To focus resources on building hydropower plants, first of all, Son La and Tuyen Quang, at the same time raising capital from all economic sectors for the development of small and medium hydropower plants and coal-fueled thermal power plants.

- To combine the effective production and processing of minerals under centrally managed programs and projects in the region with the development of building materials and chemicals factories of appropriate sizes based on available regional natural resources and market demand.

- To study, explore and assess mineral deposits in the northern midland and mountainous provinces and delegate the power of management of mineral exploitation; to exploit minerals in to-be-submerged areas of hydropower plants. To develop the exploitation and processing of minerals as planned and in an efficient manner.

- To build anew and improve processing facilities of tea, milk and other agricultural produce in association with material supply zones; develop export processing facilities.

- To keep expanding the cultivation of material forest for processing industries, provide sufficient raw materials for the Bai Bang Paper Industrial Park; to build more plants of paper, pulp and wooden furniture for export.

- To focus resources on developing handicraft and cottage industries such as metal working, electrical mechanical engineering, cold forging and mechanical repairing, to meet requirements of people's production and life as well as requirements of people's warfare when necessary; to focus on developing traditional craft villages.

- To keep expanding, and improving the quality and effectiveness of, industrial parks and industrial clusters in the region; to build infrastructure of industrial parks along the Yunnan (China) - Lao Cai - Hanoi - Hai Phong economic corridor, the Lang Son - Bac Giang - Hanoi route and the Hoa Binh - Son La - Dien Bien - Lai Chau route for better tapping the potential of the fanned-out roads in the region; to promote international trade; boost socio-economic development of difficulty-ridden areas of the midland and mountainous North.

- To increase cooperation with and investment in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos in industrial development, mineral exploitation and job generation, especially in areas bordering Vietnam;

c/ Regarding trade and services

- To elaborate and implement a plan on development of tourism in the region to 2020.

- To prioritize the development of the following tourism attractions: Dien Bien Phu, the Pac Bo historical site, Tan Trao, Dinh Hoa, the King Hungs Temples, Sa Pa, Mau Son, Ba Be Lake, Nui Coc Lake, Thac Ba Lake and the Hoa Binh hydropower plant; to promote the provision of tourism services particular to the region such as eco-tourism, history tourism, culture tourism, adventurous sport tourism and resort tourism in order to make use of these tourism attractions in various and appropriate forms.

- To strongly develop border economic zones; to build infrastructure of border economic zones, including bonded warehouses at those with large foreign trade value; build trade centers of appropriate sizes and equipped with modern technical facilities to meet trading demands; to develop financial, banking, import-export, transport, post and telecommunications services; to formulate border economy policies for better movement of currencies and commodities, give support to export, develop enterprises operating in border economic zones and create stable sources of major goods for cross-border trading; to increase economic cooperation with the People's Republic of China and the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.

- To develop trade facilities (marketplaces and stores) in commune cluster centers of deep-lying and remote mountainous and rural communes in tandem with building roads and rearranging residential areas for further development of the commodity economy; to develop wholesale markets of farm produce as planned; to build and upgrade a number of the existing trade centers and marketplaces in towns, townships, commune cluster centers and border communes to meet the demand of cross-border trade.

- To encourage enterprises of all economic sectors to contract purchase of agricultural and forest products with farmers and invest in the provision of the following services:

+ Transport services, with priority given to linking key economic regions, main arteries, tourist attractions, historical sites and cultural sites together with improving the quality of passenger and cargo transport services;

+ Tourism services;

+ Building, finance, banking, post and telecommunications, science and technology and labor export services.

d/ Regarding education and training

- To consolidate the results of primary education universalization and illiteracy eradication; to improve the quality of comprehensive general education, step by step approaching the national standards; to increase the percentage of school-age children going to school; to continue investment in building permanent classrooms for all educational levels and gradually building sufficient schools at communes and villages in Region III with funding from Program 135 (phase II); to consolidate and develop daycare facilities and kindergartens; to build boarding schools for ethnic minority pupils in all districts of the region, step by step scale up and upgrade boarding upper secondary schools for ethnic minority pupils; to develop home-stay semi-boarding schools, and care centers for disabled children at provincial level; to provide school and accommodation subsidies and allowances for pupils of home-stay semi-boarding schools; to increase the appointment-based recruitment of students from mountainous provinces; to provide training to local education administrators and teaching staff of all levels for quality education.

