THE PRIME MINISTER

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To promulgate the Orientated Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam (Vietnam's Agenda 21) in order to sustainably develop the country on the basis of closely, rationally and harmoniously combining economic development, social development and environmental protection (see the document attached herewith).

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam is a framework strategy containing major orientations which serve as legal bases for the ministries, branches, localities, organizations and concerned individuals to organize the implementation thereof, and at the same time reflect Vietnam's international commitments.

Article 2.- The Minister of Planning and Investment shall be responsible for organizing and guiding the implementation of the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam.

The ministers, the heads of ministerial-level agencies, the heads of Government-attached agencies, the presidents of the provincial/municipal People's Committees shall base themselves on the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam to formulate oriented strategies on sustainable development of their respective ministries, branches or localities.

Article 3.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette.

The ministers, the heads of ministerial-level agencies, the heads of Government-attached agencies, the presidents of the provincial/municipal People's Committees shall have to implement this Decision.

For the Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister
NGUYEN TAN DUNG

Introduction

The concept of "sustainable development" emerged in the environmental protection movement in the 70s of the 20^th century. Sustainable development was defined by the World Council on Environment and Development (WCED) of the United Nations in its 1987 report "Our Common Future" as "the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

At the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg (the Republic of South Africa) in 2002, "sustainable development" was determined as a development process which closely, rationally and harmoniously combines three development aspects, namely economic development (particularly economic growth), social development (particularly social progress and justice; hunger eradication and poverty reduction and employment), and environmental protection (particularly treatment and remedy of pollution, rehabilitation and improvement of environmental quality; prevention and fight of forest fires and destruction; rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources). The criteria for evaluation of sustainable development include stable economic growth; good realization of social progress and justice; rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources, protection and improvement of the quality of the living environment.

Sustainable development is an urgent demand and inevitable tendency in the course of development of mankind and, therefore, it has been consented by the countries in the world to turn into the agenda for each development period of history. At the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992, 179 participating countries adopted the Rio de Janeiro Declaration on environment and development with its 27 basic principles for sustainable development and the Agenda 21 on solutions to sustainable development for the whole world in the 21^st century. The Summit recommended that each country, based on its own conditions and characteristics, formulate its own national, branch and local agendas 21. Ten years later, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg (the Republic of South Africa) in 2002, 166 participating countries adopted the Johannesburg Declaration and the implementation plan for sustainable development. The Summit reaffirmed the principles set out previously and continue committing to fully implement the Agenda 21 for sustainable development.

Since the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992, 113 countries in the world have so far formulated and implemented their national Agenda 21 for sustainable development and 6,416 local Agendas 21, and at the same time have established independent agencies for implementation of these Agendas. The regional countries such as China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia… have all formulated and implemented their Agendas 21 for sustainable development.

The Government of Vietnam sent high-ranking delegations to participate in the above mentioned summits and committed to achieve sustainable development, actively realizing the "National Plan for environmental and sustainable development for the 1991-2000 period" (Decision No. 187-CT of June 12, 1991), creating preconditions for the process of sustainable development in Vietnam. The sustainable development viewpoint has been asserted in the Political Bureau's Directive No. 36-CT/TW of June 25, 1998 on intensifying the environmental protection work in the period of national industrialization and modernization, which stressed: "Environmental protection is an essential content which is inseparable from the socio-economic development line, undertakings and plans of all levels and branches, as an important basis for ensuring sustainable development and successfully realizing the cause of national industrialization and modernization." The sustainable development viewpoint has been re-affirmed in the documents of the IX^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam and in the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy that "rapid, efficient and sustainable development and economic growth are combined with social progress and justice as well as and environmental protection" and that "socio-economic development is closely associated with environmental improvement, ensuring harmony between artificial and natural environments, and preserving bio-diversity." Sustainable development has become the line and viewpoint of the Party and the policy of the State. In order to achieve the sustainable development objectives, many other directives and resolutions of the Party, many legal documents of the State have been promulgated and implemented; numerous programs and research subjects in this domain have been carried out and crowned with initial outcomes; many basic contents on sustainable development have been translated into practice and step by step become an inevitable trend of the national development.

Over the past years, Vietnam's socio-economic development has still relied largely on the exploitation of natural resources; productivity remains low; production technologies and consumption patterns have still used a lot of energy and raw materials and discharged a lot of waste. Rapid population growth, high rate of poor households, inadequate basic education and healthcare services and unchecked social evils… remain to be burning issues. Numerous natural resources have been exhaustedly exploited and wastefully as well as inefficiently used. The natural environment in many areas has been destroyed, polluted and degraded to alarming levels. The system of policies and legal instruments remains incomprehensive and fails to effectively combine the three aspects of development, namely economic development, social development and environmental protection. The socio-economic development strategies, overall plannings and plans of the country as well as branches and localities have ignored the true combination and close integration of these three aspects of development.

In order to achieve the country's sustainable development objectives set in the Resolution of the IX^th National Party Congress and to fulfill international commitments, the Government of Vietnam has promulgated the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam (Vietnam's Agenda 21).

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam is a framework one, containing major orientations serving as legal bases for the ministries, branches, localities and concerned organizations as well as individuals to implement and coordinate actions to ensure Vietnam's sustainable development in the 21^st century. The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam identifies challenges Vietnam is confronting, and lays down undertakings, policies, legal instruments and priority areas of action which need to be realized for sustainable development in the 21^st century. The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam shall not substitute the existing strategies, overall plannings and plans but serve as a basis for concretizing the 2001-2010 ten-year socio-economic development strategy, the national environmental protection strategy till 2010 and orientations up to 2020, formulating the 2006-2010 five-year socio-economic development plan as well as strategies, overall plannings and plans of all branches and localities in order to closely, rationally and harmoniously combine economic development with social progress and justice, and environmental protection, guaranteeing the country's sustainable development. In the course of implementation, the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam shall be regularly reviewed and revised to suit each stage of development, update with new knowledge and awareness with a view to further perfecting Vietnam's path of sustainable development. Based on the current planning system, the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam focuses on priority activities which should be selected and carried out in the coming ten years.

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam comprises 5 parts.

Part 1: Sustainable development - Vietnam's inevitable path

Part 2: Priority economic areas for sustainable development

Part 3: Priority social areas for sustainable development

Part 4: Priority areas in natural resource utilization, environmental protection and pollution control for sustainable development

Part 5: Sustainable development implementation organization

Part 1

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - VIETNAM'S INEVITABLE PATH

I. Actual situation of sustainable development in Vietnam in recent years

1. Achievements:

After eighteen years of renewal, Vietnam has recorded enormous achievements in the areas of socio-economic development and environmental protection.

Vietnam's economy has been step by step transformed from a centrally planned economy to a socialist oriented market economy. The economy has achieved a high and relatively stable growth rate. In the 90s (of the 20^th century), the gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 7.5%. GDP in the year 2000 was over twice that of 1990. In 2003, GDP grew 7.24%, and in the three-year (2001-2003) period, the average annual growth rate was over 7.1%.

In agriculture, food production jumped from 19.9 million tons (paddy equivalent) in 1990 to over 37 million tons in 2003, the per-capita grain food increased from 303 kg in 1990 to 462 kg in 2003, thus having not only ensured stable food security for Vietnam but also put the country on the list of the biggest rice exporters in the world. Thanks to food security, commercial agricultural crop farming and husbandry have favorable conditions for development. Rice, coffee, rubber, cashew nuts, tea, peanuts, vegetables and fruits, pork and aquatic and marine products have become significant agricultural export products of Vietnam.

Industry has been restructured and has gradually recorded stable growth. Over the past 10 years, its average annual growth rate has been 13.6%; of which the State sector, non-State sector and foreign-invested sector recorded a growth rate of 11.4%, 11.4% and 22.5% respectively. In terms of production value, industrial production capacity in 2000 was 3.6 times that of 1990. In three years 2001-2003, industry continued to develop fairly high; production value increased by 15%, of which the State sector, non-State sector and foreign-invested sector grew 12.1%, 19.8% and 15.6% respectively.

Services have been expanded and their quality improved, meeting economic growth requirements and people's living needs. The production value of services increased by an average of 8.2% in ten years (1990-2000) and over 7% in three years (2001-2003). Domestic market has been more open with the participation of various economic sectors. In 2000 the value of goods sold on the domestic market was 12.3 times over 1990. In three years (2001-2003), the domestic market became more vibrant, with the total annual average volume of goods circulated on the market increasing by over 12%.

Transport and communications infrastructure has developed rapidly, better meeting socio-economic development requirements. The value of transport, storage and communication services was up by 1.8 times.

Tourism has recorded a relatively high growth rate; many tourist centers have been upgraded, restored or renovated. Particularly, in recent years efforts have been concentrated on exploiting and raising the humane values and national cultural traits in tourist routes, making tourism more and more diversified and attractive to domestic and foreign tourists.

Post and telecommunications services have rapidly developed with basically modernized domestic telecommunication networks. Many modern communication means of international standards have been developed, initially meeting the country's information, trade and international economic integration demands. The insurance service market has come into existence with the involvement of enterprises of domestic and foreign economic sectors. Important changes have been recorded in financial and banking services. Other services such as legal consultancy, science and technology, education and training, healthcare… started to develop.

