The local area Red-river Delta

Regional advantages

– Location advantages: The region has greater potentiality for socio – economic development than others; The regional has Hanoi – the capital which is the economic, cultural and political foreign affair center of the whole country. The region also has a key economic zone of the North including 7 centrally controlled municipal and provinces of Hanoi, Hải Phòng, Hải Dương, Hưng Yên, Hà Tây, Vĩnh Phúc and Bắc Ninh. This is also a dynamic economic zone of the whole country.

– Transportation advantages: The region is the gate of the country in the South. The current transportation system includes roadway, waterway, seaway, airway, railway (Hai Phong seaport, Noi Bai International airport). Hanoi and others are points linking the region with other national economic zones and regional countries and the world. The region has border with China – the world’s large market and North-East Asian countries.

– Natural resource advantages: The region has various ecology including plain, midland and mountain; fertile fields in Red river delta, which are suitable for comprehensively developing agriculture-forestry-fishery production; The region is considered the granary with the total output of foodstuff and other agricultural products ranking the second (after the Mekong delta), which helps ensure food security and export. The region has mineral resources with large reserves such as coal (accounting for 98% of the total reserves of the whole country), kaolin (accounting for 40%), limestone (accounting for 25%).

– Human resource advantages: The region has a huge number of labourers with high education, high percentage of intellectuals; hard-working and creative labourers, including 26% of college and university graduates, 72% of master’s, doctor’s degree (and above) holders, 23.6% of technical workers of the whole country. There are nearly 100 colleges, universities; 70 professional schools, 60 technical schools and 40 professional training centers; hundreds of professional institutes including leading ones, over 20 leading hospitals, being one of 3 leading medical centers of the country; all of its cities, provinces have completed primary and lower secondary education universalization (faster than the country’s plan set for 2010). The region has the best human resources, research, technology application, education & training, healthcare.

– Tourism advantages: The region has great potentiality for developing tourism. The region is situated in the East of the Gulf of Tonkin. It has 620km of coastal line with many beaches and famous landscapes. The region has many other places of interest such as Huong Tich cavern – considered as “the best cavern of Vietnam”, Ao Vua (King’s pond), Hai stream, Tam Coc, Bich Dong, Con Son, Hien street, etc.; over 1,700 ranked historical, cultural monuments, accounting for 70% of the total numbers of the country’s monuments. These help to develop various tourism attracting domestic and foreign visitors.

Economic situations

– Economic growth rate: The region has obtained a high annual economic growth rate of 10.41% (1.4 times more than that of the whole country) in the period 2001 – 2005. Income per capital was 7.83 million VND/head/year, increasing 22% in comparison with that of 2000. The region contributed 21.5% GDP, 15.4% export value, 26% total budget income of the whole country in 2005.

– Economic structure has been changed in a positive way with increase on proportion of Industry and Service and decrease on Agriculture-Forestry-Fishery.

Economic structure of the Red river delta (Current price- unit: %)

 (Source: Central Economic Institute)

Economic development plan up to the year 2010

– Several objectives to the year 2010: It is planned to reach the annual GDP rate of 12%, GDP per head will be 1,372 USD/head/year (buying power of 7,000 USD). Its economic growth rate will increase fast to be 1.2 – 1.3 times more than that of the national one. Agriculture – Forestry – Fishery will account for 6.48%, Industry – Construction account for 43% and Service account for 50.47%.

– Sectors’ development plans:

– Agriculture: It is planned to invent high quality breeds of plants and animals, establish commodity production units for export, develop processing industry; spare 300,000 hectares for growing special paddy, grow plants or breed animals in unstable low – lying paddy fields instead of paddy with plan of increasing the average income/hectare (28 – 30 million VND in 2000) to 39 – 40 million VND in 2005; Establish paddy growing areas for export, high quality rice, corn, vegetables, fruits, industrial crops in Hải Dương, Nam Định, Thái Bình, Hà Tây, Hưng Yên, Bắc Ninh, Vĩnh Phúc; Develop ashore and offshore fishing, encourage seafood processing for export; Promote afforestation & forest protection in Hải Dương, Vĩnh Phúc, Hà Tây, Ninh Bình; protect mangrove and coastal protection forests.

– Industry: Priorities will be given to industries of high effectiveness and for export such as electronics, software, high standard consumers goods production, mechanics for agriculture, agriculture – forestry – fishery product processing, construction material production; Well equip manufacturing units which supply agricultural tools & machines, equipment & facilities for light industries, spare parts for cement factories, sugar factories, production lines for brick, tile factories; Attract enterprises to fill up 9 registered industrial zones. No more industrial zones will be built; Encourage investment on Hao Lac – Xuan Mai high tech zone, medium and small scaled industrial zones in Hưng Yên (Như Quỳnh IZ, Noi street A IZ, Noi street B IZ), in Hà Nam (Đồng Văn IZ), in Ninh Bình (Tam Điệp IZ), in Nam Định (Lộc Hạ IZ), in Thái Bình (Tiền Hải IZ), in Bắc Ninh (Quế Võ IZ), and in Hải Dương (Nam Sách IZ, Phú Thái IZ); Promote professional villages for export, implement industrialization in rural areas and create more jobs.
– Trading-Tourism: Make full use of existing supermarkets, develop trading – advertisement – exhibition centers; promote special tours to attract more visitors, open more international tours connecting Hanoi, Hải Phòng, Hạ Long with other countries, firstly develop strategic tourism projects of Tam Cốc-Bích Động, Vietnamese ethnic group cultural village, and Dong Mo Ngai Son tourism center; Modernize post – telecommunication, banking, consultancy services.