President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front's Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan speaks at a meeting with Khmer dignitaries in Hau Giang on the occasion of traditional Chol Chnam Thmay festival (Photo: VNA)Hau Giang (VNA) – The Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang will continue supportinglocal Khmer people through organising festivals and providing capital foreconomic development.
Huynh Van Hung,vice president of the provincial chapter of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, saidthat the province will also continue running communication models for laweducation among the community, while assisting them in vocational training andagricultural production.
Hau Giang ishome to some 26,000 Khmer people, making up more than 3 percent of theprovince’s population. In 2016, the province implemented a poverty reduction programmeamong the Khmer community in 29 villages with total investment of more than 7.5billion VND.
The province alsoprovided 4.5 billion VND to help nearly 180 Khmer families build houses and buyland for production, while constructing rural roads and kindergartens in Khmerpeople-majority districts such as Long My and Phung Hiep.
The province hasnearly 30,000 poor households, more than 14 percent of total households,including about 2,000 Khmer families.
Meanwhile, theMekong Delta province of Kien Giang has seen improvements in living conditionsof local Khmer people thanks to support programmes and new infrastructure.
Danh Ngoc Hung,head of the provincial Committee for Ethnic Affairs, said the province hasfocused on upgrading infrastructure in eight communes under the Government’sprogramme on poverty reduction, including five border localities.
By the end of2016, Nam Thai, Thanh Yen A and Vinh Phu communes were eligible to get rid of theprogramme in 2017.
Meanwhile,living conditions for locals in five other communes in Giang Thanh district haveimproved.
Last year, KienGiang disbursed more than 200 billion VND (8.82 million USD) to help Khmer peopleexpand production and upgrade infrastructure, while credit institutions also providednearly 474 billion VND (20.9 million USD) in loans for the needy families.
At the sametime, 19 billion VND was used to provide clean water to more than 10,000 Khmerfamilies, while 45 billion VND was spent on building power transmission lines forover 2,430 households, thus reducing poverty ratio to 15.64 percent from 19.88percent in 2015.
In 2016, KienGiang also built Go Quao and An Bien boarding schools for Khmer children, whileopening 293 Khmer writing classes for Khmer people during summer.-VNA
VNA