As production develops and financial and monetary regulation policies are efficiently implemented, the macro-economic environment has been stabilized, creating favorable conditions for investment attraction and improvement of people's living standards.

Vietnam has recorded many significant achievements in social development. State investment in social areas has been increasing, and now accounts for over 25% of the State budget, of which special priority is given to hunger eradication and poverty reduction, job generation, education and training, vocational training, medicine, people's health care, control and prevention of social evils, science and technology, environmental protection as well as other basic social services.

A legal system has been introduced, meeting the practical requirements as well as the country's renewal requirements in the new situation, such as the Civil Code, the Labor Code, the Law on Protection of the People's Health, the Law on Child Protection, Care and Education; the Law on Environmental Protection; the Education Law; the Science and Technology Law; the Ordinance on Preferences for People with Meritorious Services; the Ordinance on the Disabled, the Insurance Law...

Many national target programs on social development have been implemented with high social impacts. The seven national target programs in the 1998-2000 period on hunger eradication and poverty reduction; job generation; population and family planning; HIV/AIDS prevention and control; elimination of some social diseases and dangerous epidemics; clean water and environmental sanitation for rural areas, building of the force of talented athletes and key sport centers; crime prevention; as well as other target programs on socio-economic development in mountainous and remote communes meeting with special difficulties; expanded immunization for children; illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization, control and prevention of social evils… have been implemented with good social impacts. National funds for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, assistance in the generation of jobs, gratitude funds, affection funds, funds for poor children overcoming difficulties… have been established and effectively operated. In the 2001-2005 period, six national target programs on hunger eradication, poverty reduction and employment; clean water and environmental sanitation for rural areas; population and family planning; prevention and control of some social diseases, dangerous epidemics and HIV/AIDS; culture, education and training have been approved and actively implemented and have recorded encouraging initial social results.

Living standards of people in both urban and rural areas have been markedly improved. Achievements recorded in hunger eradication and poverty reduction have been highly appreciated domestically and internationally. The percentage of poor households nationwide, based on national poverty standards (old standards), decreased from 30% in 1992 to 10% in 2000 with an annual average drop of nearly 300 thousand households. Based on new standards, by the year 2003 the percentage of poor households was about 11%. Based on the internationally comparable poverty standards of Living Standards Surveys of 1993 and 1998, the overall poverty percentage declined from 58% in 1993 to 37% in 1998 and the food poverty rate decreased from 25% to 15% in the same period. The number of employed people increased from 30.9 million in 1991 to 40.6 million in 2000 with an annual average growth rate of 2.9%. Each year, about 1.2 million new jobs were created.

As of 2000, national standards of illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization were achieved nationwide. Over 90% of the population had access to health services; 60% of households had clean water. TV coverage was 85% and radio coverage was 95% of the whole country's area.

Social indicators have been considerably improved. Vietnam's human development index (HDI) increased from 0.611 in 1992 to 0.682 in 1999, ranking the 120^th in 1992 and the 101^st in 1999 among 162 countries and the 109^th among 175 countries in 2003. Compared to countries which have similar per-capita GDP, Vietnam's HDI is considerably higher. With regard to gender development index (GDI), in 2003 Vietnam ranked the 89^th among the total 144 countries. Women account for 26% of the total number of National Assembly deputies, making Vietnam to be one of the 15 countries that have the highest percentage of female members in the State powerful organ.

Vietnam has made great efforts to overcome the environmental consequences of the wars. Many important policies on natural resource management and use and environmental protection have been formulated and implemented in recent years. The system of State management over environmental protection has taken shape at central and local levels. Environmental management and environmental protection awareness and responsibility education activities have been increasingly expanded to all organizations and individuals and qualitatively improved. The work of education and communication on environmental protection has been stepped up. Environmental protection contents have been included in the teaching programs at all educational levels of the national education system.

The implementation of the above-mentioned policies has contributed to strengthening the management, rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources, preventing environmental pollution, degradation and incidents; restoring and clearly improving the quality of the ecological environment in some areas.

2. Major drawbacks:

In addition to the above mentioned achievements, development sustainability has not yet been given due attention in the national, branch and local socio-economic development plans. There still remain the following major drawbacks:

The sustainable development view has not yet been reflected clearly and consistently in the system of the State's regulating policies and instruments. Socio-economic policies are still inclined to rapid economic growth and social stability but fail to pay adequate attention to sustainability in the exploitation and use of natural resources and the environmental protection. On the other hand, the environmental protection policies have focussed on remedying environmental incidents, rehabilitating degradation and improving the environmental quality but lacked long-term development orientations to meet the future needs of society. The process of formulating socio-economic development plannings and plans has yet to be closely combined with, and rationally integrated into, the process of formulating environmental protection policies. An effective sustainable development management and monitoring mechanism has not yet been clearly established.

Due to low development resources, there have been insufficient physical conditions for satisfying sustainable development requirements. Investment has been mainly concentrated on projects that bring about direct benefits while very little investment has been made in reproducing natural resources and protecting the environment.

As compared to other countries, Vietnam's debts have not yet reached a dangerous level but are rapidly increasing, and may threaten the sustainability of development in the future, especially when loans have been inefficiently used. The degree of processed materials in Vietnam's economy is still very low but the amount of raw material, fuel and material consumed per product remains high. The majority of domestically consumed and exported products are unprocessed; economic growth relies mainly on extensive development… while natural resources are limited and have been exploited to the permissible limit.

The trend of decline in prices of unprocessed products in the world market has caused many problems for agricultural growth in Vietnam. With its current production structure, in order to maintain the same income levels as previously, Vietnam has to sell more commodities in kind.

Development objectives of industries using natural resources are contradictory and have not yet been appropriately combined. Administrations at both central and local levels have not yet effectively managed the use of natural resources and the environmental protection.

Pressure of population growth, more and more critical underemployment and high percentage of poor households remain to be big hurdles to sustainable development. The quality of human resources is still low. The quantity and quality of skilled labor force (in occupational structure, skills and qualification) fail to meet the requirements of the labor market.

The rich-poor gap and the social stratification tend to rapidly increase in the market economy. The consumption patterns of the population have followed the conventional patterns of developed countries, consuming more materials, raw materials and energy and discharging many wastes and toxic substances. These consumption patterns have been overburdening and will overburden the natural environment with wastes and excessive exploitation.

A number of social evils such as drug addiction, prostitution, HIV/AIDS - the century's plague, and corruption, have not yet been effectively prevented, thus causing loss and waste of wealth, threatening social stability and destroying the ecological balance.

Since importance has been attached to economic development, particularly GDP growth while little attention has been paid to natural systems, the wanton exploitation and wasteful use of natural resources leading to environmental degradation and an imbalance in the ecological systems has been very common. Some production, business and service establishments, hospitals… have caused serious environmental pollution. The process of rapid urbanization has resulted in excessive exploitation of underground water, pollution of surface water sources, air and accumulation of solid wastes. Particularly, areas with high bio-diversity, forests, marine and coastal regions have not yet been protected, and are therefore under overexploitation.

Despite remarkable progress has been made in environmental protection activities, the degrees of environmental pollution, degradation and quality reduction continue to increase. This indicates that the operational capability and efficacy of the apparatuses in charge of environmental protection have not yet met the requirements of sustainable development.

Inter-branch, interregional, international and global environmental protection work should be performed from the grassroots levels, namely the ward/ commune and district levels. We still lack integrated environmental management methods at the regional, interregional and inter-branch levels while various levels and branches still have overlapping functions and tasks in the environmental protection work. State management over the environment has been performed only at the central, branch and provincial levels. None or very little of this work has been done at the district level while nothing has been performed at the commune level. Some regional socio-economic development plannings have been formulated, but there have not yet been any mechanisms requiring localities and branches to join in formulating and implementing these plannings.

II. Main objectives, viewpoints, principles and priority activities for sustainable development in Vietnam

1. Objectives:

The overall objective in the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy of the IX^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is "To bring the country out of underdevelopment, markedly improve the people’s material, cultural and spiritual life; lay foundations for Vietnam to basically become an industrial country by the year 2020; to strengthen human resources, scientific and technological capabilities, infrastructure, economic potential, national defense and security; to basically establish institutions of the socialist-oriented market economy and heighten the country's position in the international arena." The development viewpoint in the above-said strategy is affirmed that "rapid, efficient and sustainable development and economic growth are accompanied with social progress and justice and environmental protection"; "Socio-economic development is closely linked to environmental protection and improvement, securing the harmony of artificial and natural environment, conserving bio-diversity."

The overall objective of sustainable development is to achieve material prosperity, spiritual and cultural wealth, equity of all citizens and consensus of the society, the harmony between humans and nature; development must represents the close, rational and harmonious combination of economic development, social development and environmental protection.

The economically sustainable development objective is to achieve stable growth with a rational economic structure, meeting the demands for improving people's living standards, avoiding recession or stagnation in the future and avoiding the burden of debts to be left on future generations.

The socially sustainable development objective is to obtain high results in the realization of social progress and justice, guaranteeing increasingly improved nutrition and healthcare quality for the people, educational and employment opportunities for everyone, reducing poverty and narrowing the rich-poor gap between social strata and groups, reducing social evils, raising equity in the interests and obligations of all members and all generations in a society, maintaining and promoting national cultural diversity and identity, continuously raising the level of civilization in material and spiritual life.