- To improve the labor structure and human resources quality by expeditiously expanding on-spot training while transferring a portion of laborers from the northern plain to work in branches and domains in need, particularly in remote, deep-lying and border areas; to invest in the expansion and upgrade of physical infrastructure and raising of training capacity of the existing vocational training schools, build on a trial basis a number of key vocational training centers in cities, towns and districts of regional provinces; to establish continuing education centers; to invest in upgrading and improving the capacity of some regional universities such as the Tay Bac (Northwest) University, Thai Nguyen University and Hung Vuong (King Hungs) University (in Phu Tho province) so that they can provide training in more disciplines; to consolidate and open more colleges, secondary professional schools and vocational training institutions; to renovate the training structure based on professions and levels to meet the demand for human resources for the cause of industrialization and modernization and for local government cadres; to step up professional and technical training for grassroots cadres.

e/ Regarding development of science and technology, and the environment

- To build scientific and technological research centers at regional universities, which, first of all, shall focus on the study, selection and hybridization of plant and livestock species, and on the study and application of agricultural and forest product preservation and processing technologies; to build a network of agricultural and forestry extension serves from provincial down to grassroots levels; to study and apply scientific and technological advances to dealing with challenges particular to the region and materializing industrialization and modernization in the northern midland and mountainous region; to study and use water resources efficiently by attaching importance to irrigation projects for crops using less water but having high economic value such as industrial, fruit and herbal trees.

- To renovate and modernize technology in mining, preservation and processing of agricultural and forestry products for safer and cleaner environment; to make sure that the construction of urban infrastructure, transport, irrigation, hydropower and industrial works must satisfy safety and environmental sanitation standards.

f/ Regarding cultural and social affairs

- To attach importance to investment in cultural, radio and television broadcasting, information, press, library, sports facilities and cultural houses for promoting local traditions and ethnic identities; to preserve, restore and develop tangible and intangible culture of ethnic minorities; enforce grassroots cultural rules at village level through the implementation of democracy regulations; to continue investment in communal postal-cultural points and public places for village cultural and sport activities; to increase investment as planned in relay stations for communes still uncovered by the Voice of Vietnam and Vietnam Television; to consolidate and maintain the operation of the existing relay stations; to modernize their equipment and increase district and provincial-level broadcasts in ethnic languages.

- To implement national target programs on prevention and fighting of crimes, drug-related problems, prostitution and trafficking in women and children and elimination of backward practices; to provide assistance to projects designed to stop relapse in opium poppy cultivation; to support social patronage centers for nurturing and caring for the elderly, people with disabilities and orphans.

- To regularly conduct law propaganda and popularization on the mass media and through training courses to increase public awareness about how to live and work by law.

g/ Regarding healthcare

To improve the quality of primary healthcare for people, especially ethnic minority inhabitants. To upgrade district hospitals; to further renovate and build provincial hospitals; to modernize equipment of provincial hospitals; to build health centers for the Northeast in Thai Nguyen province and for the Northwest in Son La province to meet the people's demand for medical examination and treatment. To increase the capacity of preventive medicine systems at district and provincial levels to meet people's demand for disease prevention; to strengthen reproductive healthcare and family planning and improve the quality of population in the region; to continue the effective implementation of national target programs against social diseases, HIV/AIDS, and others on environmental sanitation, food hygiene and safety and labor hygiene; to provide training and retraining to health workers.

