Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh gave the instruction while working with the provincial leaders during his working visit there on December 11-12 to inspect the province’s implementation of the 10^th Party Congress resolutions. The Party leader also asked them to continue speeding up poverty reduction work in order to narrow the gap between rural and urban areas.

“To achieve the sustainable poverty reduction, the province must focus on training human resources for socio-economic development and improving the people’s knowledge,” he said.

He stressed that protecting forests is the most important task of Gia Lai in particular and the Central Highlands in general. Therefore, the province must take effective measures to maintain the existing area of forests and work together with ministries and branches on suitable mechanisms and policies to attract the people’s participation in afforestation and forest protection, he added. He praised the province’s socio-economic achievements over the past four years.

Its average GDP growth rate reached 13.69 percent, up 1.19 percent compared to the projected target, and per-capita income increased from VND5.1 million in 2005 to VND12.5 million in 2009. The poverty rate decreased from 29.82 percent in 2005 to 14.32 percent by the end of this year.

On the occasion of the 65^th founding anniversary of the Vietnam People’s Army (December 22, 1944-2009), General Secretary Manh visited the Army Corps No. 3 (the Central Highland Army Corps) and the Central and Central Highland Police Regiment under the Ministry of Public Security.