The environmentally sustainable development objective is to rationally exploit, thriftily and efficiently use natural resources; effectively prevent, stop, handle and control environmental pollution, well protect the living environment; protect national parks, nature conservation zones, biosphere reserve zones, and conserve bio-diversity; overcome environmental degradation and improve the environmental quality.

2. Main principles

To attain the above mentioned objectives, in the process of development, we should adhere to the following principles:

First, human beings are the center of sustainable development. The consistent principle at all stages of development is to better meet physical and spiritual demands of people of all strata, to build a rich and strong country, an equitable, democratic and civilized society.

Second, to consider economic development as the central task in the coming stage of development, to ensure food security and energy for sustainable development, ensure food hygiene and safety for people; closely, rationally and harmoniously combine economic development with social development; rationally exploit, thriftily and efficiently use natural resources within the permissible limits in terms of ecology and sustainable environmental protection, to gradually implement the principle of "every aspect (economic, social and environmental) shall be beneficial."

Third, environmental protection and improvement must be considered an indispensable element of the development process. To actively prevent and control negative impacts caused by human beings' activities on the environment. It is necessary to widely apply the principle: "people who cause harms to natural resources and the environment shall have to pay compensation therefor." To build a comprehensive and effective system of legislation on environmental protection. To actively incorporate, and adopt sanctions to force the integration of, environmental protection requirements into every socio-economic development planning, plan, program and project. To consider the environmental protection requirement an important criterion for evaluating sustainable development.

Fourth, the development process must satisfy the needs of the present generation in an equitable manner without causing problems to the life of future generations. Conditions must be created for all people and communities in society to have equal opportunities for development, have access to all common resources and be equally provided with public benefits. It is necessary to create good material, intellectual and cultural foundations for the posterity and economically use non-renewable natural resources, preserve and improve the living environment, develop a clean and environmentally friendly production system; and build up a healthy lifestyle which is harmonious with, close to, and fond of, nature.

Fifth, science and technology constitute the foundation and driving force for industrialization and modernization as well as for rapid, vigorous and sustainable development of the country. Priority must be given to the extensive use of modern, clean and environmentally friendly technology in the manufacturing industries which have spill-over impacts and capacity for promoting the development of many other sectors and industries.

Sixth, sustainable development is the cause of the entire Party, administrations at all levels, ministries, branches, localities, agencies, enterprises, social organizations, population communities and all people. It is a must to mobilize to the utmost the participation of all concerned people in selecting decisions on socio-economic development and environmental protection at the local and national levels. To ensure people's accessibility to information and raise the role of people of all strata, especially women, youths and ethnic minority people, in the process of making decisions on big and long-term development investment projects of the country.

Seventh, to closely connect the building of an independent and autonomous economy with active integration into international economy for sustainable development of the country. To develop bilateral and multilateral relations and realize international and regional commitments, selectively absorb scientific and technological advances, promote international cooperation for sustainable development. To attach importance to bringing into full play advantages, improving quality, efficiency and competitiveness. To actively prevent the negative impacts of the globalisation and international economic integration process on the environment.

Eighth, to closely combine economic development, social development and environmental protection with ensuring national defence and security as well as social safety and order.

3. Priority areas of activity:

- To maintain rapid and stable economic growth on the basis of constantly improving efficiency, scientific and technological content, thrifty use of natural resources and environmental protection.

- To change production and technological patterns and consumption patterns along the direction of being cleaner and environmentally friendly, based on the thrifty use of non-renewable natural resources, the maximum reduction of toxic and difficult-to-decay wastes and the maintenance of individual and social lifestyles in harmony with, and closeness to, nature.

- To implement the process of "clean industrialization", which means that industrial development must be planned right from the outset with occupational structures, technology and equipment ensuring the principle of environmental friendliness. To actively prevent and treat industrial pollution and build up "green industries."

- To develop agriculture and rural areas in a sustainable manner. While stepping up the production of more and more commodities to meet market demands, it is a must to ensure food hygiene and safety, conserve and develop the land, water, air and forest resources as well as bio-diversity.

- To develop regions in a sustainable manner and build up local communities that practice sustainable development.

- To concentrate efforts on hunger eradication and poverty reduction, generate more jobs; create equal opportunities for all people to participate in social, cultural, political, economic development and environmental protection activities.

- To further lower the population growth rate, reduce the population pressure on job generation, healthcare, education, vocational training and ecological protection.

- To direct the urbanization and migration process to ensure sustainable urban development; to rationally distribute population and labor force throughout all regions, ensuring sustainable socio-economic development and environmental protection in localities.

- To improve the quality of education in order to raise the people's intellectual level and professional qualifications suitable to the country's development requirements.

- To develop quantitatively and improve qualitatively healthcare services, improve working conditions and sanitation of the living environment.

- To fight the degradation of land resources, use them in an efficient and sustainable manner.

- To protect the water environment and use water resources in a sustainable manner.

- To rationally exploit and thriftily and sustainably use mineral resources.

- To protect marine, coastal and island environments and develop marine resources.

- To protect and develop forests.

- To reduce air pollution in urban centers and industrial parks.

- To effectively manage solid and hazardous wastes.

- To conserve bio-diversity.

- To mitigate climate change and limit harmful impacts of climate change, contributing to preventing and fighting natural disasters.

Part 2

PRIORITY ECONOMIC AREAS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Maintaining rapid and sustainable economic growth

According to the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy, in the first decade of the 21^st century, economic development must be rapid, efficient and sustainable and by 2010, GDP must be doubled that in 2000.

In order to maintain relatively rapid and sustainable economic growth for a long term, we need to realize the following main orientations:

1. To further accelerate economic renewal to establish and improve the mechanisms of a socialist oriented market economy, including:

- To further improve a number of macro policies with a view to creating an equal and efficient business environment, step up competition and create confidence of enterprises and people so that they invest capital in production development. To encourage the long-term development of collective and private economies. To further renew, develop and improve production efficiency of, State enterprises. To actively attract foreign investment.

- To maintain stability of the macro economic environment by improving financial policies, balancing budgets, maintaining monetary stability and controlling inflation.

- To strongly accelerate the process of active integration into international economy and trade liberalization.

- To step up administrative reform in order to gradually establish an effective, healthy and competent administration for meeting the requirements of sustainable development. To promote democracy, firmly maintain discipline and order and strengthen legislation. To build up the contingent of capable and virtuous officials and employees.

2. To transform economic development from mainly extensive growth to mainly intensive development on the basis of effectively applying scientific and technological advances for raising labor productivity and competitiveness of products and services as well as raising the efficiency of the economy in general and the efficiency of investment capital in particular.

3. To shift the economy from exploiting and using crude resources to using as processing them in a more sophisticated way, thereby increasing added value in each unit of exploited resource. To gradually shift our participation in the world market with crude products to that with sophisticatedly processed products and services. To attach importance to increasing scientific and technological contents in products and services.

4. To save to the utmost all resources in development, efficiently use scarce resources and restrict consumption so that it will not encroach upon the benefits of future generations.

5. To establish an environmental economic cost-accounting system. To carry out studies so as to additionally incorporate environmental and social aspects in the national accounting system. The integrated socio-economic and environmental accounting system will comprise at least one accounting sub-system of natural resources.

II. Changing production and consumption patterns along the environmentally friendly direction

Over the past time, as a result of high economic growth and open-door economic policies, consumption by people has been markedly improved. However, there still exist some consumption tendencies that exert negative impacts on sustainable development:

1. Consumption patterns by a proportion of population, especially in urban centers, are heavily based on traditional consumption which uses unprocessed raw materials, therefore causing negative impacts on natural resource saving and sustainable development. Lavish and wasteful consumption has become increasingly popular in some strata of the population, which runs counter to the thrifty, nature-close and -harmonious way of living based on the traditional system of social values and ethics.

Exhaustive exploitation of rare and precious animal and plant species and non-renewable natural resources remains rather popular. Food chemicals, growth stimulants and genetically modified products have been used increasingly.

Energy used for daily life and energy used in transportation has increased, leading to consumption of more coal and petrol than previously, thus increasing environmental pollution. Whereas, other types of clean energy which have a great potential in Vietnam and can be widely used on a household scale such as solar, wind power, small-scale hydroelectricity, bio-gas have been studied, applied and used in a very limited way. Policies on encouraging means of transport which are economical and which have small capacity and use environmentally friendly energy are still absent.

2. In goods production and consumption, wasteful use of resources for some irrational demands has become widespread. The volumes of alcohol, beer and cigarettes that have been produced, imported and consumed have increased at a rate unproportional to low living standards and incomes of the population. Alcohol and drug addiction has not yet declined. Non-recyclable and difficult-to-decay raw materials and materials (such as metal and PVC) have been increasingly discharged.

3. Specific policies and guidance on rational consumption, especially financial policies and measures for promoting environmentally friendly consumption, are absent.

4. A proportion of population still live under the poverty line, failing to satisfy their basic demands for food, clothing, housing, education, essential commodities and services. Poverty is one of many reasons for wanton exploitation, wasteful and irrational use of natural resources. It also prevents the practice of more efficient consumption patterns in order to contribute to more sustainable development.

a/ Restructuring production activities and services for consumption:

In order to change the consumption patterns, impacts should be firstly exerted on production methods and techniques towards forming a production system which turns out products with technological chains which consume less energy and materials and raw materials and discharge less waste, particularly hazardous waste.

