Up next Asia Focus. Vietnam has made impressive strides in reducing poverty over the past few decades. As recently as the mid-1990s, some 58 percent of the population was classified as poor. Today that number is down to less than 10 percent, with extreme poverty below three percent. Most of the nation's remaining extreme poverty is concentrated among Vietnam's 53 ethnic minority groups living mostly in remote areas. CGTN correspondent Rian Maelzer visited Vietnam's northern highlands to see what's being done to ensure that people in the mountainous regions are not left out of Vietnam's growth story.

The colourful costumes of the H'Mong women in this remote northern village belie the difficulties they have faced in life. As basic as their life here is, though, it's a big improvement on years past.

The Northern Mountain Poverty Reduction Program, with funding from the World Bank, has assited villagers to start rearing livestock instead of just subsiting of what they can grow. And it has built and improved roads, enabling the people to get their produce to market.

VANG THI SO H'MONG FARMER "In the past, people's lives here were very tough. There was no road so it was very difficult and inconvenient to go anywhere. Now, the people here are planting corn, rice; raising buffalo, cows. Only some families here are still very poor. Most have escaped poverty."

RIAN MAELZER DIEN BIEN PHU, VIETNAM "Analysts say that following the major land reform programme launched in the late 1980s, the income gap between rural and urban people is no longer a serious concern."

MATTEO VIDIRI MEKONG ECONOMICS "The problem now is that poverty is very focused on ethnic minorities. 73 percent of the poor population in Vietnam is from ethnic minorities. They are kind of a bit detached from the rest of Vietnam. It is very difficult to reach them, it is very difficult to educate them and thus it is very difficult to get them out of their poverty."

The education rate among the minorities remains low. But with help from agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, the government has been building more schools in remote areas and providing boarding facilities, helping boosting enrolment among the minorities. It's raising expectations for people in villages like this.

VANG THI SO H'MONG FARMER "My younger daughter, she wants to become a doctor, the older one, she wants to become a police officer. I will try my best to make my children's dreams come true."

A dream that they too will have the opportunities others now enjoy in Vietnam's rapidly growing economy and that they will not get left behind.

Rian Maelzer, CGTN, Dien Bien province, Vietnam.