h/ Regarding hunger elimination and poverty reduction and employment

To effectively implement the national target programs on hunger elimination and poverty reduction and employment, reduce the percentage of poor households according to the new poverty line across the region at a pace which is faster than the national average, especially in deep-lying, remote and border areas and former resistance war communes; to actively eliminate backward traditional practices of self-supply and nomadic farming and living in tandem with implementing provinces' plans on providing land, plan seeds and animal breeds, loans and agricultural, forestry and industrial extension services for them to escape poverty; to attach importance to dealing with burning daily-life and social problems in the region: poverty, uncontrolled migration, slash-and-burn practice, lack of water for production and daily-life activities, and poor hygienic conditions; to increase measures for creating more employment in all provinces, striving to provide employment to 200,000 - 250,000 people a year across the whole region.

i/ Regarding development of socio-economic infrastructure

- Regarding transport:

To make plans and mobilize all resources available for transport development as the top priority in order to create a basis for rapid socio-economic development, improving people's living standards and contributing to consolidating national defense and security.

Transport investment targets from now to 2010 are:

+ To complete the upgrade of Highway 1 of 4 lanes and repair of Highway 70 to ensure convenient transport, together with building the Expressway Hanoi - Lao Cai; to upgrade Highways 2, 3, 6 and 32 to grade III at one end and grade IV at the other; to give investment priority to the upgrade of roads running to border gates, belt roads and border patrol roads; to upgrade Highways 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, 4E, 46, 34, 37 and 279; to build the Expressway Hanoi - Thai Nguyen; to speed up the building of the section of Ho Chi Minh road to Pac Bo (Cao Bang province) and roads from Pac Bo to Ha Tay province; to complete the building of Highway 4G, extended Highway 48 and roads in western Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces (phase I);

+ To build roads in the region linking provinces, between provinces and districts, and between districts and communes; to complete roads for early connection and forming a belt route for the purpose of relocating inhabitants out of the areas destined for the Son La and Tuyen Quang hydropower plants and other important projects;

+ To make all communes and commune clusters in the region accessible by car to their centers; to allocate funds for the upgrade of all-season motorways running to commune and commune cluster centers and build roads leading from communes to villages; to build border patrol roads, first of all, in areas of great importance; to build roads connecting border commune centers with border belt roads and border patrol roads; to build roads linking provinces with major border gates for export development, tourism, national defense and security purposes;

+ To upgrade the existing railways in the region, including Hanoi - Lao Cai, Hanoi - Lang Son, Hanoi - Thai Nguyen and Kep - Luu Xa;

+ To manage and make better use of river ways in the region; to further upgrade and build a number of key landing stages and ports on major rivers and build transport facilities dedicated to building the Son La hydropower plant;

+ To improve and upgrade the Na San airport; to prepare for investment in the upgrade of the Dien Bien Phu airport; to study investment projects to build a new airport beyond 2010 when needed.

- Regarding irrigation works:

+ To upgrade and repair irrigation works currently in poor shape, increase the solidification of existing irrigation canals and works; to build small and medium reservoirs to supply water for production and daily life; to give special importance to building small irrigation works in extremely difficult communes; to synchronize key irrigation works with canals in order to increase the irrigation capacity of these works; to embank border rivers to prevent erosion and ensure border security and people's production and life; to embank rivers and streams navigating through large urban centers and densely populated areas in the region to prevent erosion and illegal use and protect urban landscape and environment;

+ To build irrigation works in the region under the program on mountainous irrigation works and urgent irrigation projects financed by government bonds in the period to 2010.

- Regarding the development of the system of supply of daily-life water, electricity and communication:

+ To focus investment on providing local dwellers with sufficient daily-life water, take practical measures to tackle the severe shortage of water in highland areas, especially in limestone mountain areas;

+ To extend the electricity grid to communes, villages and families; to increase the percentage of households covered by the national grid; to improve the quality of the power transmission system;

+ To develop synchronous and modern telephone, postal and telecom networks to meet social-economic development requirements, improve people's living standards and serve the Party's and Government's administration work.

- Regarding infrastructure works in extremely difficult communes (Program 135 - phase II):

+ To integrate the relocation of people and development of production as planned into programs and projects implemented in the region to build infrastructure works;

+ To invest in schools that have accommodation for teachers and pupils at commune centers, commune-based daycare centers and kindergartens, and regional and commune health stations with accommodation for their medical staff.

