Over the past years, the Provincial Border Guard (PBG) of Binh Dinh has accomplished its task of managing and defending the sea border sovereignty and security, while joining the party committees, authorities and the people in the area in developing the marine economy, thereby contributing to making the province comprehensively strong.

Grasping the Party’s renewal policy and its guidelines on improving the people’s life and safeguarding the sea border sovereignty and security, the Provincial Party Committee and people of Binh Dinh have strived to overcome all difficulties and challenges, promote its potential, boost socio-economic development, and strengthen national defence and security, and gained the encouraging results. Typically, the people’s living standard has improved; the economic sectors have developed harmoniously; the agriculture-forestry-fishery account for 26.6% of the province’s GDP, industry-construction account for 29.6%, and services account for 40.1%. In 2018, the province’s GRDP growth rate was about 7.2%; the per capita income was 54.5 million VND. Those achievements have been attributed to many factors, an important one of which is that the PBG has promoted its role in giving advice to the party committees and authorities and cooperated with other forces in the area in combining marine economy development with sea border management and protection.

On the training ground

To do so, the PBG has advised the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee on measures to align socio-economic development with border sovereignty management and protection. Focuses have been placed on building and implementing the master plan for the province’s socio-economic development in the 2015-2020 period and beyond, the plan for using the property of Nhon Hoi Economic Zone, the project for Becamex - Binh Dinh Industrial - Urban and Service Zone, and the program to combine marine economy development with tourism development. Accordingly, those plans and projects have all been combined with the building and consolidation of the all-people border defence, the posture of all-people border defence, and the posture of people’s security in the province’s defensive zone to safeguard the sea border sovereignty and security. At the same time, the PBG has advised the Provincial People’s Committee on effectively executing the Fisheries Law, the Prime Minister’s Directive 45/CT-TTg on several urgent measures to deal with the European Commission’s warning against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and the Government’s Decree 71/2015/NĐ-CP on the management of activities of persons, vehicles and craft in maritime boundary areas of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as well as persuading the people to follow the guidelines on socio-economic development set by the 19^th Provincial Party Congress. The coordination in the Project on providing legal dissemination and education for cadres and the people in the border, sea, and island areas has been well maintained. The PBG has grasped the situation, detected and opportunely settled the issues on ethnicity, religion and security in the sea border areas.

In addition, the mass mobilization work has been effectively carried out by the PBG. The PBG’s Party Committee issued the Resolution 28-NQ/ĐUBP on enhancing and renewing the PBG’s mass mobilization in the new situation and the Regulations on performing its mass mobilization work. Grounded on its Party Committee’s guidelines, the PBG issued the action plan with specific measures in accordance with reality. Party committees and commands include this work in their monthly, quarterly and yearly resolutions; build action plans/programs properly; step up political, ideological education to raise troops’ awareness and responsibility. Up to now, the PBG’s cadres and soldiers have all been aware that “Mass mobilization is very important; ineffective mass mobilization leads to bad task performance; clever mass mobilization will result in success”, and that mass mobilization is first and foremost the responsibility of party committees, commissars, commanders, political offices and border posts’ mass mobilization teams. The good performance of this work will consolidate the posture of “people’s hearts and minds”, the national great unity block, and the military-civilian solidarity, while helping facilitate socio-economic development and encourage the masses to take part in sea border sovereignty and security protection.

Grasping the task requirements, the PBG has actively renewed the content and method of propagation and organized thousands of propagation sessions with hundreds of thousands of attendees. The propagation work has rendered the people fully aware of the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law and policy, the provincial and central socio-economic development programs in the sea border areas, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Vietnam’s Law of the Sea, the National Border Law, and agreements signed by our country and other relevant ones. Monthly, the PBG cooperates with the province’s Radio and Television in broadcasting the column titled “For the national border sovereignty and security”; organizes many missions to build and consolidate the mass movements; steps up propagation via the system of banners and leaflets. Moreover, the PBG has cooperated with the party committees, authorities, organizations and other forces in the area in holding dialogues, exchange and twinning programs, knowledge contests on Vietnam’s seas and islands as well as in combining patrols with direct propagation among the people working at sea. Accordingly, those operations have contributed to raising the people’s awareness of the province’s situation, heightening the responsibility of citizens, and encouraging them to actively take part in sea and island sovereignty protection and local socio-economic development plans.

