**3.2 The result of the basic socioeconomic infrastructure in the rural areas**

The basic socioeconomic infrastructure in the rural areas was strengthened in a synchronous direction, which significantly changed the face of the rural areas and connected with the urban areas step by step. The basic socioeconomic infrastructure gradually met the living and production needs of the rural population and gradually caught up with the needs of socioeconomic development in rural areas. That was shown below [11, 12]:

• The rural transport infrastructure: by 2020, over 206,743 km of roads has been built and upgraded, which increased the rate of hardened rural roads to 68.7%; Over 97% of communes had plasticized and hardened roads; The quality of roads has been improved and quite synchronous, which has contributed to the formation of large production areas and created favorable conditions to attract investors to the rural areas including large enterprises. Up to now, there have been 6460 communes (78.2%) meeting the criteria of rural transport


#### **Table 1.**

*The result of new rural area construction by 2020.*

(increasing 41.8% compared with 2015 and exceeding 23.2% compared with the 5-year target for the period of 2016–2020);


#### **3.3 The sustainable development of the rural economy**

The sustainable development of the rural economy was in the direction of increasing added values and raised people's incomes and gradually narrowed the gap between rural and urban areas [11, 12].

In the period of 2010–2020, basing on the construction of new rural areas and the process of urbanization, the rural economy had many drastic changes, active transfer structure in the right direction. The industries, construction, trade, and services in rural areas developed rapidly and accounted for an increasing proportion; agricultural, forestry, and aquicultural production has restructured in production type and scale.

Industry and services in the rural areas have had positive changes, the value of rural industrial production has grown well. Services in rural areas developed diversely with the participation of all economic sectors. Industrial production value in rural areas tended to grow significantly and reached 12.2% in the period of 2010–2018. That contributed to job creation, restructuring of rural labor (the proportion of agricultural laborers decreased from 49.5% in 2010 to 32.8% in 2020) and raised incomes of rural households.

Restructuring the agricultural sector has achieved many important achievements in terms of both scale and production level. Agriculture has shifted strongly to international competitive commodity production. The productivity and product quality increased and firmly ensured national food security, and exports have increased rapidly. The agricultural sector has a sustainable growth, the average GDP growth rate of the industry is 2.85%/year in the period 2011–2019, the agricultural production value will reach VND 99.5 million/ha in 2020 (an increase of 82% compared with 2010). Vietnam's agricultural, forestry, and aquicultural exports in 2020 reached over \$41.25 billion, ranking in the top 15 in the world and second in ASEAN. Agriculture continued to be Vietnam's strength. Many specific agricultural regions were formed according to functions as: peri-urban agriculture, large-scale commodity agriculture, agriculture adapting to climate change, and agriculture with application of high technology.

The forestry industry has had a remarkable development in the past period with a stable growth rate. The national forest coverage rate in 2020 reached 42%, which formed the second largest forestry product processing industry in Asia and the fifth largest in the world. Over the past 10 years, aquiculture had the highest growth with an average growth of 5.2% per year in production value. In 2020, the total output was 8.4 million tons, the production value obtained on 1 hectare of aquaculture land reached 10,462 USD (2.3 times higher than 2010). The level of processing technology and hygiene safety of aquacultural product were invested to meet the requirements of the market in the world.

Types of production organizations are renewed in a more appropriate and effective manner; household economy continues to be supported and organized in the direction of increasing production scale, gradually adapting to the market mechanism. Strongly develop agricultural product value chains, form more and more product consumption linkage chains between producers, cooperatives, and enterprises; some large corporations have joined the linkage chain in agriculture such as Dabaco, Ba Huan, Saigon Coop, Masan Group…). Local authorities are increasingly interested in agricultural development, well performing the role of "State" in linking "4 houses" to organize production and consumption of agricultural products.

By the end of June 2021, 57/63 provinces have issued the policies to encourage linkages in production and consumption of local agricultural products, in which, 44/63 provinces and cities approved projects and plans on linkage under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. As a result, up to now, more than 27,000 value chain-linked production models have been built; 1644 safe agricultural product chains were developed with 3267 places of sale of controlled products according to the chain and 2038 places of sale of controlled products according to the value chain. By 2020, there were about 49,600 enterprises investing in agriculture (of which, more than 11,800 enterprises invested directly), accounting for about 8% of the total number of enterprises operating in the country.

The speed of cooperative development has increased sharply year by year. By the end of 2020, there were 17,642 agricultural cooperatives (beyond the target to 2020 assigned by the government). The cooperatives gradually promoted their effective support role for farmers by actively linking with enterprises under the form of that the enterprises provided inputs, production techniques, and product consumption that created stable output for agricultural products.

