Southern Khmer people meet in Can Tho

April 20, 2009
Posted at Vietnam+

The southwestern steering committee held a meeting of the Khmer people from 13 Mekong Delta provinces on April 18 in southern Can Tho city on the occasion of their traditional Chol Chnam Thmay New Year's Festival.

Officials of the southwestern steering committee expressed their best wishes to the Khmer community and briefly introduced the Mekong Delta region’s socio-economic and cultural development situations.

Last year, localities such as Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, Kien Giang, Ca Mau and Can Tho which are home of many Khmer people have actively helped them developing production activities.

The provinces also invested nearly 500 billion VND in carrying out welfare projects to serve the Khmer community, meanwhile, 8,700 Khmer poor households were provided with new houses thanks to the government’s programme 134.

As a result, the Khmer community’s poverty rate was reduced from 40 percent in 2007 to 34 percent in 2008 and 80 percent of the households had access to power and safe water under the State’s assistance programmes.

The number of ethnic minority children going to school accounts for 90 percent and a majority of remote and border communes have medical stations with ethnic minority doctors and nurses./.