Economic - Defence Unit 338 (Military Region 1) is tasked with implementing the Project on Mau Son Economic - Defence Zone in Lang Son province. The Project area under the Unit’s management covers over 124,000 hectares, sharing a 200-km-long border with China. This is an area of extreme difficulty, with rugged terrain, high mountains, deep streams; the average altitude is 352 metres above sea level, with Mau Son peak as the highest point (1,541 metres above sea level); the area has a sparse population mainly consisting of ethnic minorities, together with a high poverty rate and poor infrastructures. Political security and social order and safety are basically stable, but face a lot of destabilising factors, such as land dispute, agricultural and residential land encroachment, illegal border crossing, cross-border smuggling, and drug trafficking.

Fully aware of the situation, the Unit’s Party Committee and Command have always grasped and concretised the guidelines and direction by the Party, State, Central Military Commission, and Ministry of National Defence on building economic - defence zones in accordance with the Unit’s functions and tasks and local particularities.

Providing farming techniques for the people

Based on the Master Plan for building Mau Son Economic - Defence Zone, under the direction of Military Region 1’s Command, the Unit has proactively collaborated with local party committees, authorities, and competent agencies of Lang Son province to conduct surveys and develop detailed planning, phased action plans, and component projects, with a view to fostering socio-economic development associated with defence and security consolidation within the Project area. Due to limited financial resources, the Unit has focused its investments on key areas and crucial works, such as schools, infirmaries, and traffic, irrigation, electricity systems to facilitate population redistribution, production, and defence and security. In the process, it has integrated its programs with Central and local socio-economic development projects, thereby fostering close connection and mutual support. Besides, inspection and supervision of construction progress and quality have been intensified. As a result, constructions undertaken by the Unit have been completed on schedule, meeting technical standards, adapting to mountainous terrain and harsh climate conditions, which has helped improve their durability, reduce costs for maintenance, and allow the Unit to gain great credibility with local party committees, authorities, and populace.

Up to now, the Unit has accomplished hundreds of constructions within the Project area. Between 2021 and 2025, it has invested in 3 routes with a total length of over 13,847 metres in Quoc Viet and Khang Chien communes, constructing and repairing 2 irrigation works for more than 110 hectares of agricultural land in Na Duong commune, building 5 water supply systems with 5 weirs, 5 water filtration tanks, and 5 water storage tanks for hundreds of households of Thuy Hung commune, worth 90 billion VND, greatly contributing to localities’ socio-economic development. Many localities that previously had no “electricity, roads, and clean water” have now gradually met criteria for new-style border rural areas, significantly contributing to changing the “face” of Mau Son mountainous, border region.

The program on “removing temporary and dilapidated houses” by the Unit

In addition to crucial infrastructures, the Unit has attached significance to building and multiplying economic development models to improve the people’s life in the Project area and realise the goal of “ensuring stability and security for the people”. There is a fact that the Project area has a sparse population; most of the people here live in extreme difficulty due to small-scale farming, harsh climate, and infertile soil. Hence, the Unit has directed its agriculture and forestry enterprises to actively provide detailed guidance for the people; working teams and groups have been established in cooperation with young volunteer intellectuals to “eat with, live with, work with, and speak the same ethnic language with” the people as well as encourage the people to restructure their crop and animal husbandry and apply scientific advances to production. The Unit has also worked with grass-roots authorities to identify households in real difficulty and provide them with financial and technical support. Over the years, thanks to its financial resources and its troops’ efforts, the Unit has successfully built and multiplied many effective models of crop and animal husbandry. It has attached importance to executing afforestation projects to protect ecological environment and create sustainable employments for the people in the area. Since 2000, it has collaborated with localities to plant nearly 3,900 hectares of new forests, protect over 4,700 hectares of forests, and promote regeneration in more than 617 hectares of forests, thereby greatly contributing to realising the Government’s sustainable forestry development Program in the period of 2016 - 2020, creating motivations for economic development and defence and security consolidation in the border area, well implementing our ancestors’ strategy of “strong border, prosperous nation”.

A part from economic development, the Unit’s Party Committee and Command have coordinated with local party committees and authorities to actively conduct residential planning and rearrangement and build increasingly strong political bases. Under the Party’s strategic lines on resettling the people in the border belt area to create a strong “fence” for the Fatherland, since 2021, the Unit has proactively cooperated with relevant forces in bomb and mine clearance, expanding agricultural land, building infrastructures; it has worked with commune-level party committees and authorities to encourage residential redistribution, build residential clusters, and make many areas no longer devoid of residents.

Performing its function as an army ready for work, the Unit has signed regulations on coordination with local sectors and unions in combining economic - defence tasks with the building of strong areas. Besides, it has frequently directed its working groups and teams to stay close to areas and the people and encourage the populace to strictly implement the Party’s lines and the State’s laws and policies, build hygienic, scientific lifestyle, and remove social evils and depraved customs. It has actively held meetings with village heads, persons having great prestige, and unions to promote their core role in providing opinion guidance and encouraging the people to comply with the Party’s lines and the State’s laws and policies, thereby creating an important bridge between its troops and the people in the Project area. It has also organised a series of mass mobilisation activities associated with social security work, i.e. providing free medical examination, medicine, and materials for poor households, building “houses of great unity”, “removing temporary and dilapidated houses”, and giving scholarships to ethnic students with brilliant study achievements. It has given assistance and advice to localities on building and consolidating grass-roots party organisations and village-level political system, providing defence and security education for heads of border households, and holding refresher courses on area management for cadres of villages and communes, thus raising the quality of political bases, increasing defence and security potentialities and postures, building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”.

Additionally, the Unit has well performed military and defence tasks. It has grasped and seriously executed the annual Directive on training and combat readiness by the Military Region Commander. It has closely collaborated with local party committees, authorities, and military agencies to review, supplement, and complete operational plans and projects, build fortifications and battlefields, consolidate military posture within defensive zones, and manage and train reservists. It has worked with localities to train members of the militia and self-defence force in border communes, while actively taking part in Lang Son provincial defensive zone exercises and reservist mobilisation exercises. It has cooperated with local military, public security, and border guard agencies to monitor operations of hostile, reactionary forces and crimes of various types and especially fight against acts of violating national security and defence, drug and human trafficking, and social evils, thus ensuring security and safety for the people.

In the past 25 years, Economic - Defence Unit 338 has obtained many significant achievements, bringing about all-round positive changes in the Project area. The political system within localities has been consolidated; defence and security potentialities and postures have been strengthened; political security and social order and safety have been maintained; cultural and social development has been fostered; the people’s life has been improved; the average per capita income has reached over 20 million VND per annum; the poverty rate has been reduced to about 14.81%.

Bringing into play those good results, in the upcoming time, the Unit will continue grasping and effectively executing the Party’s lines, the State’s policies, and resolutions and directives by the Central Military Commission and Ministry of National Defence on building economic - defence zones. In the medium term, it will concentrate on conducting surveys, setting up and submitting the Project on building Mau Son Economic - Defence Zone in the period of 2026 - 2030 to higher echelons for approval. It will work with localities to review and execute production development models and projects, with priority given to infrastructural development, production support, and technical transfer to enable the people to eradicate hunger and reduce poverty in a sustainable way. It will step up mass mobilisation work and effectively carry out the movement entitled “the Military joins hands to build new-style rural areas” to achieve synchronised, solid changes in economic, political, defence, and security terms and contribute to building prosperous border areas of Lang Son province as a strong “fence” in the Fatherland’s Northern frontier.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN VAN GIA

Commander of the Unit