- For existing production systems, it is necessary to review and adjust technical standards and upgrade technologies in order to improve the environmental efficiency of products, encourage the invention of new products which economically consume energy, materials and raw materials while discharging less waste.

- To encourage the application of cleaner and more environmentally-friendly production technology, technologies for recycle and reuse of waste and discarded materials.

- To establish a rational product consumption structure for the national economy to meet basic food, clothing, housing, traveling, education, health care and recreation demands of people of all strata. To pay attention to renovating products, continuously improving quality and reducing production and service costs, attach importance to the standard of environmental friendliness in order to improve consumption quality and natural resource use efficiency.

- To develop and raise the intensive degree of integrated production and service industries which can protect and improve the environment such as afforestation, aquaculture and tourism. To restrict the development of the production of alcohol, beer, cigarettes, food and consumer goods which contain agents harmful to people's health.

b/ Taking necessary measures to direct rational consumption:

- To conduct communication and education to form a healthy way of living and rational consumption modes among people of all strata, especially teenagers and youths. To build up a civilized consumption culture which is rich in national identity and harmonious with, and friendly to, nature.

- To launch the movement for thrifty consumption and wastefulness combat. To bring into play the active roles of mass organizations and people of all strata in communicating, educating, implementing and monitoring the movement.

- To employ some economic instruments, such as consumption tax, to adjust irrational consumption behaviors.

- For regions meeting with great difficulties, to further implement policies to assist people in meeting their essential daily-life needs.

III. Implementing the "clean industrialization" process

Strongly accelerating industrialization is a central task of Vietnam in the next decade. Implementing a "clean industrialization" strategy is to plan industrial development with industrial structure, technology and equipment to ensure environmentally friendly principles from the very outset. To actively prevent and tackle industrial pollution and build up the "green industry". Environmental standards must be included in the list of the most essential criteria for selecting industries in which investment is promoted, choosing production technologies and products, zoning industrial parks and export processing zones, and formulating plans for pollution prevention, treatment and control.

1. Regarding the legislative aspects:

- To review master plans for socio-economic development in key regions and for development of economic branches, particularly those have strong impacts on the environment in order to ensure sustainable industrial development, economical natural resource use and effective pollution control and waste management.

- To institutionalize the incorporation of environmental elements in the process of formulating annual, five-year and long-term socio-economic development plannings and plans of the whole country, ministries, branches and localities from central to local level. To improve the process of environmental impact assessment and closely supervise the implementation of the contents of environmental impact assessment; to strictly enforce regulations on conducting environmental impact assessments before granting investment licenses to enterprises.

- To formulate legal documents, mechanisms and policies, aiming to boost the process of substituting obsolete production technologies that consume a lot of energy and raw materials with advanced, modern and environmentally friendly ones.

- To encourage clean production; propagate and educate on, and raise the awareness of the importance and benefits of clean production in the sustainable development process among the business community.

- To establish standards and principles for clean production, suitable to the economic development level. To research into and develop clean production technology and equipment. To enhance the coordination between production establishments and researchers of clean production technology, and, at the same time, step up the application of these technologies to production.

- To conduct studies and issue some regulations requiring large- and medium-sized business and production enterprises to establish environmental self-observation and self-monitoring systems to provide information on wastes and the degree of pollution caused by their production activities. To conduct studies and issue indicators on the permissible maximum level of pollution in industrial parks. To quickly form a contingent of officials who are trained in managing the environment in industrial parks.

- In the process of industrial restructuring, priority must be given to developing clean and environmentally friendly industries. To develop and strongly promote the use of appropriate and advanced environmental protection technology and equipment; to formulate projects with full and detailed justification of measures to control pollution and protect the environment.

- To create and develop high-tech parks. To promulgate environmental safety and protection standards for application to the industries, particularly those of oil and gas exploitation and processing, electricity, electronics, and car and motorcycle manufacture.

- To gradually increase the proportion of investment in developing clean technology.

- To form a rational economic structure, ensuring an ever-increasing ratio of clean technology

3. Regarding the technical and technological aspects:

- To prevent pollution caused by new industrial establishments by improving the environmental impact appraisal and assessment process, particularly laying down the requirement that the environmental impact assessments must be completed before the investment licensing.

- To minimize pollution caused by production, business and service activities of the existing establishments. To strictly handle establish-ments which cause serious environmental pollution, forcing them to install pollution-controlling and -treating equipment, to upgrade or renew production technology, relocate their sections, all at once or one after another, out of densely populated areas and, as the highest penalty, stopping their production, business and service activities. Annually, to inventory and re-assess seriously polluting establishments nationwide, striving to control pollution.

- To conduct an environmental impact assessment of medium- and large-scale mines nationwide and report on the environmental management situation in mining and related processing industries. Those mines causing the most serious pollution shall be compelled to make investment to reduce the degree of pollution to an accepted level or shall be subject to closure. Professional agencies of provincial/municipal People's Committees shall conduct environmental impact assessments of small-scale mining activities as well as processing activities within their respective provinces or cities. All new mining projects shall be screened carefully and obliged to conduct detailed environmental impact assessments. In particular, they shall have to review and evaluate mining and processing technologies, the use and discharge of chemicals, maintenance of refuse-dumping sites and infrastructure construction.

4. Sustainable development of some branches which have special impacts on the environment:

Some economic branches such as energy, mining, construction, communication and transport, tourism have strong impacts on the environment. As a result, they must formulate soon action programs in order to ensure sustainable development, attaching importance to the application of advanced mining and processing technologies that enable the saving of natural resources and reduction of discharged waste and pollution, encouraging the use of different kinds of renewable energy and improvement of the ecological environment in mining areas.

Energy constitutes a key industry of the economy and also one of those industries which exert the strongest impact on the environment since coal mining, oil and gas exploitation on the continental shelf are activities that produce and use fuel and energy while causing large volumes of waste.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To strengthen legal bases for energy production, trading and consumption activities and for environmental protection. To consolidate the system of energy management agencies, enhance the capability of formulating energy development plannings and plans.

- To select optimal technologies for producing and using energy of all types, choose policy instruments, formulate development programs in order to implement the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development.

- To support the work of research and development, transfer and application of energy systems which do not harm the environment, including sources of new energy and renewable energy. To encourage the application of technology that consumes less energy and actively implement energy saving programs. To give priority to developing renewable energy sources via financial incentives and other mechanisms and policies in the national energy development strategy.

- To devise specific technological and organizational management measures for each energy sub-industry to implement programs and projects on reducing negative environmental impacts caused by energy production, trading and use activities.

- To actively participate in international cooperation and exchange activities under the United Nations' 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Changes which Vietnam signed on November 16, 1994 and is now a member of this Convention. To import and apply advanced foreign technologies to coal mining, washing and processing. To attract foreign capital and apply advanced foreign technologies to renovating and upgrading technologies in the coal industry

Minerals are non-renewable resources. A total of over 1,000 mines are now operating nationwide and excavating more than 50 types of different minerals. At present, due to lax management, unplanned exploitation has been relatively common, especially in small mines which are scattered in different localities. In addition to the waste of resources as a result of failing to collect all useful mineral contents, the exploitation by obsolete technology has caused forest loss, land erosion and slides, deposits in, and pollution of, rivers, springs and coastal areas.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To introduce economic, administrative instruments and legal sanctions aimed at enforcing the Law on Minerals in a more determined and efficient manner.

- To consolidate the mineral resource management system at the central level and in localities. To formulate a unified planning for using mineral resources and environmental protection.

- To renovate mining, sorting and processing technologies to make full use of mineral resources and protect the environment. To conduct research into technologies using low-content ores in order to thoroughly utilize minerals in mines and at the same time to reduce waste soil and stone, narrowing down waste-dumping sites. To seek measures to recover useful substances from waste ore-dumping sites for cleaning the environment and saving natural resources.

- To organize a rational mining process, end the situation of exploiting easy mines first while skipping difficult ones, which badly affects the mineral-mining monitoring, evaluation and planning. To limit then soon proceed to prohibit spontaneous and unplanned mining activities.

- For mineral resources in river beds, it is necessary to zone off the mining areas, refraining from causing land slides and flow change.

- To increase investment in restoration, rehabilitation and improvement of the ecological environment in mining areas.

The system of technical infrastructures for road, railway, waterway and air transportation has been expanded and improved, creating favorable conditions for a rapid growth in transportation services, thus meeting the production, business and movement demands of the society, the industrialization cause as well as people's lives. The concentration on the construction of many transport infrastructural works in the coming time will create a better environmental landscape and transportation conditions, thereby actively contributing to the cause of national industrialization and modernization and improving people’s lives. Nevertheless, transportation also poses some challenges to sustainable development:

- A proportion of population must be relocated due to ground clearance for project execution and resettled, leading to a change in their living conditions; some cultivated land will be lost.

- The danger of air, dust, noise, river and marine pollution will increase.

- Since the construction of transport infrastructure absorbs a large volume of investment capital, of which the majority are foreign loans, the debt burden of the future generations will increase.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities should be carried out:

- To establish a system of synchronous policies for sustainable development in transport, including policies on land use, infrastructure development, construction of the public transportation network and encouragement of the private sector's participation in developing transportation, the use of transport means which consume less energy and discharge less polluting waste.

