Connecting traffic and stably developing agriculture

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat: stably developing agriculture

The main target of agriculture and rural development sector in the next few years is to stably develop 3 pillars: the economy, society and environment; more specifically, to restructure and build modern agriculture with high added value and efficiency; to build new rural areas, increase incomes and improve the quality of life of farmers; to develop infrastructure, enhance disaster prevention ability and mitigation; to protect and use natural and environmental resources reasonably and efficiently.
Recently, farmers’ living condition has been significantly improved. However, it is quite popular that people from farms move to and make their living in big cities. In my opinion, this is an inevitable trend because the fact shows that in foreign countries, the proportion of agricultural and farm workers gradually decreases. Currently, there are approximately 23 million of agricultural and farm workers in Vietnam, but according to my own calculation, there are only about 20.5 million of agricultural and farm workers in 11 Trans Pacific Partnership countries (TPP).
 
However, the question is that: Why cannot we encourage farmers to make their living right on their land instead of moving to big cities? This is one of our biggest concerns and we must continue to find the best solutions to innovate the agriculture and develop rural areas following the tendency toward modernization and service to ensure better lives for farmers. We must find out how to rural areas strongly and stably.
 
Currently, the agriculture, farmers and rural areas are in need of proper policies to encourage enterprises to make more investment in this sector. The fact shows that, the number of enterprises making investment in this sector is relatively low and only 3% of foreign investment capital is allocated to the agriculture sector.
 
Deputy Minister of Traffic and Transportation Nguyen Ngoc Dong: Striving to finish Long Thanh airport in 2023

Currently the demand on traffic infrastructure is relatively high. According to the calculation of the sector, until 2020, the country is expected to need 40 – 50 billion USD to upgrade traffic infrastructure. The domestic investment capital alone shall not be sufficient, therefore, the solution to this matter is to mobilize capital sources, including private sectors.

 

The sector shall make investment in building infrastructure systems in synchronization with modern construction projects, focusing on key traffic systems, urban infrastructures and major projects connecting regions to promote socioeconomic development.

 

More specifically, as for road systems and efficient exploitation of the current expressways, the sector shall continue to invest in constructing new expressways to reach 2 thousand km of expressways until 2020.

 

As for railway system, the sector shall focus on innovating the current railway system, prioritizing to upgrade the North – South rail line in order to reach the average speed of 80-90km/hour for passenger trains and 50-60km/hour for cargo trains.

 

As for aviation, the sector shall focus on synchronously upgrading international airports; implementing constructions to safely and efficiently exploit the airports, bringing the total capacity of the airports up to 100 million passengers/year (increasing 50% compared with 2015); investing in Long Thanh international airport and striving to finish the project in 2023, 2 years earlier than the target set forth in the Resolution of the National Assembly. Currently the sector is urgently mobilize capital sources to elaborate viable project to commence the project in 2018.  

 

Minh Ngọc (summarized)