On the afternoon of October 29, at the Cultural - Artistic Center of Kien Giang province, the People's Committee of Kien Giang province solemnly held the first session of the 4th Congress of Ethnic Minorities of Kien Giang province in 2024 (hereinafter referred to as the Congress).
The congress has the theme "Ethnic minority communities in Kien Giang province unite and are determined to promote digital transformation strategies to contribute to promoting advantages and potentials for integration and development".
According to the report at the Congress, the entire Kien Giang province has a population of over 1.7 million, including more than 261,000 ethnic minorities (accounting for 14.9% of the province's population). Kien Giang is the province with the third largest Khmer ethnic group in the Mekong Delta region, accounting for 13.19% (after Soc Trang and Tra Vinh provinces). The Chinese people account for 1.69%; other ethnic minorities (Cham, Tay, Nung...) account for 0.06% of the total population.
In the period of 2019 - 2024, the rural appearance of ethnic minority areas has many positive changes, all aspects of life have been improved, the poverty rate has decreased to 2.4%, near-poor to 3.64%.
Implementing credit policies with many central capital sources, the province has supported people to borrow capital to develop the economy - life, reduce poverty: supporting more than 6,000 households to borrow capital to develop production with an amount of more than 30.6 billion VND, other credit programs have lent nearly 20,000 people to borrow for production and business with an amount of nearly 240 billion VND.
Issued more than 357,000 health insurance cards to people in communes in difficult and extremely difficult areas in the province, with a budget of over 206 billion VND. Kien Giang province has allocated a budget of 250 billion VND to upgrade and expand 16 centralized water supply works to serve more than 6,900 households with clean water.
Currently, the province has 26 general schools at all levels teaching Khmer language to ethnic minority students. Every year, about 60 pagodas organize ethnic minority language teaching during the summer with about 240 classes and nearly 6,000 students attending. More than 3,400 students are ethnic minorities participating in vocational training and job creation.
Invested in the construction of 244 infrastructure works including bridges, rural roads, clinics, schools, irrigation systems, etc. with a budget of nearly 672 billion VND. Allocated over 1,360 billion VND to implement the National Target Program: sustainable poverty reduction; new rural construction; socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas. Up to now, the whole province has 37/41 communes in ethnic minority areas recognized as new rural communes.
The second working session of the 4th Congress of Ethnic Minorities of Kien Giang Province, 2024 will open tomorrow morning, October 30.