Being fully aware that its current central task is to reorganise its apparatus and improve its production and business, Dong Bac Corporation has been synchronously, drastically adopting proper, effective, practical measures, steps, and approaches.

Dong Bac Corporation is an economic-defence unit under the Ministry of National Defence tasked with production, business, and military-defence work. The Corporation operates in various provinces and municipalities across the country, mainly in the key, strategic regions. Over the years, the Corporation’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have thoroughly grasped the guidelines and policies by the Party, the State, the Central Military Commission, and the Ministry of National Defence on rearranging, renewing, and improving military businesses, particularly the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 425-NQ/QUTW, dated May 18^th, 2017 on the rearrangement and renewal of military enterprises towards 2020 and beyond, the Decision 1894/QĐ-BQP, dated May 27^th, 2014 by the Ministry of National Defence on restructuring state businesses within the Military, and the Decision 5917/QĐ-BQP, dated December 29^th, 2017 by the Ministry of National Defence on approving the Project to restructure, renew, and improve the Dong Bac Corporation towards 2020. The Corporation has focused its leadership and direction on taking synchronous measures to carry out restructuring and renewal and improve the efficiency of its production and business, thereby initially producing positive results and making contributions to socio-economic development and defence-security consolidation.

First of all, due attention has been paid to stepping up the work of political education and ideological management to raise cadres, employees and workers’ awareness and responsibility and achieve a consensus amongst them. This measure acts as a determinant to boosting production and business and successfully fulfilling the military-defence task in the new situation. There is a fact that the restructuring of the Corporation will make its organisational structure compact and strong, increase the proportion of direct labour, reduce the rate of indirect labour, but impact on the sentiment, aspiration, and life of a section of employees and labourers, particularly in the companies that will be merged, equitised, divested or dissolved. Being fully aware of those complications, the Corporation’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have directed party committees and commands of their affiliated offices and units to enhance the work of propagation and education to enable cadres, employees, and labourers to grasp the relevant guidelines and policies by the Party, the Central Military Commission, and the Ministry of National Defence and make them realise the inevitability of business restructuring and this work’s advantages, difficulties and challenges. At the same time, staff members have been provided with information about merger, equitisation, divestment and dissolution of each office, committee, and member company in a sufficient, transparent, and public manner so that they could discuss, inspect, supervise, and enjoy this process. Doing so has also helped achieve a sense of unity and consensus amongst them. In the process, the Corporation has frequently grasped the situation, opportunely drawn lessons, and satisfied its staff members’ legitimate aspirations to avoid complex issues. Under the motto of “streamlining production and business,” the Corporation has directed its member companies and affiliates to restructure their apparatus and resources in accordance with their task requirements, carry out merger, dissolution, and equitisation, divest from the projects irrelevant to coal mining, change their business management and administration mechanism, review and supplement their internal statutes under the current legal system. Up to now, the Corporation has reduced the number of its offices from 19 to 12, merged and dissolved its affiliated units from 23 to 14, restructured and decreased 91 work sites and workshops within its affiliates, implemented divestment and equitisation at 2 companies, dissolved 9 one-member limited liability companies, established 8 Corporation branches, and reorganised 3 units, thereby making contributions to enhancing the effectiveness of its apparatus.

Commander of the General Political Department encourages workers at a mine

In addition to restructuring, the Corporation has build its workforce in accordance with its demand for production and business. To do so, the Corporation has directed its member companies and affiliates to frequently grasp the quantity and quality of labour, actively recruit, train, and retrain their human resources, implement policies and measures properly to attract and stabilise their workforce, review, rearrange, and effectively employ their labour. Measures for COVID-19 prevention and control have been enhanced to ensure the Corporation’s safe, constant production and business. Besides, the Corporation has flexibly adjusted its remuneration policy based on job titles, productivity, task performance, and labour supply and demand in the market. It has built and renewed the labour relationship positively, harmoniously in order to ensure benefits for all relevant parties and realise its goal of “streamlined workforce, improved productivity, and high pay.” As a result, the Corporation has succeeded in building and stabilising its skilled manpower.

