4:37:34 PM | 10/12/2018
Nearly 15 years after establishment, Hau Giang province has attained remarkable achievements in economic, cultural, social, security and defence aspects. This is a vivid demonstration of the real power of solidarity and consensus of the Party, government and people here and an illustration to prosperity on the path to international economic integration. To learn more about very impressive results of Hau Giang province, we have a short interview with Mr Le Tien Chau, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee. Hoang Lam reports.
Compared with the time of its establishment in 2004, what success has Hau Giang province now achieved? What are the key factors to this success?
In nearly 15 years since its establishment, the economy of Hau Giang province has kept growing, lifted by its bigger scale. In particular, its gross regional domestic product (GRDP) expanded 6.7 per cent in 2017 and 8.01 per cent in the first six months of 2018. The economic structure has shifted towards a desired pattern where the share of industry and services is increasing rising and the share of the agricultural sector is shrinking. Industry continues to grow highly and gradually confirms its driving force of local economic development. The services are stably developing, with many sectors achieving relatively high growth such as export, trade and credit.
Specifically, in the last three years, the province’s GRDP growth has been 6.82 per cent a year (compared to the target of 7.8 per cent), with the Region 1 expanding by 2.14 per cent, the Region 2 by 11.62 per cent and Region 3 by 7.85 per cent. GRDP per capita now stands at VND36 million, rising 8.96 per cent on an annualised basis and 6 times higher than in 2004. The shares of Region 1, Region 2 and Region 3 to the economy is 27.69 per cent, 23.18 per cent and 49.13 per cent, respectively. The poverty rate has fallen by an average of 2 per cent per year to the current 7.62 per cent. Up to 15,000 workers are trained each year to bring the rate of trained workers to 45 per cent. As many as 60 per cent of schools meet national standards. All of the communes, wards and towns have medical clinics. The rate of malnourished children under five years old is 12.3 per cent. The ratio of physicians to 10,000 residents is 7.3 and the ratio of hospital beds to 10,000 residents is 29.27. 78.3 per cent of population is medically insured. Only 23 out of 54 communes meet new countryside standards, accounting for 42.5 per cent, while the rest on average meet nine criteria and a commune meets 14.4 criteria on average. 96 per cent of rural residents have access to safe water and 92 per cent of urban residents have access to clean water.
To achieve this success, in addition to the leadership, direction and support of central authorities is the unity and consistence in leading, directing and carrying out the provincial political system’s plans, as well as the solidarity and resolution of the business community and people to overcome hardships. In economic development, Hau Giang province consistently pursues agricultural development policies in line with substantively building new countryside criteria, takes industrial development as a decisive step to generate the engine of growth and boost the development of other economic sectors, defines the important role of the service sector, not only creating development momentum but also strengthening connectivity to ensure the output for industrial, agricultural sectors and produce ripple effects on all economic sectors.
At the same time, the province always takes the initiative in carrying out investment promotion activities and pays attention to both domestic and foreign resources. It also focuses on creating a conducive business and investment environment with the motto of “accompanying the business” and “the business is to be served.” That is the reason why Hau Giang is increasingly appreciated by businesses and investors.
How have you executed the Government's Resolution 35/NQ-CP dated May 16, 2016 on business support and development to 2020? How will the province enforce it in the coming time?
After nearly two years of enforcing Resolution 35, Hau Giang province has initially achieved many positive results. The province had 1,000 new enterprises with a combined registered capital of VND3 trillion in 2017, an increase of 7 per cent in businesses and 1.5 times higher in value over 2016. The province currently has over 2,000 operational enterprises, including seven State-owned enterprises (SOEs) that employ 1,372 workers; 1,984 private companies that generate jobs for 28,484 labourers; and nine foreign direct investment (FDI) firms that hire 6,069 workers.
By scale, large-scale businesses account for nearly 1 per cent, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up 52 per cent, and microbusinesses constitute 47 per cent. A vast majority of private enterprises are small-scale, scattered and weakly interconnected. In the first six months of this year, 48 companies with a total registered capital of VND462 billion were dissolved. 75 corporates had to suspend operations on unresolved hardships. Both corporate dissolutions and corporate bankruptcies rose about 40 per cent from a year earlier. Failures were mainly small and micro enterprises with low competitiveness. In nearly two years, the province granted over 3,000 business registration certificates (9 per cent higher than a year ago) to individual business households with a total registered capital of over VND300 billion, bringing total individual economic entities to 47,689 with a combined registered capital of VND3,256 billion. They provide 78,817 jobs.
To further effectively carry out Resolution 35, all-tier authorities, all sectors and branches concerned must focus on improving the effect of law enforcement, mechanisms and policies, strengthen discipline and assign accountability and responsibility to unit heads in the coming time. For their part, the business community and businesspeople must concentrate on improving business administration, innovation, productivity, quality, performance, competitiveness; raise awareness of law observance and integrity in business; build corporate culture, business ethics, pursue healthy competition, and promote social responsibility.
The provincial government will continue to accelerate administrative procedure reform, better the business and investment climate, and improve the efficiency of receiving, processing and answering feedback and proposals submitted by enterprises and people. It will need to focus on deploying online public services at Level 3 and Level 4 to facilitate local enterprises to do business. At the same time, it will step up information and communication on laws and policies on business support and development to citizens and enterprises and regularly praise good models, good methods and timely rectify mistakes in policy and law enforcement.
To become a moderately developed province in the Mekong Delta by 2020 as stated in the Resolution of the 13th provincial Party Congress, what will Hau Giang focus on?
In order to become a medium province in the Mekong Delta region, achieve the average annual economic growth of 7 per cent and bring the per capita GDP to US$2,500 in 2020, Hau Giang province will concentrate on accelerating agricultural industrialisation and new countryside construction, strive for the Region 1’s annual growth of over 3 per cent. Region 1 will be more drastically restructured by effectively implementing the scheme on crop and livestock restructuring, the scheme on mechanisation, irrigation and large field development. The province will centre on fisheries development, applying science and technology to improve productivity, quality and added value of plants, livestock and key products.
On industrial development, industry is defined as a decisive boost to Hau Giang province’s economic growth in the 2016 - 2020 period. Thus, the province will develop agricultural product and seafood processing that it has competitive advantages. As agriculture and industry grow, the province will be able to enhance the quality of key services such as trade, hotel, restaurant, food and drink, transportation, telecom, banking, advertising, insurance and tourism. Total social investment capital is estimated to reach VND90 - 95 trillion, an average growth of 8 per cent annually in the five years from 2016 to 2020, of which the State Budget funds about VND14 – 15 trillion and the rest is mobilised from all economic sectors.
Furthermore, Hau Giang province continues to improve the business investment environment, promote start-up spirit, facilitate private economic development, and drive the private economy as a growth engine of the province.
Thank you very much!
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Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi