Located in the southernmost part of the country, Ngoc Hien district plays an important role in the defensive posture of Ca Mau province and Military Region 9. Recognizing that, the Party Committee, authorities and people of the District have been actively overcoming difficulties, upholding internal resources, and promoting socio-economic development in association with   defense and security consolidation to firmly protect the locality.

Ngoc Hien has Ca Mau Cape - the last national landmark on the south and also the end of the Ho Chi Minh route (extended National Highway 1A). The special feature of Ngoc Hien's natural topography is that it has three sides (the East, West, and South) bordering the sea. As the North is adjacent to Cua Lon River, extending from the Bo De River estuary to Ong Trang River rivulet, the District is separated as an islet. These features create the District's tourism values, but at the same time, represent challenges in the socio-economic development process in association with the enhancement of defense and security.

Being aware of the features of the locality and on the basis of thoroughly grasping and mastering the lines and viewpoints on national defense and military of the Party, in recent years, the District Party Committee and the People's Committee have focused on leading and directing the combination of socio-economic development with enhancement of national defense and security to build an increasingly strong national defense and all-people defense posture in association with the people's security posture. In recent years, the District's economy has been developed towards fishery - forestry - agriculture, industry – construction, and services. The infrastructure continues to be invested and developed, and culture and society have made great progress as poverty has been reduced rapidly, while social security has been guaranteed and people's material and spiritual life has been gradually improved. Besides, defense and security has been maintained, and socio-political situation remains stable. In particular, the fishery production has been drastically directed with several effective models, such as super-intensive shrimp farming, improved extensive farming, organic shrimp farming, farming of different aquatic species ( shrimp, crab, or fish, ...) on the same area, and development mollusk farming, ... so the output has exceeded the plan and increased over the same period. The basic service industries and commercial activities have been maintained relatively stable, etc.

During the development process, however, the District faced many difficulties due to its wide area with an interlaced river system and sparse population who live mainly along rivers and canals. In general, the economic scale is not commensurate with the potentials, especially the fishery one. The results of new rural construction are low. Meanwhile, cultural institutions are slowly built. The combination of socio-economic development with enhancement of national defense and security has not been paid due attention in a number of aspects as not many "dual-use" projects serving for defense and military purposes have been taken into account in case of an incident, etc.

Comrade Nguyen Truong Giang addresses a conference of the District military party committee

In order to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties and inadequacies, the Resolution of the 11^th District Party Congress has defined the overall objective of improving the Party Committee’s leadership and combat capability and focusing on mobilizing all resources and advantages for rapid and sustainable economic growth, settlement of social issues, environmental protection, adaptation to climate change, and maintenance of national defense and security to bring about robust development in fisheries, forestry, and tourism to the district.

Accordingly, its Party Committee and People's Committee have focused on leading and directing to promote propaganda and education to raise awareness about the position, role, and importance of the combination of socio-economic development with enhancement of national defense and security for officials, Party members, and people, especially the key officials at all levels and branches in the political system with an aim to make the subjects master the Party's views, the State’s lines, policies, and laws, local features, especially the peculiarities of the District, and the objectives, orientations, tasks, and solutions of Party committees and authorities in socio-economic development in association with enhancement of national defense and security. Thereby, their awareness and sense of responsibility for the task of building and defending the Fatherland has been improved.

Based on the superiors’ plans and orientations, the District has instructed functional agencies to regularly renovate the forms and methods of propaganda for the subjects and promote the role of organizations, forces, media, and cultural institution system at the grassroots level. Along with sending class-2 and class-3 officials to defence and security courses held by the Military Region and the Province, the District has proactively opened training courses on defense and security knowledge for officials and Party members (class-4) and educated and disseminated national defense and security knowledge to subjects, especially owners of ships and boats engaged in fishing and aquaculture, high school students, and people. By doing so, Ngoc Hien's officials, Party members, and people have always been aware of the meaning and importance of the task of economic development in association with defense and security strengthening; tourist development in association with environmental protection and adaptation to climate change, thereby raising the sense of responsibility for firmly defending the sovereignty of sea and islands of the Fatherland.

Basing on its practices and advantages, the District has directed all levels, branches, and localities to concentrate all resources on economic development and improvement of people's life. In particular, importance has been attached to improving the quality and efficiency of aquaculture, seed production, and transformation of fishing industry, taking advantage of all resources, and applying policies to attract support and investment in the development of fisheries - forestry - agriculture. In the coming time, the District will continue to focus on directing the implementation of the policy on economic shifting and restructuring with focus on the quality of sustainable and efficient growth, attracting investment in developing areas with strengths, especially fisheries, tourism, and forestry, and increasing investment in socio-economic infrastructure and improvement of the quality of human resources and labor productivity. For agriculture and handicrafts, attention has been paid to maintaining and developing plantation and husbandry towards commodity production, diversification of plants and animals and encouraging the development of traditional craft villages. At the same time, investment in building establishments and factories producing and processing fishery - forestry - agricultural products has been attracted in combination with planning on development of industrial and handicraft clusters.

Along with focusing on economic development, the District has also attached importance to promoting the implementation of national defense and security tasks to create a favorable environment for sustainable marine economic development. On the basis of thoroughly grasping the Party's lines and views on defending the Fatherland and basing on the local actual situation, annually, the District Party Committee and People's Council issue resolutions on the implementation of military, defense, and security tasks relevant to the characteristics and situation. In addition, the building of comprehensively strong military and police agencies at all levels has been directed to be capable of advising and deploying coordination in area management.

Because of weak soil, the construction of defense projects represents a difficult task. To deal with the problem, the District has directed the military agency to concentrate on well performing the task of training and building the marine militia force (6/6 coastal communes and towns have organized marine militia platoons), both participating in household economic development and being a core force to handle situations at sea. The forces, including local soldiers, militia, reservists, have been regularly paid due care in all aspects. They regularly hold training to improve their technical and tactical levels, especially watery combat tactics. Besides, they are also imparted with combat experience from the national liberation wars.

Pursuant to the Decree No. 77/2010/NĐ-CP and Decree No. 133/2015/NĐ-CP issued by the Government, the District Party Committee and People's Committee have regularly directed military and police agencies to closely coordinate with border posts and forest rangers in patrolling, controlling, and protecting forests. Concurrently, they have been proactive in reviewing, supplementing, and perfecting operational determination, and plans, options and operational coordination in the defensive areas to be ready to handle situations and contribute to maintaining the security, order, and social safety and firmly protect the locality.

With the strong determination of all levels and sectors, the Party Committee, authorities, armed forces and people of Ngoc Hien District will continue to strive to overcome difficulties and challenges and build the district rich in economy, firm in politics, and strong in national defense and security.

Nguyen Truong Giang, Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of the District Party Committee, Chairman of the District People's Council