The Prime Minister recently ratified the national sports development strategy by 2020 in order to raise the percentage of people who regularly practice exercises to 28% and 33% in 2015 and 2020 respectively.

The strategy aims to nurture and develop sports, improve people’s health, perfect quality of human resources, and raise life expectation for Vietnamese people.

The strategy focuses on three major contents, namely (1) public sports, physical education at schools, and sports for armed forces; (2) professional sports; (3) the Vietnam Olympic Committee and socio-occupational organisations on sports.

It sets targets to popularise physical education at senior high schools, encourage pupils to spend 2-3 hours per week on sports activities, and teach swimming for young people.

According to the new strategy, regarding professional sports, Vietnam hopes to rank in Top 3 in SEA Games, Top 12-14 in the 18th Asian Games in 2019 and have 45 medal winners in the 32nd Summer Olympic Games in 2020.

The strategy will be realised through 10 major projects from now to 2020.