Can Tho should be more dynamic: PM

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked Can Tho city to be more creative and dynamic when it came to economic structural reforms and reaching out to new export markets. Such changes would make the city a leading driver of development in the Mekong Delta region, the PM said while working with local top-ranking officials on Saturday.

At the session, Dung suggested the city pay more attention to the processing industry, as well as applying technology to production, adding that officials must also effectively implement policies to attract and promote investment.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Bac Lieu Province, which he visited before joining a working session with leading officials in Can Tho City on Saturday

He underlined the need for Can Tho to combine the building of new-style rural areas with poverty reduction and vocational training in order to improve the living conditions of rural residents.

During the working session, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that as a hub of the Mekong Delta region, Can Tho needed to proactively put forth its own policies and methods. This would enable the city to reach a greater level of development in health, science-technology, education and training.

Dam spoke highly of the city's proposal to pilot the application of power-point lectures, a move to address the shortcomings of current textbooks. So far, 16 localities have registered to apply this model at their schools, he said.

In the first quarter of 2014, Can Tho posted GDP growth of 8.32 percent. This year, the city will focus on solving difficulties for enterprises, boosting production, increasing business competitiveness and calling for investment in advantageous fields.

On the same day, Dung also attended a working session with Bac Lieu provincial authorities in which he asked the southern province to use its abundant land resources to its advantage, focusing on farming and aquaculture.

He said more attention should be directed to zoning off aquaculture areas and processing food and aquatic products for export using advanced technology.

Going into more detail, he suggested Bac Lieu help farmers buy seedlings, capital and facilities in order to create a value chain that would make it easier to churn out competitive products. At the same time, the province should focus more on education, especially vocational training for skilled workers, he said, and should pay attention to the potential of the tourism and services sector to generate more earnings for the local economy.

The Prime Minister asked Bac Lieu to work harder to ensure that new rural community residents had high-quality health care services and stable incomes.

Responding to the province's request for more State budget allocation to key projects, the government leader demanded that the funds be spent on building hospitals, schools, university dormitories and roads.

At the session, secretary of the provincial Party Committee Vo Van Dung reported that the local economy had expanded by 11.3 percent year-on-year and more and more residents were enjoying comfortable lives.

He informed the leader that the province had implemented the Bac Lieu wind power plant project, one of the first of its kind in Viet Nam, in addition to ramping up transport and aquaculture infrastructure, human resources training and social welfare policies.

Earlier, Dung toured the wind power plant, located in Vinh Trach Dong commune, and offered incense at a memorial dedicated to war heroes.