- To urgently elaborate plans on and prioritize investment in resettlement quarters for people relocated from the site of important projects in the region along the line of building complete socio-economic infrastructure (transport, irrigation, electricity, water, schools and health stations) and allocating land for production and residence so that the relocated have sufficient conditions for production development and enjoy a life better than in their former living place.

- To invest in building socio-economic infrastructure of former resistance war communes to facilitate production and improving living conditions and narrowing the development gap with other regions.

- To attach importance to investment in cultural, broadcasting and sports facilities and cultural houses for the promotion of cultural traditions and preservation of ethnic identities.

- To prioritize investment in vocational training institutions and research, application and transfer of technical advances and technologies in production and people's life, first of all, in the production of plant and livestock breeds, preservation technology, processing of agricultural and forest products, and exploitation and processing of minerals.

- Development of urban centers, redistribution of inhabitants and building rural areas of a new style:

+ To plan and invest in developing a system of urban centers in synchrony with socio-economic development and forming economic centers in the region, including Viet Tri, Thai Nguyen, Yen Bai, Lang Son, Dien Bien Phu and Lao Cai cities; cities and towns of provinces in the region; to build new urban centers in Lai Chau town. To build complete infrastructure of new urban centers; to prioritize development of urban centers at the Dong Dang border gate (Lang Son province), Lao Cai city (Lao Cai province), Thanh Thuy (Ha Giang province), Ta Lung (Cao Bang province), Ma Lu Thang (Lai Chau province), Tay Trang (Dien Bien province), Pa Hang (Son La province) and in western Thanh Hoa province and western Nghe An province; to establish a system of national and international import-export centers connected with major economic centers in the North and the whole country;

+ To plan and build residential clusters, towns, townships and commune cluster centers in association with redistributing the population in the process of industrialization and modernization; first of all, plan and redistribute the population based on local transport development plans and master plans on socio-economic development during 2006 - 2010; for border areas, it is a must to combine population redistribution with defense and security duties in order to form residential clusters, residential lines, townships and commune cluster centers in an appropriate manner;

+ To complete the settlement of inhabitants of communes along the Vietnam - China border under the approved plan; expeditiously plan and settle inhabitants of communes along the Vietnam - Laos borderline as planned for stable production and living on the basis of tapping to the utmost the potential of land resources in the region and restrict unplanned migration to other areas; to attach importance to investing building and developing economic-defense zones, especially in the areas of great significance to combine socio-economic development with the preservation of defense and security in border areas.

- To continue investing in works on the list of important projects issued together with the Prime Minister's Decision 186/2001/QD-TTg of December 7, 2001, on socio-economic development in the six northern mountainous provinces with particularly difficulty conditions during 2001 - 2005, so that they can be put into efficient use soon to achieve the set objectives.

Article 2.- To continue implementing and add some mechanisms and policies to support socio-economic development of the northern midland and mountainous provinces to 2010

1. Revision and addition of some mechanisms and policies:

a/ On state budget funding

- Apart from the mechanisms and policies to support the socio-economic development in the northern midland and mountainous provinces through programs and projects including Program 135 - phase II, national target programs and the 5-million-ha forest project, the State will increase investments in these provinces through projects funded with government bonds and through programs and projects implemented by ministries and central agencies as assigned by the Government in the Prime Minister's Decision 79/2005/QD-TTg of April 15, 2005, on the Government's plan of action in implementation of Politburo Resolution No. 37-NQ/TW of July 1, 2004, on orientations for socio-economic development and maintenance of defense and security in the northern midland and mountainous area to 2010.

Targeted funding supports will be allocated to provinces under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 210/2006/QD-TTg of September 12, 2006, which stipulates the principles, criteria and quotas of allocation of state budget funds on development investment during 2007 - 2010, with priority given to northern mountainous provinces with particularly difficulty conditions under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 186/2001/QD-TTg of December 7, 2001, and to provinces with districts eligible for support specified in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 174/2004/QD-TTg of October 01, 2004.