- To plan the transportation network in line with the planning on ecological areas and nature conservation zones in order to secure the development of the technical infrastructure system and the increased provision of services in harmony with regional economic development and environmental protection.

- To focus on developing the mass transit networks in large urban centers. To use economic and administrative instruments to encourage the habit of using of mass transit services. To limit the development of individuals' means of transport which consume a lot of fuel, wastefully use natural resources and pollute the environment. At the same time, to encourage the invention and widespread introduction of environmentally friendly means of transport.

- To rapidly develop the rural transportation network to well serve socio-economic development and people's daily life, especially in mountainous, deep-lying and remote areas.

- To propagate, educate about, and disseminate traffic and traffic safety legislation to reduce traffic accidents.

In the process of renewing economic mechanisms, trade is the field that sees the fastest growth rate. Besides positive impacts on socio-economic aspects, international economic integration and trade liberalization, trade has increased the danger of damaging the sustainability of development:

- Presently, Vietnam exports mainly crude and preliminarily processed products, although it has recorded initial positive changes in the commodity structure along the direction of increasing the volume of processed products. Promoting exports means an increase in the exploitation of natural resources. Unless natural resources are protected and renewed and raw materials and materials are gradually processed in a more intensive and refined manner, natural resources will be rapidly exhausted, resulting in environmental overload and degradation.

- The import of commodities containing toxic and hard-to-decay substances also increases the volume of waste.

- The import of second-hand and obsolete supplies and equipment not only constitutes a factor which causes environmental pollution, but also hinders the raising of labor productivity and production and business efficiency and harms the health of the community.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To formulate market strategies aiming to satisfy the demands of domestic markets, and stimulate the formation of rational consumption patterns.

- To consolidate the legal bases for, and the apparatus of State management over, trade and markets in order to develop the domestic market and expand external trade relations.

- To formulate long-term plans for and restructure export commodities along the direction of increasing the processed portions and added value in export commodities and services, gradually reducing the export of crude and preliminarily processed natural resources.

- To closely monitor the import of goods, technological chains and equipment to minimize waste and, at the same time, encourage the import of environmentally friendly technological chains and equipment.

Vietnam’s tourism potential is great. Tourism development has created a lot of jobs and revenue, helped restore many cultural traditions and embellish a number of landscapes and historical as well as cultural relics. On the other hand, it also affects sustainable development.

- Hotels and facilities in service of tourism and entertainment have "boomed" without careful planning, which, in many cases, have destroyed historical relics and natural landscapes.

- Some sensitive bio-diverse ecological systems such as national parks, nature conservation zones and coastal areas have been encroached upon and greatly changed.

- The volume of polluting waste discharged by large concentrated tourist resorts is on the rise, particularly in some coastal tourist resorts.

- The socio-cultural environment has deteriorated due to the impact of imported way of living. The social evils of prostitution, drug addiction, social diseases and HIV/AIDS are the direct consequences of tourism development.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To integrate cultural and social development and environmental protection into tourism development and business plans. To consolidate the apparatus of State management over tourism and integrate sustainable development requirements into the work of State management over tourism.

- To conduct environmental impact assessment for all tourism development projects.

- To encourage the development of ecological tourism. To support population communities to participate not only in the management of tourism in their respective localities in order to increase economic benefits, but also in monitoring and minimizing negative impacts and risks of tourism on the environment, cultural tradition, and living conditions of local people.

- To increase investment in, and promote communication and education to improve people's awareness about, conserving natural, historical and cultural heritages of the nation. To mobilize wide participation by administrations at all levels, tourism enterprises and population communities in developing ecological and cultural tourism and protecting heritages and the environment.

IV. Sustainable agricultural and rural development

Agriculture, forestry and fishery are the most important economic sectors in Vietnam. At present, they produce nearly a quarter of GDP. In the 1990s, remarkable progress was recorded in Vietnam's agriculture and rural areas. Food production, especially paddy production, has continuously increased both in acreage and yield, ensuring national food security and making Vietnam to become one of the top rice exporters in the world. Intensive farming has become a leading direction in agriculture with the application of new scientific and technological achievements to creation of new varieties, farming processes and product processing. Agricultural structure and rural economy have transitioned towards market-oriented diversification. However, there remain not a few challenges to sustainable agricultural and rural development. They are:

- Land and fields in rural areas have been divided into small, fragmented plots, unsuitable for the requirements of large-scale, concentrated commodity production.

- The process of agricultural mechanization and the application of advanced production processes and techniques has been slow. Production in the main agricultural areas is performed manually in almost all steps, leading to very low labor productivity in agriculture.

- Industrial impacts, especially impacts exerted by the agricultural produce-processing industry, on agriculture, forestry and fishery have still been very weak.

- The agricultural produce market remains unstable with price changes that are unfavorable to farmers.

- The reduction of diverse gene sources of plant and animal varieties due to the tendency of replacing traditional varieties with new ones has caused more difficulties to the pest and disease prevention and control. The casual use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and growth stimulants has showed signs of exceeding the permissible limit for an ecological environment, leading to soil depletion, water source pollution and harmful impacts on human health.

- Cottage and handicraft industries and craft villages have developed strongly in many rural areas, having created around 2 million jobs and increased the population's income. However, obsolete technology, weak competitiveness and the lack of outlets constitute main causes that hinder stable development in this sector. Besides positive impacts, due to unplanned development without sufficient investment in the natural resource and environmental protection, this small production sector has polluted the living environment of rural communities, especially in some craft villages where production sites are intermingled with residential areas in the same populous zone.

- The exploitation of land and underground resources, forests, fauna and flora in rural areas has resulted in the waste of a lot of valuable non-renewable resources.

1. Regarding the legislative aspects:

- To improve the legal framework and synchronous policies relating to agricultural development; the system of management and protection of land and water resources, plant and animal varieties, and other natural resources used in agriculture, forestry and fishery; advanced farming methods and the protection of agricultural and rural environment.

- To enhance the coordination between branch, agricultural, rural and environmental management agencies and other management bodies. To provide further training for managers at central and local levels to improve their management capacity in sustainable agricultural development.

- To formulate rural development plannings, encourage rural urbanization in a proper manner via financial, technological development and population policies with a view to creating sustainable development in both urban and rural areas, establishing rational labor distribution, exchange and interaction relationships between urban and rural areas, leading to a more comfortable material as well as civilized and progressive cultural and spiritual life in rural areas.

2. Regarding the economic aspects:

- To speed up the process of field land transformation in the areas where field land is fragmented and scattered; gathering and swapping land lots to facilitate large-scale, modern farming methods.

- To formulate and implement programs for the raising of land productivity and the rational use of water resources in localities. To apply the combined agriculture- forestry and combined agriculture-forestry-fishery production systems suitable to the ecological conditions of each region for integrated and efficient use of water and land resources and climate.

- To expand the production of, and the market for, clean agricultural products, pay attention to product quality control in order to build consumer confidence in agricultural product and food hygiene and safety.

- To develop the industry of processing husbandry and aquaculture products, edible oil, sugar, vegetables and fruits in order to increase food and foodstuff categories, production scale and efficiency. To improve the environmental quality of the processing industry. To improve the systems of preserving warehouses, food processing and distribution at all levels, especially those for national food security.

- To step up the process of restructuring the rural economy, plant and animal varieties and employing rural labor. To diversify the structure of production and business to create more jobs on the spot, increase income and redistribute rural labor, thus facilitating people's stable settlement and reducing the pressure of rural-to-urban migration.

- To consolidate and further improve the existing system of technical services in agriculture, forestry, husbandry and aquaculture. To establish a system providing guidance on agricultural product production and consumption.

- To build rural infrastructure, develop irrigation facilities to expand areas under proactive irrigation. To tackle the issue of providing clean water for people and livestock in poor population regions.

- Development of non-agricultural trades and enterprises in rural areas must be combined with the construction and expansion of industrial parks with sufficient infrastructure to mitigate possibilities for causing pollution. To conduct research to establish the networks of organizations which provide consultancy, training and technical support for the development of industries, cottage and handicraft industries, in rural areas and for the development of traditional craft villages. To take initiative in planning and building clusters of craft villages, industrial, handicraft and cottage industrial parks in rural areas for economic development and at the same time abatement of environmental pollution caused by these trades.

3. Regarding the technical and technological aspects:

- To research into and apply biotechnology to developing plant and animal varieties which are of high yield and quality, pest-resistant, non-degraded and harmless to bio-diversity. To establish high-quality seed production centers, and selectively import and carefully evaluate foreign plant and animal varieties.

- To develop the production of organic, biological and slowly dissolved fertilizers for developing ecological agriculture.

- To extend the organic agricultural production, universalize the integrated pest management (IPM) process.

- To preserve local plant and animal variety gene sources.

- To strongly promote research into and development of advanced technology for preserving and processing agricultural, forestry and aquatic products.

V. Regional and local sustainable development

Vietnam has 64 provinces and centrally-run cities, divided into eight economic-geographical regions. Provinces nationwide have formulated long-term development plannings up to 2010. Plannings for each region have also been formulated. However, provincial and regional plannings have not yet integrated. Regions do not constitute a State management level. As a result, the formulation of development, development impact monitoring and assessment plans at the regional level is absent. Yet sustainable development issues normally cover a large territorial scope, requiring coordination among many provinces and cities.

