Kien Giang province makes great efforts in raising Khmer people’s living standard

Danh Ngoc Hung, Head of the provincial Ethnic Minorities Board, said the province has focused on investing in building infrastructure in Khmer ethnic minority-inhabited communes, especially in eight communes benefiting from Government Program 135 on boosting socio-economic development in extremely disadvantaged ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous communes.

The infrastructure, including bridges, roads, schools, medical stations, power and water systems, as well as environmental hygiene, helps promote production among Khmer ethnic minority people. 

Last year, Kien Giang invested over VND200 billion to build infrastructure; transfer technology; and give loans, vocational training and plantation and breeding techniques to Khmer ethnic minority people. Meanwhile, credit organizations provided loans worth nearly VND474 billion for 11,125 Khmer families for expanding production; allocated VND19 billion to give water fee support to over 10,000 families; and disbursed VND45 billion to give power supply to 2,431 families, contributing to reducing the poverty rate among the Khmer ethnic minority from 19.88% late 2015 to 15.64% in early 2017.

Much progress has also been reported in education. In 2016, VND125 billion was disbursed to build boarding schools in Go Quao and An Bien districts. 96% of Khmer ethnic minority pupils go to school. Moreover, an increase in the teaching of Khmer language has also been marked, with VND600 million having been spent in the teaching of 293 classes in the summer of 2016.

In 2016, the province admitted 49 Khmer ethnic minority individuals to the Party, bringing the total number of Khmer ethnic minority Party members to 2,843, or 5.68% of the province’s Party members./.