Ba Thuoc is a mountainous district located in the headwaters of Ma river, holding a position of importance to Thanh Hoa province’s economy, politics, defence and security. Being fully aware of the district’s position and grasping the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on the Homeland construction and protection, the district’s Party Organisation, authorities and people have heightened a sense of unity, dynamism, and creativity, while maximising all possible resources to boost economic development in line with defence-security consolidation, particularly in the plans to develop key regions. To realise the goal of combining economic development with defence-security consolidation, the district has released resolutions and directives together with specific measures relevant to each socio-economic development strategy and plan of its committees, sectors and localities.

In industry, handicraft, and construction, the district has issued a lot of mechanisms and policies to encourage investors to exploit its advantages, such as hydroelectricity, mechanics, construction material, mining, and agriculture and forest product processing. Due attention has been paid to actively mobilising resources to develop facilities of the Industrial Cluster of Dien Trung as the basis for enterprises to develop their business and production, with priority given to labour-intensive industries, such as garment, leather, and handicraft so as to create employments on the spot, restructure workforce, and facilitate the building and management of the reserve force and the militia and self-defence force. At the same time, consideration has been given to building due-purpose facilities to serve military-defence operations. Moreover, the district has closely managed and properly exploited natural resources, such as land, water, and mineral in line with the protection of environment and terrains of military value. It has also enhanced the state management of investment and construction, with a focus on speeding up the projects on constructing electricity networks, roads, schools, traffic infrastructures, and public workplace in order to establish a connection between localities and improve the people’s life as the basis for building the civil defensive system, facilitating economic development, and making the district’s defensive zone increasingly strong.

With reference to agriculture and rural areas, under the guidelines on “building the agriculture with large-scale commodity production, applying high technologies in production, raising the quality of products, and ensuring food safety and hygiene,” the district has designed the programme titled “comprehensively developing agriculture in line with the new-style countryside building to reduce poverty rapidly, sustainably” and implemented two breakthrough measures to “foster animal husbandry, develop highly competitive products,” “manage and effectively use the reservoir bed of Ba Thuoc II for tourism and aquaculture.” At the same time, it has stepped up land accumulation for large-scale, hi-tech agricultural production, while selecting high-quality crops and livestock to increase productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. Due regard has been paid to setting up safe production zones, building and managing geographically-originated brand names.

A conference by the District Party Committee Standing Board on the project to promote socio-economic development and defence-security consolidation

In order to bring into play its advantages and guarantee the people’s employment, and “stabilise the people’s life,” the district has issued the Resolution 04-NQ/HU on developing highly-competitive livestock and aquaculture in the Ma river and hydroelectric reservoirs in the period of 2016-2020 and beyond, while encouraging the development of crops of high economic value. Great value has been attached to developing sustainable forestry, preserving biodiversity, protecting ecosystem, planting big timber trees, and reserving protection forests. Besides, the district has actively mobilised social resources to perfect rural infrastructures for the people’s daily life, agricultural production, and natural disaster prevention and control, particularly within the communes in extreme difficulty, while ensuring food safety and hygiene and gradually improving locals’ material and mental life. Up to now, the district has had 4 hectares of safe vegetable, 50,000 hectares of rice, and 250 hectares of aquaculture. The rate of forest coverage has reached 68.5%. The number of livestock has been 46,000. The aquaculture yield has been 1,300 tons. As a result, the people’s economic difficulties have been resolved as the basis for the district to build logistics-technical bases, ensure personnel on the spot, and maintain food security for its defensive zone.