Carrying out legal propagation for the owners and crew members of fishing ships

The PBG has been active in consolidating the political system of coastal communes and wards. In addition to proactively counselling local party committees and authorities, yearly, the PBG’s units dispatch cadres with strong political will, good morality, and deep knowledge of the area to join commune-level party committees and village party cells to help improve the quality of the political system in the area. It has cooperated with other forces in launching and maintaining the movement “the masses take part in self-controlling security and order in the border areas”.

The PBG has also actively taken part in socio-economic and cultural development, hunger alleviation and poverty, and natural disaster prevention and control in the area. The PBG has cooperated with organizations, other forces and enterprises in the area in accelerating the movement “the PBG of Binh Dinh joins hands in building new-style rural areas” and the programs/projects for economic development and hunger alleviation and poverty reduction. In the process, the PBG has “lived and worked with the people”, and actively assisted them in applying technology to production, making a change in crop and animal husbandry, applying for loans for developing production and building new fishing ships, and constructing rural roads and public works. It has provided free medical examination and treatment for the people; sponsored pupils via the program “supporting children’s schooling”; and supported Hoai Hai commune, Hoai Nhon district in fulflling the criteria for a new-style rural area. At the same time, it has cooperated with other forces in assisting 12 fishing ships with 947 fishermen, rescuing 20 people having incidents at sea, and opportunely providing the information related to storms at sea for numerous ships. The PBG has directly rescued 7 fishing ships with 56 fishermen and counselled competent offices to give recommendations to Malaysian authority allowing 28 fishing ships from Hoai Nhon district to come ashore to avoid the storm No.15 in a safe manner.

The work of patrol and crime prevention and combat to safeguard the sea border sovereignty and security has been seen as a central political task by the PBG. While strictly maintaining the order for building comprehensively strong offices and units as well as the order for duty, combat readiness duty and patrol, the PBG Command has stayed close to the area, grasped the situation, and advised the Border Guard High Command and local party committees and authorities on measures to effectively deal with contingency, complex issues in the sea border areas and at sea. In 2018, the PBG cooperated with competent forces in seizing and prosecuting 3 cases with 3 people involved in narcotic and explosive trafficking, capturing 42.1107 grams of narcotic, 18.2 kilograms of explosives and 128 detonators, imposing administrative penalty on 53 people in 38 cases and depositing 283.05 million VND in the state budget.

Those operations by the PBG have greatly contributed to maintaining political stability and social order, translating Binh Dinh province’s guidelines on combining marine economy development with sea border sovereignty and security protection into life, and making the province increasingly strong, wealthy, democratic, and civilized. In 2018, 4 mainstays of the province’s economy, namely hi-tech agriculture and fisheries, logistics-seaport services, process industry, and tourism developed rapidly. The province’s socio-economic development projects have been initially effective; crop and animal husbandry has been developed into goods production; modern technologies have been applied to agriculture; agriculture and aquaculture have developed rather rapidly. Fishing and aquaculture revenues in 3 years (2016-2018) rose by 3.8%. The system of fisheries logistics services has operated stably; zones for intensive and semi-intensive lobster farming and hi-tech aquaculture have attracted the investment of large domestic and foreign enterprises.

Those achievements represent a source of encouragement to the staff of the PBG to be more active in performing the border defence tasks, safeguarding the sea and island sovereignty, and facilitating the province’s sustainable marine economy development under the Party’s resolutions.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, Commissar of the PBG