The Victory of Dien Bien Phu went down in the national history as a significant event and great pride of the people across the country in general and those in the province of Dien Bien in particular. Promoting the valuable historical values of the Victory, the Party Committee, Authority and people of Dien Bien province have been resolved to build a comprehensively strong province to contribute to fulfilling the cause of Homeland construction and protection.

Dien Bien is a mountainous, border province and the country’s gateway in the Northwest, bordering Laos and China, holding a position of special importance in terms of economy, society, defence, security and diplomacy. In the war against the French Colonialists, in response to President Ho Chi Minh’s appeal, the military and people of Dien Bien province conducted an all-people, comprehensive resistance war and achieved a lot of resounding feats of arms. Notably, in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign - the strategic decisive battle which ended nearly 100 years of  French domination of our country, the military and people of Dien Bien province actively joined and served combat. The province well played its role as both the frontline and rear of the Campaign, provided 2,666 tons of rice, 266 tons of meat, 210 tons of vegetable, nearly 17,000 conscripted labourers, 348 packhorses, 62 boats, and hundreds of rafts to transport weapons and foods and build roads and battlefields, thus greatly contributing to the Victory of Dien Bien Phu that “resounded through five continents and shook the globe”. With the outstanding achievements in the war, 700 individuals and 47 collectives (communes, villages) from the province were given the title of “Hero of the People’s Armed Forces” by the State while thousands of individuals and collectives were presented medals and many other noble awards. On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory, Dien Bien province was given the title of “Heroic Unit of the People’s Armed Forces” by the State.

The city of Dien Bien Phu (photo: dienbien.gov.vn)

Bringing into play that glorious tradition, in the past years, especially since 2004, Dien Bien Provincial Party Committee, Authority, armed forces, and people have always been self-reliant, united, and creative to overcome all difficulties and challenges and accomplish the targets of development in all areas. Its annual average economic growth rate has been 7.15%; its per capita income has been 27.31 million VND; defence and security have been consolidated; national border sovereignty has been closely managed and safeguarded; foreign relations have been expanded; the people’s material and mental life has improved; the people always believe in the Party’s leadership and the country’s renewal cause.

In the upcoming time, to meet the requirements for Homeland construction and defence in the new situation and deserve the Dien Bien Phu Victory, Dien Bien province’s Party Committee, Authority and people will continue to take the measures synchronously to build the province into a locality at the middle level of development in the Northern midland and mountainous region.

First of all, the province focuses on making the political system at all levels strong and capable of all missions. At present, Dien Bien is still a poor province with a large number of ethic minority people. Meanwhile, the hostile forces are stepping up their sabotage plan with malicious artifices; smuggling, illegal migration and immigration are complex; political bases have yet to be capable of building and managing localities, particularly in border, remote communes. Thus, making the political system at all levels strong and capable of leading, directing, and successfully organizing local revolutionary action movements is a matter of urgency today. To do so, the province concentrates on renewing the method of all-level party organizations’ leadership and improving their leadership capacity and all-level authorities’ efficiency and effectiveness of management and operation. At the same time, it renews the Party’s leadership over organizations within the political system; promotes the role of the Fatherland Front Committees and unions in propagating and mobilizing the masses; and improves the advisory quality of committees and sectors in the process. It also directs its districts, towns, and cities to consolidate their contingent of cadres, renew and streamline the structure of political system under the 11^th Politburo’s Resolution 39-NQ/TW, dated April 17^th 2015 and the Resolution of the 12^th Party Central Committee’s 6^th Plenum as well as attach importance to training and improving cadres’ capacity in all areas. In the process, priority is given to ensuring the quality and quantity of cadres for grass-roots administrative units, particularly the newly-founded ones and the key areas. In the long term, the province advocates building and perfecting the mechanisms and policies for encouraging local students to work at their hometown. Besides, the province directs sectors and localities to promote the role of the Fatherland Front Committees and the mass organizations in supervision and social criticism; to raise the quality of mass mobilization and internal affairs; to step up corruption prevention and combat and judicial reform, particularly strictly maintain the order for democratic dialogue between heads of local party committees and authorities at all levels and the people to opportunely solve the arising problems. The province determines to make the political system from provincial to grass-roots levels really pure, strong, and capable of all assigned missions.

