Sunday, May 19, 2019, 10:54 (GMT+7)
On Vietnam’s coastal economic zones

Coastal economic zones belong to the group of open general economic zones in the coastal areas and their surrounding neighbourhoods. They are founded and developed under Vietnam’s legal conditions, procedures and regulations. Our Party and State advocate building the coastal economic zones and consider these as a new type of development model in order to foster socio-economic development of localities, particularly poor coastal ones and provide the basis for mobilizing and attracting investments, seeking and applying new economic policies to integrating into the world economy as well as combining economic development with defence and security consolidation.

Nghi Son economic zone, Thanh Hoa province (photo: VNA)

Over the past 10 years of implementing the Government’s Decree 29/2008/NĐ-CP, dated March 14th 2008, on industrial, export processing, and economic zones and especially the Prime Minister’s Decision 1353/QĐ-TTg, dated September 23rd 2008 on approving the Project entitled “development of Vietnam’s coastal economic zones towards 2020”, up to now, the country has established 18 coastal economic zones and initially achieved significant results, making contributions to its economic development. However, in the process, there have been weaknesses. Typically, the planning work has yet to be comprehensive; investments have yet to be focalized, proper, or feasible; technical-economic facilities have yet to be synchronous or meet the practical requirements; the effectiveness of coastal economic zones in some area have been low.

To develop the coastal economic zones, improve their effectiveness, and meet the requirements of economic development and international integration, our Party and State have issued various resolutions and directives. Typical examples include: the Government’s Decree 82/2018/NĐ-CP, dated May 22nd 2018 on the management of industrial and economic zones and the 12th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 36/NQ-TW, dated October 22nd 2018 on “the Strategy for the sustainable development of Vietnam’s marine economy towards 2030, with a vision towards 2045”. In those documents, our Party and State focus on building and multiplying coastal economic zones in line with the formation and development of strong coastal economic centres, ensuring that those coastal economic zones must play a key role in developing and connecting the regions. By 2020, the coastal economic zones shall contribute 15%-20% to the country’s GDP and create non-agricultural employments for about 1.3-1.5 million people. By 2030, the GDP of 28 coastal provinces and cities will account for 65%-70% of the country’s GDP.

To that end, we must continue to enhance the leadership and direction of the Party committees and authorities from Central to local levels, particularly in coastal localities, and encourage the participation of the whole political system and society in developing the coastal economic zones. Significance should be attached to improving the planning work’s quality, strengthening the State’s investment, further attracting and diversifying investments, particularly foreign ones. It is essential to continue reviewing and adjusting special mechanisms and policies for the rapid, sustainable development of several key coastal economic zones as the locomotive for the development of the other areas. Moreover, priority should be given to building and completing the infrastructure, improving the effectiveness of state management of coastal economic zones, and closely combining economic development with defence and security consolidation at sea and in the coastal areas.

Nguyen Duc Phu

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