#### **3.4 The income and living standards of rural people**

The income and living standards of rural people were continuously improved and enhanced and the gap between rural and urban areas was narrowed [11, 12].

Average income per person per year in rural areas increased faster than the growth rate of urban people's income. The income increased from 676 USD/person in 2010 to about 1807 USD/person in 2020. Basically, the target by 2020 was achieved. The income gap between rural and urban areas tended to decrease from 1.99 times in 2010 to 1.61 times in 2020. People in rural areas are less and less dependent on agriculture. The structure of income from agricultural, forestry, and aquicutural activities decreased from 33.5% in 2010 to 18.5% in 2020. The rate of poor households in rural areas decreased by 1% per year on average. By the end of 2020, the rate reached 7.1%.

Along with the increase in income, the spiritual life in rural areas has also been significantly improved. The people had easier access to basic social services, especially rural people in remote and isolated areas and ethnic minority areas. The countryside was the place where they maintained and developed the vibrant culture, artist, physical training, and sports. The civilized lifestyle was implemented and the unsound customs and superstition were eliminated. The maintenance of security and order was ensured. The evils of drugs, theft, gambling, addiction were controlled and managed. Many activities of planting trees, lighting up rural roads and protecting the environment have been actively organized by the community in order to create many fresh, bright, green, clean, and beautiful rural areas.

#### **3.5 Environmental protection**

The work of landscape construction, implementation of environmental sanitation had a remarkable change, representing the achievements of building a new rural areas [11, 12] . Many models of landscape improvement in villages and hamlets have been creatively applied according to actual conditions; Thousands of kilometers of flower routes have been formed, and many districts have had the percentage of rural roads planted with trees and flowers that reached over 50%.

By the end of 2020, 51% of rural households used standard clean water; There were 6222 communes (75.3%) meeting the criteria on Environment and Food Safety (increasing by 32.9% compared with 2015, completing 5.3% more than the 5-year target for the period of 2016–2020).

The protection of the rural environment, especially in industrial production, services and craft villages has always been concerned, and environmental pollution has been gradually overcome. Up to now, 59/63 provinces and cities have approved the solid waste management planning in the areas; 42/63 provinces and cities have plans for concentrated waste treatment in rural areas, of which, a number of localities have implemented that throughout the province; 16/63 provinces and cities have approved the investment policy of rural solid waste treatment plants.

Solid waste collection has been promoted, and most villages and communes have formed a domestic waste collection team. The proportion of daily-life solid waste collected has increased significantly year by year, from 44.1% in 2011 to 66.0% in 2020. The scale and methods of solid waste treatment have also changed significantly. Common treatment methods included landfilling, incineration, fertilizer, and fuel pellet production. Although the current method of landfilling still accounted for a relatively high rate (about 70%), the trend of incineration became more common in many localities. There were about 425 domestic solid waste incinerators, of which, there were more than 100 incinerators with a capacity of over 300 kg/h, meeting the requirements of the National Technical Regulation.

The environment in craft villages has been significantly improved. There have been 33 provinces and cities that have issued the policies on environmental protection of craft villages. Many craft village waste treatment models have been implemented. Many craft villages applied advanced technology and production processes to limit waste emissions into the environment. The percentage of craft villages with centralized wastewater collection accounted for 27.6% of the total number of craft villages with industrial wastewater. The percentage of craft villages with concentrated wastewater treatment meeting environmental standards accounted for 16.1%; the percentage of craft villages with industrial solid waste collection places accounted for 20.9% of the total number of craft villages with industrial solid waste.

#### **3.6 The cultural life of the people and social security and defense**

A healthy and colorful cultural environment was created in the cultural and spiritual life of rural people. Cultural activities, arts, and sports in residential areas were promoted. The preservation and promotion of cultural values have made a practical contribution to the construction of cultural life of the new rural areas.

Social security was guaranteed. The combat and timely prevention of crimes and social evils were effectively implemented in accordance with the Government's strategy. The security and defense continued to be maintained. Thus, the people felt secure and they worked, created, and dedicated themselves to the task of new rural area construction and development.

### **4. Conclusions**

Based on the objectives, principles, and scope of the National Target Program on building new rural areas for the period of 2010–2020, Vietnam has implemented sustainable new rural construction associated with urbanization. The results showed that Vietnam rural areas have changed both in terms of the basic socioeconomic infrastructure, the income, and living standards of rural people. Vietnam rural areas have had economic restructuring. In which, the occupation was shifted from agriculture to nonagricultural occupation, and the population, labor, and employment were
