Regarding the difficulties and obstacles in the delimitation of ethnic minority areas, Minister Hau A Lenh said that this delimitation was carried out in two phases. Phase 1 was implemented according to Resolution No. 22 of the Politburo, at that time implementing the delimitation according to mountainous and highland areas. Phase 2 was implementing the delimitation according to the development level, identifying especially difficult villages and communes as key concentrated investment areas.
During the two-phase delimitation process, the Ethnic Committee was assigned to preside over and advise the Government on determining the criteria. Since 1996, investment policies for ethnic minority areas have been developed based on the spirit of investing in the most difficult areas according to the criteria for delimiting 3 areas according to the level of development.
Most recently, Resolution 120 of the National Assembly assigned the Government to stipulate specific criteria for determining key and focal areas. In that spirit, the Ethnic Committee advised the Government to issue Decision No. 33 to determine criteria for dividing the three areas according to development level.
Based on the issued criteria, the Ethnic Committee submitted to the Government Decision No. 861, the Minister and Chairman of the Ethnic Committee was authorized by the Prime Minister to issue Decision No. 612 approving the list of extremely disadvantaged communes.
The classification process is based on a number of criteria: Communes and villages with 15% or more of the population being ethnic minorities are identified as ethnic minority communes and villages; communes with a poverty rate of 15% or more are considered poor communes. The Chairman of the Ethnic Committee said that communes with a poverty rate of less than 15% are no longer poor communes, however, in reality, there are also some shortcomings.
Regarding the impact of Decision No. 861, the communes are no longer particularly disadvantaged areas and are not entitled to investment incentives for the 2016-2020 period, which has impacted 12 policies. The Government has assigned ministries and branches to adjust and amend a number of regulations and circulars related to ethnic minority areas, including insurance policies for ethnic minorities.
The Ministry of Health is presiding over and coordinating with the Vietnam Social Security and other agencies to amend Decree 146, including adding and including beneficiaries who are not in particularly disadvantaged communes but are still disadvantaged ethnic minority households to continue to receive benefits. The draft is being consulted with relevant agencies to be submitted to the Government in the near future.
Leading the questioning session, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue asked the Minister to clarify two issues. Deputy Nguyen Tao suggested that the proposal to develop a Law on supporting the development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas should be studied soon. However, the Minister's explanation on the Law on Ethnic Minorities...
The second issue that needs to be clarified is the recent difficulties related to the beneficiaries of the policies. The implementation of the beneficiary policies is based on the beneficiaries or the area, or both; or on the basis of the beneficiaries plus the area. If classified as 12 policies, there are about 2 million people who are not supported by the social insurance policy; I request the Minister to clarify. Currently, the National Assembly's Ethnic Council is also discussing this issue, I request the National Assembly deputies to pay attention, after the question and answer session, it would be very good to clarify this.
Responding to the question raised by the National Assembly Chairman, Minister Hau A Lenh said that since 2017, the Ethnic Committee has submitted a proposal to develop the Ethnic Law. After 2 terms, many workshops have been organized and reports have been submitted to the Standing Committee of the 13th National Assembly. However, the ethnic sector is related to many different fields, to ensure the development of a suitable, unified law that does not overlap with other laws, it takes time to research and has not been submitted yet.
“In my opinion, having laws is good, the legal basis is important for building policies, but it needs to be fundamental and complete because this field is not specialized law,” said Minister Hau A Lenh.
Implementing Conclusion 65 of the Politburo, the National Assembly Party Delegation assigned the task of studying the Law on Ethnicities in this term, chaired by the Ethnic Council. The Ethnic Committee will transfer the previous research files and coordinate the implementation.
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