- To increase supports from the central budget to a maximum VND 70 billion for investments in industrial parks (including roads and bridges running into the industrial parks) for provinces meeting the criteria specified in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 183/2004/QD-TTg of October 19, 2004.

- To provide supports from the central budget for building infrastructure of industrial and handicraft clusters with no more than VND 6 billion/cluster and no more than VND 70 billion/province to 2010.

- To provide 100% of domestic capital required for locally managed ODA projects if they meet conditions specified in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 210/2006/QD-TTg of September 12, 2006.

b/ On healthcare

- To increase allowances for village health workers in difficulty-ridden areas to 50% of the basic monthly salary under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 30/2007/QD-TTg of March 5, 2007.

- To increase support levels and extend the category of beneficiaries under the newly issued poverty line eligible for medical examination and treatment fee supports.

- To continue implementing the policy on medical examination and treatment of the poor and beneficiaries of social entitlement under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 139/2002/QD-TTg of October 15, 2002.

c/ On education and training

- To increase allowances for village daycare and kindergarten teachers to 50% of the basic monthly salary in areas ridden by difficulty under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 30/2007/QD-TTg of March 5, 2007.

- To provide a scholarship which is equal to half of that for a boarding school student to poor ethic minority students who are eligible for attending boarding schools but choose to attend public or semi-public schools.

- For graduates from ethnic minority pupils' boarding upper secondary schools who are prioritized for appointment-based enrolment into universities, pre-university schools or professional schools, if they do not pursue their study at professional schools, they will be provided with technical and professional training of 3, 6 or 9 months according to practical job requirements and with jobs in localities. Provincial and district vocational training centers in the provinces shall be utilized to provide such training and have all training expenses covered by the State.

2. A number of mechanisms and policies also applicable to the whole northern midland and mountainous region:

- To extend the application of the Prime Minister's Decision No. 304/2005/QD-TTg of July 23, 2005, on the pilot allocation of forest to and contracting of forest protection with households and communities of ethnic minority villages to the northern midland and mountainous region.

- To extend the application of the Prime Minister's Decision No. 231/2005/QD-TTg of September 22, 2005, on the provision of assistance to state-run agricultural and forestry enterprises and management boards of special-use forests and protection forests employing ethnic minority inhabitants lawfully residing in the northern midland and mountainous region.

3. Promulgation of additional mechanisms and policies for the region:

- To support plant seeds and livestock breeds and fertilizers for the introduction of new crops in communes with particularly difficult conditions and by ethnic minority households.

- To pay all expenses for new plant seeds to be planted for the first time or high-value industrial trees and perennial fruit trees as replacement crops under approved projects.

- To support half of the interest on bank loans taken out by households to plant new crops or perennial industrial and fruit trees; to allow farmers to use loan-based assets (orchards) as collateral.

Article 3.- Implementation effect

1. Ministries and central agencies shall, depending on their functions, tasks and powers, guide and examine localities in implementing this Decision. The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall assume the prime responsibility for, together with the Ministry of Finance, calculate and make suggestions to the Government on the annual allocation of central budget funding to northern midland and mountainous provinces for the implementation of this Decision.

2. The People's Committees of the provinces in the northern midland and mountainous region shall base themselves on the policies mentioned in this Decision and the guidance of ministries and central agencies to concentrate on directing and administering the implementation of these policies in a way suitable to specific local conditions.

3. Ministries, central branches and People's Committees of the provinces in the northern midland and mountainous region shall send reports on the implementation of this Decision to the Ministry of Planning and Investment for sum-up and report to the Prime Minister.

4. Annually, the Ministry of Planning and Investment shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with concerned ministries, branches and localities in conducting preliminary and final reviews, and reporting to the Prime Minister.

Article 4.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in "CONG BAO."

Article 5.- Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies, and the presidents of the People's Committees of Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Son La, Hoa Binh, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen, Bac Giang, Phu Tho, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces shall implement this Decision.