There are over 4.6 million people currently residing in the Central Highlands, among which about 1.5 million are ethnic people, over 1.2 million are indigenous ethnic people.

Over the past years, the Vietnamese government and Party have paid due attention to the Central Highlands. Particularly, under Program 135, the Vietnamese government invested 727 billion VND in the Central Highlands provinces from 1999 to 2004, Program on Supporting Ethnic Households faced with extreme difficulties in the Central Highlands from 2001 to 2004 received 15 billion VND of investment. In 2004 alone, 2,600 poor families in the Central Highlands received a total sum of 3.7 billion VND for poverty reduction. From 2000 to 2004, the Central Highlands' areas faced with extreme difficulties were given 177 billion VND in subsidies for life's essential items.

Such an enormous investment has produced new resources for the Central Highlands development. By the end of 2004, most of the communes in the Central Highlands had newly constructed roads for automobiles, power reached 95% of the communes and cultural and post offices appeared in many communes. The ratio of impoverished households had been reduced from 24.9% in 2000 to 13.6% by the end of 2004. Most notably, the Central Highlands' rate of economic development in 2004 outpaced that of the whole country, with the provinces' GDPs increasing within a range of 9 to 12%.

Currently, however, in the Central Highlands there exist numerous economic difficulties. The region is recorded with a development level lower than that of many regions in the whole country. It is because in the course of the Central Highlands development many problems emerged beyond the capacity and forecast of government administration bodies, such as the prolonged socio-political pressing problems arising from land issue. Some ethnic people are plunged into poverty due to lack of farming and housing land but got little assistance from incompetent local authorities. This produced a pretext for outside forces to incite ethnic people to create chaos in the Central Highlands.

Therefore, the Government's policy on allocation of farming and housing land for the ethnic people is of great importance and, in the long run, carries vital significance in facilitating the Central Highlands stabilization and development.

In 2002, Vietnamese Prime Minister issued Decisions 132 and 134/2002/QĐ-Ttg on the allocation of farming and housing land for ethnic households in the Central Highlands and the policy on housing assistance for poor ethnic households in the Central Highlands up to 2006.

Implementing this policy, the People's Committee of Daklak province issued Decision 3000/QĐ-UB approving a plan for the allotment of housing and farming land for ethnic people in the province. The plan is read as follows:

After 2 years of implementing Prime Minister's Decision, the Central Highlands has reclaimed 5,442.74 hectares equivalent to 47.50% of the plan. The total number of ethnic households granted with land allotment is 9,378 which is 28.22% of the plan with an area of more than 3,689 hectares (6,756 households have been allotted with 3,775 hectares for farming, and 2,622 households have been allotted with 114 hectares for housing); 1,069 households have been licensed with Land ownership Certifications with the total area of 529 hectares; 461 new jobs have been created and 797 households have moved to new places within the local district.

The provincial authorities issued timely instructions on capital distribution with 37.69 billion VND given to 13 districts and cities for the implementation of the plan on farming and housing land allocation for local ethnic people. By now, 4 of 13 districts and cities have well implemented the plan in line with Program 132.

Regarding financial support for housing, under Decision 134, the Government provides a subsidy of 5 million VND to each household. As a result, 214 new houses have been built in 7 districts and cities with a total expenditure of over 2 billion VND; and 13,638 ethnic households, of which 869 were entitled to preferential treatmentby the government, were able to purchase houses through installment.

In other provinces of the Central Highlands, Program 132 has produced remarkable outcomes. Provided with newly allocated land lots, district authorities quickly handed it over to people for farming and housing. They also used local budget to provide households with plant varieties and foodstuff, helping families gradually stabilize their production and life.

However, the pace of allocating land for farming and housing remains very slow as compared to the requirement of the Steering Committee of Decision 132 and 134 implementation due to shortage of land for new allotment, reclamation and re-settlement as well as difficulties in infrastructure construction. Authorities also found it hard to encourage those households that own much land and have stable incomes and enterprises occupying land in the province to hand over parts of their land to the province.

On 21 February 2005, at the Meeting of the Central Highlands Steering Committee to review 2004 activities and implement the task of 2005, the efforts and achievements in 2004 by the Central Highlands' Party officials and authorities were praised by Standing Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Major achievements include:

By December 2004, nearly 18,000 hectares were given to over 40,000 households; the policy on religions and freedom of beliefs seriously implemented; economic growth rate was 11%, budget revenue was 130% against the plan, GDP per capita from 4.3 million VND rose to 5.64 million VND, and people's needs in electricity, roads, schools and hospitals were essentially satisfied in communes faced with extreme difficulties.

Besides, the Deputy Prime Minister also pointed out several shortcomings such as unstable economic development in most of the region's provinces, slow re-structuring, difficulties remaining in the life and production of the ethnic people, and slow housing and farming land allocation.

In order to successfully carry out the 2005 tasks in the Central Highlands, the Deputy Prime Minister requested provinces to focus their efforts on bringing about strong socio-economic developments and firm political stability to the Central Highlands.