In addition, the province attaches significance to boosting socio-economic development, preserving and developing historical and cultural values. To realize the goal of sustainable poverty reduction, the province focuses on mobilizing all resources and effectively exploiting its potential to accelerate its economic growth. To make “a Dien Bien no longer poor at present and developed in the future”, the province steps up economic restructuring in line with labour restructuring and the development of economic sectors and zones. At the same time, it continues to effectively implement the Project on restructuring and sustainably developing agriculture in line with the building of new-style rural area as well as the Project entitled “every commune a product” in line with trademark and geographical indication, while facilitating production according to the value chains and particularly encouraging clean, safe agriculture. Moreover, the province promotes production of food, animal husbandry, fishery, and forest protection and planting. By 2020, it strives to produce 260,000 tons of food; the development rate of livestock reaches 4.85% per year; the forest coverage reaches 45%. Concerning its industry, it focuses on investing in electricity and building materials, agricultural and forest product processing, raising the effectiveness of management of projects on exploiting natural resources in line with protecting the environment. Great value is attached to constructing socio-economic infrastructure, particularly urban infrastructure under the province’s Project to develop the urban system in the 2016-2020 period and its Plan to develop the city of Dien Bien Phu into a second-class city; developing the hydropower, alternative energy and rural traffic infrastructure and increasing its hydropower plants’ capacity to 244 MW by 2020. The province adopts measures to seek and manage the market and fight against counterfeits, trade frauds, and smuggling across the border; develops agriculture, industry, trade and services in line with economic development at the border gates, expansion of export of processed agricultural and forest products; effectively exploits its tourism potential; boosts the development of tourism in line with the preservation of its historical and cultural values; strives to transform tourism into an economic sector as the basis for promoting its socio-economic development.

Following the aspirations for peace and national independence, promoting the spirit of determination to fight and determination to win in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, and grasping the Resolution of the 11^th Party Central Committee’s 8^th Plenum on the Strategy for Homeland defence and the Strategy for National Border Protection, the province concentrates on building the all-people national defence and the posture of all-people national defence in line with the posture of people’s security as the basis for maintaining political security and social safety, managing and safeguarding the national border sovereignty and security. To that end, importance is attached to building the force and posture within the defensive zone; raising the quality of training and exercises; making the Military, Public Security, and Border Guard forces revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern, and capable of opportunely, effectively dealing with defence-security situations and foiling the “peaceful evolution” strategy, riots and conversions by the hostile forces. At the same time, the province directs its districts, towns and cities to mobilize resources to build and make the military posture within the defensive zone under the preset road map inter-connected, solid, and in-depth in accordance with the area’s particularities and the Military Region 2’s defensive posture. Besides, it directs relevant offices to opportunely adjust and supplement the projects for defensive operations, defence mobilization and border protection as well as ensure logistics support for the tasks. Notably, it continues to closely combine socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation; effectively promotes the role of economic-defence zones and military units stationed in the area in building political bases and a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” as well as maintaining political security and social safety at grass-roots level. In addition, it focuses on raising the quality of national programs/projects on crime prevention and combat; proactively preventing and reducing crimes of all types, particularly narcotic trafficking and serious crimes; effectively settling free migration and illegal immigration.

In the condition of today’s wide and deep international integration, the province determines to raise the quality of foreign affairs, continue stepping up the special friendship and all-round cooperation with the provinces of Northern Laos, and maintain relations and trade cooperation with China’s Yunnan province, Northeastern Thailand’s provinces, and other countries under the Party and State’s foreign policy. Besides, the province decides to make the work of people-to-people exchange more effective and practical and closely combine the management and protection of its border sovereignty and security with the improvement in its international business activities, thereby both attracting foreign investment for the economic development and building a border of peace, friendship and cooperation as the basis for its comprehensive, sustainable development.

With a sense of unity and creativity, Dien Bien province’s Party Committee, Authority, armed forces and people will be resolved to make the province increasingly strong on a par with the Victory of Dien Bien Phu and the faith of the Party, State, Military and people across the country.

Mua A Son, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee

Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee