Prime Minister advises An Giang to focus on farming, tourism

Dubbed as the rice bowl in the Mekong delta, An Giang has applied scientific and technological advances on over 90 percent of its rice fields, thus harvesting an output of over 4 million tonnes of rice.

So far this year, the province greeted about 6.4 million tourists, earning VND2 trillion (US$90 million), showing increases of 2.4 percent and 31.5 percent from the same period last year.

“Local officials should adopt a new mindset in development and strongly yearn to promptly tackle existing weaknesses and get rich,” he said.

They should immediately prepare to launch socio-economic tasks for 2017. In the long run, they should focus on tapping internal waterway, allowing investors to get involved in developing vehicles and ports, he said.

In addition to that, An Giang should seek to improve its business and investment environment and spur the creation of start-ups and business of rural young people, he noted.

He advised the locality to concentrate on developing the rice-fish farming models to earn higher incomes and advertising its tourism products to keep tourists to stay longer.

An Giang also needs to safeguard border security and develop border economy while combating cross-border smuggling, he stressed.

Present at the working session, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said the province should pursue high-tech agriculture and combine it closely with tourism.