It is worth noting that coal mining has been increasingly difficult as most of the coal mines have been exploited  for a long time, their reserves have been severely depleted, and the quality of coal has been low. Meanwhile, interest rate, base salary, and price of inputs are all on the rise. Therefore, to improve its business and production efficiency, the Corporation has focused on well implementing three breakthroughs. To be more specific, the Corporation has restructured its resources, adjusted its business management and administration mechanism, practised thrift, and combated wastefulness in all spheres of production and business. It has effectively maintained regulations on recording production costs from its work sites and workshops to its member units, while closely controlling the incurred costs. Every month, the Corporation has inspected and settled its costs and applied a clear mechanism of reward and punishment for all sections. At the same time, significance has been attached to raising the quality and effectiveness of mining, processing, and consumption, promoting the capacity of the processing system, improving the product quality and productivity, and closely supervising the delivery and reception of products within itself. As a result, in recent years, the Corporation has saved its production costs in all steps but managed to ensure the quality and price of its products.

The Corporation has proactively, flexibly organised production and modernised its facilities to manufacture and export coal for consumers. To do so, the Corporation’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have encouraged their cadres, engineers, and skilled workers to actively apply scientific and technological advances to mining, selecting, processing, and consuming coal. The Corporation has made more investments in renewing technologies and synchronising its production lines at coal mines and ports, while acquiring equipment and means to serve mass production and transport soils and rocks during the mining process in accordance with the stages of processing and consumption, and gradually mechanising its production to ensure safety, improve work conditions, and increase its employees’ income. At the same time, it has effectively applied modern technologies to its production and business operations.

To stabilise production and business in both short and long terms, the Corporation has focused resources on its effective, strategic projects, such as Bao Dai 1 Mine and Dong Ri Mine, while increasing its production capacity at open mines, developing a mining project at Nam Trang Bach mine, and investing in a transshipment port at Bac Van Phong (Khanh Hoa province), a conveyor system to carry coal to the port of Hong Thai Tay, and 2 overpasses from the National Highway No.18 to the ports of Km6 and Khe Day (Quang Ninh province).

With its political resolve and drastic leadership and direction, in the 2015-2020 term, the Dong Bac Corporation has comprehensively accomplished its assigned tasks. It should be noted that the Corporation has stuck to the restructuring schedule, actively dealt with finance-related shortcomings caused by previous investments, increased its production and business efficiency, and achieved and exceeded many of its production targets. In 2020 alone, the Corporation manufactured more than 6.6 million tons of raw coal, exported and purchased nearly 5 million tons of commercial coal, and consumed over 10 million tons of coal of various types; its total revenue was over 18,740 billion VND; its profit before tax was 563 billion VND; it paid 2,797 billion VND to the State’s budget; the average per capita income of its employees was 16.6 million VND per month. Moreover, the Corporation has well implemented social welfare policies, taken part in building new-style countryside, given presents to beneficiaries, constructed and provided 235 houses of charity, houses of comradeship, and houses of great units for the people in extreme difficulty, built 5 cultural houses for mountainous communes of the Binh Lieu district and 1 bridge for the commune of Binh Khe (Dong Trieu), and assisted the city of Cam Pha in constructing schools with more than 200 billion VND, which has been acknowledged and highly appreciated by local party committees, authorities and people.

Bringing into play those achievements, Dong Bac Corporation will keep grasping the military-defence guidelines by the Party, the Central Military Commission, and the Ministry of National Defence, particularly the new thoughts expressed in the Resolutions of the 13^th National Party Congress and the 11^th Military Party Congress on combining defence and security with economy and vice versa. Grounded on such directions, it will design strategies to become a top coal production enterprise of Vietnam and make contributions to ensuring the country’s energy security, consolidating national defence, building the Military, and firmly protecting the Homeland.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN DANH HIEU, Secretary of the Corporation’s Party Committee

President of the Corporation