Regional development strategies must, on the one hand, give priority to key economic regions which are capable of developing by leaps and bounds, and on the other hand, render support for less developed regions with more difficult conditions in order to create a certain balance in spatial development, gradually narrowing the social gaps, then proceeding to reduce economic gap in the coming years. Key economic development regions will play the role of locomotives or engines that pull the more disadvantaged mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions.

To ensure the sustainability of regional planning and regional development guidance process, it is necessary to renovate management systems along the direction of:

1. Enhancing the sustainable development capacity, awareness and responsibility of local administrations at all levels. Local administrations are directly involved in providing guidance on socio-economic development plans and natural resource use in service of the interests of their localities. They fully understand environmental impacts of socio-economic development projects in their localities and, therefore, are the most appropriate level to make plannings and plans for sustainable development in their localities.

2. All regions bring into full play their comparative advantages for development, creating their own strengths by applying an open economic structure in close association with domestic and foreign market demands. The State shall further promote the key economic regions’ role of locomotives for rapid growth and at the same time create conditions for, and make more appropriate investment in, disadvantaged regions. Unifying national, regional, provincial and municipal plannings to create their direct linkages in production, trade, investment, technical assistance and human resources. Raising the population's intellectual level and training human resources to meet the socio-economic development requirements of different regions and areas.

3. Widely involving mass organizations and people of all strata in the process of selecting and implementing local development plans based on the principle of "people know, people discuss, people do, people examine."

4. Enhancing the coordination among State management agencies in order to ensure inter-branch, inter-region and inter-territory development requirements.

5. To ensure regional and local sustainable development, it is necessary to formulate both regional and local sustainable development programs. On the basis of the analyses of natural potentials, human resources, the comparative advantages and disadvantages to development and the analysis of the economic, social development and environmental protection situation, local sustainable development programs will identify branch and regional development objectives and directions according to the sustainable development viewpoints and work out a system of measures to realize socio-economic development objectives, contents and directions, including policy measures related to the sustainable use of natural resources and environmental protection.

Part 3

PRIORITY SOCIAL AREAS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Efforts shall be concentrated on hunger eradication and poverty reduction and social progress and justice improvement

Over the past 10 years, Vietnam has recorded enormous achievements in hunger eradication and poverty reduction. Entering the new millennium, the poor still account for a considerable proportion of the population in Vietnam. According to the current national poverty standards, the number of poor households in Vietnam in early 2001 was 2.8 million, accounting for over 17% of the population (if international standards are applied, poor household percentage is 32%). In addition, the living standards of a large proportion of the population are barely above the poverty line. The poor have less access to basic social services and are vulnerable to many risks in life, such as natural disasters, crop failure, sickness, etc. The possibility of relapsing into poverty is very high, leading to low sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction achievements. At present, there are still over 2,300 communes meeting with particular difficulties, accounting for about 22% of the total nationwide. The disparity of living standards among regions and social groups is not so big but it is on the increase. Resources mobilized for hunger eradication and poverty reduction are still too limited, compared to the demand.

In the coming decades, Vietnam will achieve social progress and justice by focusing on the following major objectives:

- To eradicate hunger and reduce poverty.

- To narrow the socio-economic development gaps between rural and urban areas, between mountainous and lowland regions.

- To support ethnic minority people in economic development and natural resource and environmental protection activities.

- To heighten women's status in socio-economic development and environmental protection activities;

- To provide conditions for vulnerable social groups to integrate into the community.

To attain the above-mentioned objectives, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

1. To consider hunger eradication and poverty reduction the central task of the socio-economic development strategy, concentrating on supporting and creating conditions for poor people and households to have the means and materials for production and provision of services, ensure food security at household level and raise their income so that they themselves can overcome their poverty; create opportunities for the poor to have access to basic social services, especially education, healthcare, and clean water; minimizing risks of natural disasters, storms and floods as well as negative impacts of the economic reform process, guarantee the sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction. At the same time to support poor communes in developing their infrastructure, production and services in order to gradually narrow the development and living standard gaps between regions and strata of people.

2. To concentrate efforts on assisting poor localities to develop their economies through restructuring their economies, crops and livestock of high economic values, developing commodity production and restructuring labor along the direction of gradually increasing the proportion of labor in industries and services and reducing the proportion of labor in agriculture.

3. To closely combine the hunger eradication and poverty reduction program with socio-economic development, environmental protection and improvement programs and plans. To build and re-plan population clusters; encourage people to enrich themselves in a lawful and legitimate manner while accelerating hunger eradication and poverty reduction, thus quickly raising the living standards of people in poor communes and regions, gradually narrowing the living standard gaps between regions, ethnic groups, strata of people in order to improve the quality of life.

4. In the coming time, to focus on hunger eradication and poverty reduction in the most disadvantaged areas (communes with exceptional difficulties, former revolutionary bases, border mountainous areas, islands, deep-lying and remote areas and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities); give priority to poor women and children.

5. To well implement social support and natural disaster prevention and combat policies, reduce risks for disadvantaged groups via the mechanism of socialization and joint efforts of both the State and people. To focus on improving an appropriate social security network to satisfy pressing and urgent needs of vulnerable groups, people with economic difficulties, victims of wars and natural disasters, helping them integrate themselves into the community, preventing and restricting the relapse into chronic hunger and poverty. This is also an important condition to ensure social progress, justice, stability and sustainable development.

6. To encourage the poor communities to bring into play their internal strengths so that they themselves can strive to escape their poverty and, with supports from the Government and other communities, ensure the sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction. To intensify and diversify resources for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, promote internal strengths as the major source combined with effective use of external resources from international cooperation in order to accelerate hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

7. To adopt policies and mechanisms to encourage the application of scientific and technological advances and the transfer of appropriate technology to poor communes and people for socio-economic development, job generation and income increase for the poor.

II. Further reducing population growth rate and creating jobs for laborers

Vietnam has a large population, and its labor force is abundant, young and highly dynamic in economic activities. In recent decades, Vietnam has actively implemented population and family planning strategies, aimed mainly at controlling the natural population growth rate, and has recorded good achievements. Basically, Vietnam has brought the population growth rate under control and, therefore, begun to mitigate the population pressure on development.

Despite successes gained in controlling the population growth rate, population issues, including size, structure, quality and distribution, are major challenges to sustainable development in Vietnam in many years ahead:

- Population growth is the prime cause of the reduction of forests, exhaustive extraction of natural resources and environmental degradation.

- Laborers still lack employment and the quality of the labor force remains very low.

- Rapid population growth leads to the situation in which demand for healthcare and education exceeds supply, resulting in a series of problems such as a high rate of child malnutrition; underdeveloped height and weight resulting in degradation of the race, an increasing rate of school dropouts, an increase of inequality in education between regions and ethnic groups, slow improvement of the educational quality.

The following priority activities should be carried out to overcome the above said challenges from population issues:

1. Maintaining a steady reduction in the birth rate and improve population quality in terms of physical, mental and spiritual strengths:

The results of birth reduction between now and 2010 will have a decisive significance in stabilizing the population size at a high or low level. Vietnam's population is expected to stabilize by the middle of the 21^st century. The population size can be stable at a high level of over 122 million or a low level of under 113 million. To achieve this objective, the following tasks should be performed:

- Strengthening, consolidating and stabilizing the organizational system and the contingent of population officials at all levels, especially at the grassroots level, so that they can be able to organize, manage and implement population and development programs. Further enhancing the leadership of the Party and administrations at all levels in population work.

- Promoting the work of communication and education for raising awareness and change behaviors related to population, reproductive health and family planning. Concentrating on regions with socio-economic difficulties and groups with limited knowledge. Expanding and improving the quality of population education and communication modes inside and outside the school.

- Improving the quality of reproductive healthcare and family planning services with practical contents suitable to the primary healthcare framework, minimizing unwanted pregnancies, quickly reducing abortions and contributing to improving the population quality.

- Raising the capacity of gathering, processing and supplying population information and data in order to meet the requirements of evaluating the results of implementation of population strategies and programs; ensuring the integration of population data into policy and plan making in order to adjust socio-economic development and population distribution according to population changes.

- Raising people's intellectual level, enhancing the family's role and practicing gender equality to help improve the physical, intellectual and spiritual quality of the population.

- Mobilizing the combined strengths of the whole society for the population work, provide all favorable conditions for each individual, family and community to voluntarily and actively participate in the population work. Formulating and completing the system of population and development policies, which create the legal bases and driving force for the implementation process.

- Ensuring sufficient funding and operational conditions for the population work. Allocating and efficiently using resources for the population work.

2. Job generation:

Job generation constitutes a decisive factor for bringing into full play the human resources in economic development, stabilizing the society and making it healthy thus meeting the people’s urgent demands.

The population within the working age bracket will increase from 45.4 million now to approximately 60 million by 2010. The objective set for job generation is to create millions of new jobs each year, making good use of the underemployed labor force, especially in the time of slacken agricultural work in rural areas and in agriculture, and, at the same time, restructuring labor to suit the economic structure in the process of national industrialization and modernization. To achieve this objective, the following tasks should be performed:

- Restructuring the economy along the direction of rapidly increasing the proportion of industry, construction and services, reducing that of agriculture in order to establish an economic structure capable of attracting more labor and creating more jobs.

