2:49:32 PM | 19/6/2008
With 200,000 ha of alum land which can support only one crop per year, the people in Dong Thap Muoi, Long An province are often threatened by hunger. To cope with the situation, together with three national economic programmes (food, consumption products and export products), Long An province started the programme on Dong Thap Muoi development and obtained a number of satisfactory achievements.
Developing Dong Thap Muoi
In more than 20 years of implementation, the programme on Dong Thap Muoi development in Long An is one of the 37 most successful new economic places. In addition to the common policies of the Centre, Long An has coordinated with neighbouring provinces in leading people to build a new economic region in Dong Thap Muoi and supported people to settle down in this land full of difficulties. The most outstanding success of this programme has been transforming nearly 200,000 hectares of wild, alum soil, thinly populated area with poor infrastructure into a developed and densely populated ecological-agricultural area.
Together with agricultural production, Dong Thap Muoi’s trading activities have obtained encouraging development. There are many trading companies set up in newly established districts such as Tan Thanh and Vinh Hung. During this time, Long An has been improving transportation and distribution systems. In the period of 1979 – 1999, Long An completed the construction of important traffic lines crossing Dong Thap Muoi. The developed transport system has opened agricultural and rural potential, facilitating goods circulation among districts and towns of the province and between the province and other provinces in the region.
2010: To become an attractive tourism destination
Dong Thap Muoi Pharmaceutical Preservation and Development Research Centre is now an attractive destination of Long An’s tourism industry. Visiting the centre, you will be introduced to many hidden resources in the extensive primeval indigo forest, precious materials for health and life. Coming to the centre, tourists can admire the most comprehensive attar selection in South East Asia with about 100 types of natural attars in Vietnam, 80 percent of which can be used for the pharmaceutical industry and 20 percent for flavouring and the food industry. The centre has been included in the list of focal eco-tourism locations for the Mekong - Can Tho National Tourism Year 2008 by the Long An tourism industry. Tourists can visit, breath the fresh air and see special animals in Dong Thap Muoi. In addition, tourists can learn about the use of specific medicine and receive guidance about health care, as well as treatment of some common diseases with popular plants and vegetables.
From Can Tho, tourists can visit the centre by high qualify coach in Can Tho - Hochiminh City route, getting off in Tan An station. From Tan An, 60 km more along National Highway No. 62, you arrive at the harbour of the eco-tourism area of Tan Lap floating village, Tan Thanh commune, Moc Hoa town, 15 km from the border with Cambodia to the South.
At present, there are many wild areas in Dong Thap Muoi, therefore in the future Long An has to focus on exploration and measures to put such areas into use, setting up and carrying out new human resource training programmes in preparation for agricultural development and rural industrialisation till 2010, providing policies on local and foreign investment attraction exploiting its advantages such as geographic location and the indigo ecological system. Oc Eo cultural place, Go Han, Noi Pagoda, Lang Sen and other revolution monuments are also part of tourism planning till 2010.
Huong Thao
Vietnamese
