National Level Workshop on Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation was held in Nay Pyi Taw on 20 May 2011, and the opening ceremony was attended by President U Thein Sein, Vice President Dr. Sai Mauk Kham, Union Ministers, deputy ministers, Economic Ministers of Regions and States, departmental heads, economists and resource persons, responsible persons of social organizations and guests.
At the opening ceremony, President U Thein delivered an address.
The President said, “For improvement of the economic infrastructure, we plan to carry out an in-depth analysis of the monetary policy, financial policy, trade policy and investment policy sector-wise to make amendments to the laws, regulations and procedures in the interest of the nation and the people.”
He continued, “In Myanmar, rural people who make up about 70% of the population are the main working force, and the majority of them engage in agricultural and livestock farming. Therefore, boosting production of goods and economic development of rural areas is the engine of national economic development. Only with economic development of rural areas, will there be alleviation of poverty.”
President said, “The world is facing many challenges such as financial crisis, climate change, food security and rise in demand for energy. For Myanmar, an agro-based country, development of the agricultural and livestock breeding sector of rural areas, climate change, food security, higher incomes of rural people and poverty alleviation are the issues we have to address with all seriousness.”
Therefore, the new government is responsible to hold talks with economic experts, organizations and departments to find out how they should deal with this demanding task and what programmes they should lay down, according to the President.
On the first day of national level workshop, Scholar Dr. U Myint discussed “The blueprint paper on poverty alleviation in Myanmar”, Agriculturalist Dr. Sein Hla Bo on “Integrated agriculture and livestock breeding and recycling of wastage”, Scholar U Hset Aung on “Opinion differences in rural region development and economic growth and facts to be repaired”.
In the paper of Scholar Dr. U Myint, he discussed how to alleviate poverty through five facts. His presentation included the poverty criteria in Vietnam, a member country of ASEAN as well as CLMV. This regional country has laid down new poverty line of social welfares for 2011-2015; aimed at the income of rural people will be US$ 20. 5 per month and that of urban people will be US$ 25.05 per month.
Economist U Hset Aung discussed in his paper that most of the third world counties which are implementing the programs of rural development and economic growth have to experience misperceptions/gaps of understanding; that such misperceptions will occur when implementation of programs and policies are viewed from only single aspect; that such policies may have advantages for one sector and disadvantages for another; that loans should be given to rural people to create employment opportunities; that agricultural infrastructures should be developed to promote agricultural sector; that supports should be given to small scaled and medium scaled business sectors; that training courses should be conducted; that the farmers should be given encouragement to be able to produce marketable crops and to help them find market linkages for their produce.
This workshop was held from 20 to 22 May with the presentations of 19 papers.
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