- Improving and renovating mechanisms for investment capital mobilization, use and management along the direction of diversifying capital mobilization forms and regularly adjusting interest rates and simplifying procedures for deposit and withdrawal of savings in order to mobilize more and more idle capital from the population. Accelerating equitization, establishing and well operating the capital market in order to quickly and easily mobilize and circulate capital between economic sectors and branches. Renovating the structure of the use of State investment capital, increasing medium- and long-term capital sources, providing capital supports for people, especially farmers in job creation and economic restructuring.

- Increasing the degree to which products are processed so as to create more jobs and expand the labor market. Concentrating on technological renovation, improving work skills, establishing, and developing the capacity of, processing industries in order to increase the exported volumes and proportions of processed products; reducing the export of crude materials. Seeking and expanding markets, especially considering the promotion of the labor and expert export a spearhead. It is necessary to provide good vocational training so that more laborers can be sent to work overseas.

- Establishing, developing and effectively regulating the domestic labor market. Establishing and well managing the labor market information system. Encouraging the development of an employment service system that operates transparently and effectively under the market mechanism.

- Gradually improving the legal corridor for labor and employment in order to develop healthy labor relations, protecting lawful and legitimate interests of employees and employers.

- Developing the educational and vocational training system, strengthening the linkages between the educational and vocational training system and the labor market as well as the employment promotion system.

III. Directing the urbanization and migration process for sustainable development of urban centers, rational regional population and labor distribution

Since early 1990s, the urbanization process has taken places at a rapid speed. In 1999, the population census showed the urban population at 17.9 million, accounting for 23.45% of the national population. At present, there are 623 urban centers (including five centrally-run cities, 82 provincial cities and towns, and 537 district towns).

The urbanization process now faces the following challenges:

- Planning of, and investment in, urban technical infrastructure in most Vietnam's urban centers lag behind urban socio-economic growth rates, failing to satisfy environmental protection requirements. Particularly, the water supply and drainage, solid waste collection and treatment systems, and traffic systems are poor and backward.

- Although urban technical infrastructure in big cities has received good investment for renovation and upgrading, generally it is very weak and fails to satisfy the standards of a modern city. Environmental pollution, urban ecological imbalance, and destruction of natural scenery become common concerns.

- There has been no integration of environmental protection planning into urban planning, which increases urban environmental problems, creating difficulties in overcoming their consequences. The clearest evidence is the construction of polluting factories within densely populated areas which lack adequate infrastructure and waste treatment services, thus causing serious environmental pollution.

- The rapid urbanization rate and increasing migration of people from rural to urban areas have increased pressure on housing and urban environmental sanitation.

1. Reviewing the overall plannings for ensuring sustainable development of urban centers:

In the context of accelerated national industrialization and modernization, urban centers play a particularly important role in the cause of economic, social and cultural development, security and defense maintenance and environmental protection.

The objective of the overall planning on urban development is to construct a relatively complete national system of urban centers that have modern economic, social and technical infrastructure and a clean urban environment and are rationally distributed and developed nationwide, ensuring that each urban center can bring into full play its strengths based on its position and functions for stable, sustainable and perpetual development.

The urban development overall planning must be reviewed, with special consideration given to the principles of sustainable development, in order to ensure sustainable development for not only the entire national system of urban centers but also for each urban center.

Vietnam's urban development overall planning for the 1997-2020 period was approved by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 10/1998/QD-TTg of January 23, 1998. Accordingly, the formation and development of urban centers in the country in the coming time must follow the following major viewpoints:

- Formulation and development of urban centers shall be compatible with the production force distribution and development level.

- Big, medium and small urban centers shall be rationally distributed among regions in combination with the accelerated urbanization of rural areas and the building of new-style rural areas, thus creating balanced development among the three regions of northern, central and southern Vietnam, gradually narrowing the too big gap in socio-economic development levels of different areas.

- Urban centers shall have synchronous infrastructure, which may be of appropriate or modern level, depending on the requirements of exploitation and use of different quarters within urban centers.

- Stable, sustainable and perpetual development shall be based on a rational organization of the ecological environment and environmental protection.

- Renovation of old works shall be combined with construction of new ones; preservation of national identity and national traditions must be combined with the application of new scientific and technological advances to the renovation, building and modernization of urban centers in such a way suitable to Vietnam's practical conditions.

- Formulation and development of urban centers shall be closely combined with maintenance of security, defense, social safety and order.

- All capital sources shall be mobilized for rehabilitation and construction of urban centers; it must be guaranteed that urban centers shall be developed in strict compliance with the approved planning and law provisions.

2. Minimizing environmental impacts of urbanization through the following activities:

- To gradually upgrade the system of construction environmental sanitation standards in city and housing designs and plans. To establish and develop monitoring systems to ensure good environmental sanitation for disease prevention in urban construction.

- To intensify the gathering and treatment of solid wastes discharged from daily life and industry in urban cities and industrial parks, seeking dumping sites far from residential areas or applying recycling or composting technology to waste treatment.

- To strengthen, and enhance the capacity of, agencies in charge of managing and ensuring urban environmental sanitation.

- To set up inter-branch committees for management of urban environmental sanitation, headed by leaders of administrations of corresponding levels.

3. Orientating migration flows by regions and rural-urban areas

Migration plays the role of population redistribution to improve efficiency in using natural resources, capital, labor, etc. The precondition for migration is the differences in employment opportunity, living standards and development conditions across regions and territories. Migration is largely due to economic motivations. Particularly, some ethnic minority groups migrate because of their shifting cultivation practices.

The objective of orienting migration flows is to redistribute the population and labor, use resources in the best way to meet the requirements of the development process.

Priority activities to achieve this objective are as follows:

a/ Implementing the strategy on comprehensive economic development as the most sustainable instrument to successfully adjust migration flows:

- To develop rural areas along the direction of modernization in parallel with protecting and preserving fine rural traditions; diversify highly profitable trades; give priority to development investment in poverty-stricken areas where many emigrate. To promote the rural urbanization process so as to accelerate economic restructuring and labor division process in rural areas. To encourage rural inhabitants to create jobs in their native places. The State will provide incentives by supporting infrastructure develop-ment and lending capital for production, business and services.

- To develop urban centers rationally by encouraging the development of medium and small cities.

- To reduce disparities between regions, rural and urban areas, and population communities, facilitate sustainable social integration.

- To promote the proper and rational use of natural resources available in deep-lying and remote areas to well serve socio-economic development of population communities there.

- To formulate appropriate management policies and measures in line with development rules and levels of the country.

b/ Renovating and organizing the implemen-tation of migration policies: For each type of migration, local administrations at all levels should synchronously implement various economic, social, technical and managerial policies and measures to develop production, increase employment opportunities and incomes and develop infrastructure without exacerbating social and environmental problems in immigration localities while contributing to the improvement of migrants' working and living conditions. Organizing the fulfillment of migrants' obligations towards the new communities where they migrate to and protecting their legitimate rights concerning employment, living conditions and other interests in the labor market.

IV. Improving the quality of education to raise the population's intellectual level and professional qualifications to meet the country's development requirements

Vietnam's education and training have made significant progresses in recent years. Educational and training scopes are being expanded at all educational levels and disciplines to satisfy people's increasing learning demands. At present, nearly 94% of the population aged 15 and above is literate; all provinces and cities across the country have reached national standards of illiteracy elimination and primary education universalization; the population has an average number of schooling years of 7.3; about 8 million technically skilled laborers have been trained, accounting for 18.3% of the total 43.8 million laborers nationwide.

However, training and education in Vietnam still reveal many weaknesses in the following aspects:

- The quality of general education and training at all educational levels remains low. Essential conditions to guarantee quality are inadequate, for example, there are not enough teachers, the structure of teaching staff is imbalanced, and teachers' qualifications are low, teaching methodologies are backward, and teaching aids are insufficient.

- Efficiency of education and training is low. The percentage of trained laborers is also low, and there have been no effective measures to train manpower in order to increase the competitiveness of the economy, to develop rural areas and to assist the economic restructuring and labor distribution. University and vocational training fails to meet the social demand of labor.

- Manpower training structure is irrational in terms of levels, trades and regions. The education and training development gaps among regions in the country have not been narrowed.

- Some negative phenomena in education and training have not been precluded in a timely manner, resulting in serious consequences.

The task of education and training as included in the sustainable development strategy is to strive to continuously improve people's intellectual level, create equal opportunity for people to access education, continuously develop individuals' capability and improve the quality of human resources - a decisive factor for socio-economic development in the next decade.

Priority activities to perform the above task are as follows:

1. To renovate curriculum, content and methodology in education and training to improve the quality of comprehensive education for the young generation, raising the practicality, skills, self-study capability, attaching importance to social and humanity knowledge, supplementing modern scientific and technological achievements suitable to learners' perceptibility and reaching the general educational level in regional countries and worldwide.

2. To assist provinces meeting with difficulties in attaining the objective of junior-high education universalization by 2010 by supporting teacher training to supplement teachers to 10 most difficult provinces; supplementing funding to construct schools and boarding schools and procure teaching aids.

3. To train manpower for rural areas to provide farmers with basic knowledge about rural trades, creating conditions for farmers to diversify production and business activities so that they can create more jobs and increase their income. This activity comprises the establishment of job training networks in rural areas, design of vocational training curricula and provision of vocational trainers for farmers.