In addition, the district has focused on developing trade and services in the township of Cang Nang and the communes of Thiet Ong, Dien Lu, Lung Niem, and Luong Trung. It has changed the method of managing and exploiting markets, encouraged businesses to construct supermarkets, facilitated the development of household businesses, assisted enterprises in training human resources, expanded and improved services, such as finance, banking, transport, science, technology, education, culture, communication, sports, and social security to serve production and the people’s life. At the same time, it has made a breakthrough in “the socio-economic development of Quoc Thanh special area, with a focus on planting herbs and developing tourism,” while carrying out the plan on “promoting ecotourism and community-based tourism.” Emphasis has been placed on managing and reserving intangible cultural values, classified historical sites, natural landscapes, and biodiversity, and restoring local cultures and specialities to attract investments in upgrading facilities within the natural reserve of Pu Luong, the hydroelectric reservoir bed of Ba Thuoc, and the waterfalls of Dan Long and Mo as well as to turn the district into a top ecotourism and community-based tourism destination of the province. Between 2016 and 2020, the total number of tourists to the district was 171,000 (over 47,000 foreign ones) and the tourist revenue was over 150 billion VND per annum, contributing to increasing the district’s budget, creating more employments, stabilising the people’s life, and well performing the defence-security task.

Due regard has also been paid to developing health sector, postage, and telecommunications. The district has provided a modern, high-speed, extensive signal system for all people. It has concentrated on acquiring equipment for health facilities, raising physicians’ professional competence, responsibility, and medical ethics, organising health stations under the model of family medicine, proactively preventing and combating natural disasters and epidemics, and improving the environmental quality to meet the people’s demands for medical examination and treatment in peacetime and serve defence-security missions in the event. Moreover, it has well implemented policies on social and medical insurance, social security, hunger eradication, and poverty reduction, while protecting and assisting all members in the society, particularly the vulnerable ones.

Thanks to its synchronous measures, in the period of 2016-2020, the district reached 30 out of 34 development targets set by the Resolution of the 22^nd District Party Congress. The average growth rate was 16.1% per annum. The average per capita income was 31.6 million VND in 2020. The people’s material and mental life has considerably improved. Political and rural security has been stabilised. The posture of all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security has been consolidated step by step. However, Ba Thuoc is still a poor district as the people are facing many difficulties in their daily life.

Against that backdrop, in order that socio-economic development will always help consolidate defence-security potential and postures, in the upcoming time, the district of Ba Thuoc shall focus on implementing 2 central programmes in tandem with 3 breakthroughs set by the 23^rd District Party Congress for the 2020-2025 tenure. In the medium term, emphasis should be placed on making plans for building key economic zones and adjacent regions towards 2040 in harmony with the province’s general development strategy and other localities. The district shall continue effectively realising the “dual goal” of COVID-19 combat and production restoration. It shall actively execute the Resolution 88/2019/QH14, dated November 18^th, 2019 by the National Assembly on approving the Master Project for the ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous regions’ socio-economic development in the period of 2021-2030, the Politburo’s Resolution 58-NQ/TW, dated August 5^th, 2020 on building and developing the province of Thanh Hoa towards 2030, with a vision towards 2045, and the Government’s Resolution 13/NQ-CP, dated February 3^rd, 2021 on issuing the Government’s Action Plan for the Politburo’s Resolution No.58, while effectively implementing the Programmes No.134 and No.135 and the Programme to build new-style countryside. It shall increase the productivity, quality, and effectiveness of crops and livestock, gradually develop a number of key products, build brand names, and at the same time execute the One Commune, One Product Programme. It shall also bring into play its cultural and historical values and take advantage of the Natural Reserve of Pu Luong, the areas of Son - Ba - Muoi and other historical and beauty sites to mobilise resources for developing ecotourism and community-based tourism as well as restructuring its economy.

Besides, the district shall enhance the state management of defence and security, well conduct the work of defence and security education, and build a strong political system as the political and mental foundation of its defensive zone. It shall complete plans for defence disposition combined with socio-economic development relevant to the province’s development strategy. It shall actively exploit resources to restructure its economy in line with the building of the defensive zone and clusters of combat villages and communes. Also, it shall rearrange residential areas and consolidate the reserve force and the militia and self-defence force. It shall make more investments in building socio-economic infrastructures and making combat bases, logistics-technical bases and rear bases increasingly solid. Last but not least, Ba Thuoc shall successfully organise defensive zone, natural disaster prevention and control, search and rescue exercises at all levels to better party committees’ leadership, authorities’ management, Military and Public Security offices’ staff work, and the armed forces’ combat readiness capacity to build a comprehensively strong district.

VO MINH KHOA, Deputy Secretary of the District Party Committee

Chairman of the District People’s Committee