Van Yen District: Investment Needed to Tap Rich Resources

Van Yen is a mountainous district of Yen Bai Province , 40 km north of the provincial centre. The district has 26 communes and 1 town. It is located at 104⁰23’-104⁰30’ meridian and 21⁰50’30”-22⁰12’ latitude. Van Yen shares the border with Luc Yen and Yen Binh districts in the east, Van Chan District in the west, Tran Yen District in the south and Van Ban and Bao Yen of Lao Cai province in the north. Its area is 1,388.84 square kilometres.

Van Yen has a complicated topography, with continuous mountains lowering from the southwest to the southeast. The district lies between Con Voi and Pu Luong mountains with the highest peak of 1,952 m above the sea level. Basing on its topography, Van Yen divides its area into three economic zones namely paddy field (13 communes), vegetable and fruit tree zone (6 communes) and cinnamon tree growing zone (8 communes). 53.7 per cent of its soil is Feralite at the altitude of 400 m. Its land structure has 2.8 per cent of its area with 0-10-degree slope, 1.6 per cent with 13-20-degree slope, 3.2 per cent with 21-25-degree slope and 92.4 per cent with over 25-degree slope.

Situated in the tropical climate region and in parted terrain, Van Yen has two sub-regions with different climates. The northern part (from the Trai Hut Mount upward) has an average altitude of 500 m, an average yearly temperature of 21-23⁰C, an annual rainfall of 1,800 mm and humidity of 80-85 per cent. The southern part (from the Trai Hut downward) has a yearly rainfall of 1,800-2,000 mm, an average temperature of 24-24⁰C and humidity of 81-86 per cent. The favourable climate supports the development of farming and husbandry, especially food crops and long-day industrial crops in the southern part and fruit trees and short-day industry crops in the northern part.

Van Yen is divided by 70 km of the Red River , the longest in the north of and is incised by numerous springs and rivulets like Thia, That, Hut, Rom and Truc rivulets. The water resource is suitable for developing hydropower and supplying the locals. Mountains and valleys here store significant underground water reserves, enough for forestry development. Van Yen also features high mountains, sharp gorges and warm springs.

Despite having less water reserves than other localities, Van Yen has a lot of minerals for developing its industry. Its coal reserves are estimated at 213,000 tonnes, bronze 100,000 tonnes, gold 5 tonnes, iron one million tonnes, rare earths 18,000 tonnes and graphite nearly 1,400 tonnes.

Van Yen only has 11,227.7 ha of agricultural area, or 8.09 per cent of its total area, but has 82,306.5 ha of forestland. Van Yen forests are abundant in hard wood and cinnamon trees, a specialty of Yen Bai. Each year, the district fells 20,000 cubic meters of wood for Bai Bang Paper Co. apart from a huge volume of bamboo.

The district has over 120,000 people, 60 per cent of whom are of working age, with a population density of 80 people a square kilometre. Van Yen has 12 ethnic groups, of which the Kinh (Viet) accounts for 56.65 per cent, the Dao 23.01 per cent, the Tay 15.1 per cent, the H’Mong 3.35 per cent and others 1.79 per cent. Its unevenly distributed population is living in 26 communes and one town.

Van Yen also has rich potentials to develop cultural tourism and ecological tourism. It is planning to open several tourist sites like Khe Cam Waterfall, Lam An Waterfall in Ngoi A Commune, primitive forests in Na Hau Commune, a warm spring in Phong Du Thuong and a festival at Dong Cuong Pagoda. Van Yen always calls on organisations and individuals, domestically and internationally, to invest in tapping potentialities to develop the social economy of the district.

• Kim Dung