4. To establish and develop systems to train manpower in service of labor export in order to earn foreign currencies and create more jobs.

5. To steadily develop education in ethnic minority and disadvantaged regions, striving to reduce educational development gaps between regions by taking such measures as establishing appropriate school and classroom networks in ethnic minority and mountainous regions; strengthening and renovating teacher training schools to improve the quality and efficiency of teacher-training, especially the training of teachers for mountainous and ethnic minority areas; implementing policies on rational financial allocation and support from the central and local State budgets.

6. To mobilize contributions from the whole society and all people for education, diversify education and training forms, expand financial sources and tap all social resources for education development.

7. To implement education on environmental protection and sustainable development in schools. To universally disseminate the knowledge on sustainable development in order to improve people’s knowledge and awareness, serving as a basis for mobilizing all people to participate in sustainable development.

V. Quantitatively developing and qualitatively improving healthcare services, improving working conditions and environmental sanitation

In recent years, the work of people's health care and protection has recorded encouraging achievements. Grassroots medical networks have been strengthened and developed. As a result, primary healthcare has been well provided in many localities, including those in mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions and islands. Active disease and epidemic prevention and combat have been carried out vigorously. Many dangerous epidemics have been controlled and checked such as diarrhea, plague and malaria. Medical examination and treatment systems have been invested and upgraded and, as a result, have actually generated new progress. Many high technologies in diagnosis and treatment have been successfully and widely applied. Mother and child health protection and family planning have seen positive changes. Traditional medical and pharmaceutical systems have been consolidated and developed, playing a positive role in the treatment of common diseases and many other chronic ones at low costs suitable for the poor and the people in rural and mountainous regions.

People's health is increasingly improving. Vietnam has achieved overall healthcare targets, which are much better than other countries with the same per capita average income, and contribute to increasing the country's human development index considerably.

Nevertheless, the following challenges still exist in the healthcare domain:

- Equity is difficult to achieve in healthcare since the market economy is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, while State budget allocations to healthcare remain limited. Policies on medical insurance, hospital charges and medical examination and treatment for the poor have made some initial positive impacts, but also revealed a number of limitations.

- As people's living standards ameliorate, demands for healthcare increase and diversify. Initial investment has been made in high-technology development in the form of private, joint-venture or semi-public healthcare services but still recorded limited results.

- The current disease pattern has the specifics of both a developing country and an industrialized country. Natural calamities and catastrophes are unpredictable challenges and, when occurring, they often cause a lot of human and property losses, including the material bases of the medical sector.

- Subjectively, the medical sector is facing a problem that the qualifications of both professional and managerial staff do not satisfy the requirements of the sector's development in the new context; medical establishments have insufficient and obsolete facilities and equipment; the volume of medicines manufactured by domestic pharmaceutical establishments fail to meet the consumption demand; medicine prices are high due to the absence of the State's medicine management mechanism, leading to low quality and efficiency of people's health care and protection activities.

The objectives of the strategy for people's health care and protection in the 2001-2010 period are as follows: To continuously reduce diseases and improve health, provide all people with primary healthcare services and conditions to access and use quality healthcare services. To enable the entire population to live in a safe community and in a clean environment in order to develop themselves well, physically and intellectually. To reduce morbidity rates, improve physical strength, raise life expectancy and develop the race.

1. Satisfying the people's basic healthcare demands:

- To strengthen and consolidate the medical system along the direction of diversifying medical services and socializing the participation, with public health units playing the leading role. To establish systems for providing comprehensive healthcare services, which concentrate on providing basic medical and primary healthcare services. The State ensures increased budget allocations to develop the medical system so that it can meet the above-mentioned demands, especially giving priority to policy beneficiaries, the poor and high-risk groups, and to investment in medicine-manufacturing activities.

- To improve and upgrade physical facilities and working conditions in communal and ward clinics. To train community health workers and medical technicians so that they can well perform the medical treatment and healthcare work and carry out preventive medicine activities.

- To increase investment in upgrading provincial and district medical examination and treatment systems.

- To diversify medical treatment and examination activities in medical establishments of the State and branches as well as foreign-invested, semi-public and private clinics.

- To gradually develop hospitals into centers that provide disease prevention, healthcare and functional rehabilitation services in order to improve the integrability for higher benefits and efficiency in the use of medical resources and services.

- To intensify the combination of healthcare and family planning services and, at the same time, improve the quality of family planning and reproductive healthcare services.

- To develop and universalize medical technology suitable to rural areas in order to satisfy rural people's basic demands for medical treatment and healthcare.

- To provide basic healthcare services, regarding them as an important foundation based on the three-tier medical network for both disease prevention and treatment. To intensify disease prevention and treatment, settle outstanding health problems and promote the functional rehabilitation work.

- To intensify and develop the grassroots medical systems from district hospitals to commune and village clinics, even to households, develop family physicians and train appropriate medical manpower.

- To strengthen and improve the quarantine work, including border medical quarantine. To encourage people to actively participate in preventing social evils, drug addiction and prostitution.

2. Developing preventive medicine, preventing and controlling contagious diseases:

- To formulate plans for monitoring, gathering and treating domestic and hospital wastes, especially hazardous wastes. The implementation of such plans must be supervised by environmental protection agencies.

- To strengthen and enhance activities of monitoring, preventing and controlling contagious diseases. To consolidate and develop the system of stations and units monitoring such contagious diseases as dengue fever, Japanese meningitis, malaria, cholera, etc., developing epidemic surveillance, ensuring measures to effectively prevent and restrain epidemic diffusion and stamp out epidemics.

- To strengthen the prevention and control of non-infectious diseases.

- To maintain and intensify the expanded vaccination.

- To intensify HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities.

- To prevent and control intestinal contagious diseases and diseases transmitted via insects, diseases related to parasites.

- To control risk factors in the environment relating to contagious diseases.

- To intensify preventive medicine, improve people's health:

3. Reducing harms caused to people's health by environmental pollution:

- To step up the formulation and promulgation of policies and legal documents on environmental sanitation, food hygiene and safety; build up and promulgate branch and national environmental standards, consolidate and enhance the existing environmental monitoring systems and work out the overall planning on the national network of environmental observatories.

- To establish mechanisms for combining healthcare with environmental protection.

- To formulate national environmental health orientations.

- To manage and monitor the working environ-ment, prevent and control occupational diseases and occupation-related ones caused by toxic factors and pollution of the working environment.

4. Protecting high-risk groups:

- To step up pregnancy care, providing food and diet guidance, and offer a supplement of anti-anemia ferrite pills to women. To provide mothers with good healthcare combined with education on malnutrition prevention.

- To provide families with good nutritional education and practices. To accelerate socialization in order to mobilize all resources for implementing the program on children malnutrition prevention. To ensure a sufficient supply of vitamin A to infants aged between 6 - 36 months, especially high-risk groups.

- To maintain high rates of vaccination among children against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Part 4

PRIORITY AREAS IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND POLLUTION CONTROL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Prevention of soil degradation, efficient and sustainable use of land resources

Soil degradation is a prevalent trend in a large number of areas in Vietnam, especially in hilly and mountainous regions where three-quarters of the land fund is located. The main forms of soil degradation are erosion, wash-out, low fertility, nutritious imbalance, acidification, salinization, alumization, aridity, drainage and desertification, inundation, sweeping floods, land slides and collapse, and contamination.

Over 50% of land (3.2 million hectares) in the deltas and over 60% of land (13 million hectares) in hilly and mountainous regions suffer from problems related to soil degradation. In the delta, challenges to the soil environment are inundation, flooding, acidization, salinization, erosion and collapse of river banks and seashore, soil contamination and exhaustive exploitation of land fertility for short term benefits. In mountainous regions, there are many causes of soil degradation, but the main ones are ethnic people's primitive, backward farming methods, and wanton deforestation and forest burning. Soil degradation entails the degradation of flora and fauna populations, and per- capita agricultural land area tends to decrease at an alarming rate.

To combat soil degradation for efficient and sustainable use of land resources, Vietnam has been implementing proper policies, programs and projects such as signing land and forest assignment contracts with households, afforestation, combined agriculture and forestry, developing perennial trees on slopes, conservation and sustainable use of wetlands, river basin and riverbank belt management, etc. Some international activities to combat soil erosion have been conducted but on a very small scale.

Priority activities to combat soil degradation for efficient and sustainable use of land resources are as follows:

1. Regarding policy and legal aspects:

- To supplement, amend and perfect policies on land ownership and use right, and State management of land. To establish and effectively use land resource information systems.

- To plan and manage the use of land resources by all land users.

- To continue to formulate and promulgate policies and regulations on management of gradient land, river basin land and wetland.

- To better integrate national policies into international action plans for the prevention of degradation and the sustainable use of land.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To regulate population distribution and migration between regions in order to lessen the population pressure on land resources.

- To take suitable measures to ensure food security in mountainous regions, sedentarization, forest protection and development and soil erosion prevention.

- To formulate integrated programs to fertilize or "rejuvenate" agricultural land in populated delta regions.

- To study and apply agricultural, forestry and fishery production chains in different ecological regions with a view to ensuring both socio-economic development and environmental protection benefits.

3. Regarding technical aspects:

- To apply general technical (agronomic, biological, chemical, mech