Da Nang: Young City Rising by Han River

A new face

In the past nine years, Da Nang city has gained great achievements since it became centrally-run. One of the outstanding achievements is the city’s success in developing infrastructure facilities in combination with the planning and upgrading of urban areas. Also, the city has mobilised resources from local people and exploited its land fund for infrastructure development and urban area expansion. After building such major works as the September 2 Street, the Monument, the March 29 Square, the Nguyen Van Linh – Le Dinh Quy street, the city gathered comments and inputs from local people about the building of the Song Han swing bridge. Responding to the call of the local authorities, people, enterprises and agencies in Da Nang city and other localities nationwide and foreign countries contributed VND 27 billion, equal to 29 per cent of total investment capital for the building of the bridge. So far, the Song Han Bridge has not only helped facilitate the local people’s communication but also become the pride of the people in Da Nang, implementing the motto ‘Joint efforts of the people and State.’

Since the Song Han Bridge construction, many major works have been implemented, helping to beautify the city. Over the past few years, Da Nang city has succeeded in forming four concentrated industrial parks, including Da Nang, Hoa Khanh, Lien Chieu and Hoa Cam-Hoa Khuong; building hundreds of new residential areas, and upgrading tens of thousands of metres of drives in the city. Over the past nine years, the city has mobilised around 65,000 local households, equal to one third of the city’s population to relocate their residential areas so as to develop infrastructure facilities. This success is bigger than expected. As a result, the new urban areas of Thac Gian-Vinh Trung, Bach Dang Dong, Lien Chieu-Thuan Phuoc, Bac My An, Thanh Khe, and Khue Trung-Hoa Cuong, have been developed with modern facilities, such as the Bac Dang Dong, Nguyen Tat Thanh and Bach Dang Tay roads, the Water Park, the Da Nang supermarket, the Cam Le, Thuan Phuoc and Tuyen Son bridges. This has helped the city change for the better with a boost in socio-economic development and improvement in the local people’s living standard. Apart from the An Don export processing zone, two concentrated industrial parks, Hoa Khanh and Lien Chieu, have attracted over 200 enterprises to register. Hundreds of roads have been upgraded or newly built. In addition, more than 80 kilometres of road have been upgraded, let alone hundreds of roads in remote and mountainous communes, Hoa Phu, Hoa Nhon, Hoa Ninh and Hoa Bac. This has raised Da Nang city’s position to a new height. Many people call the city a ‘phenomenon’ during the renovation process of Vietnam.

Rising of a young city

Hoang Tuan Anh, chairman of the Da Nang People’s Committee, said that the city’s economic growth rate reached 13.3 per cent in 2004. Trade, tourism and services have seen a rapid development. The local authorities have taken many measures to promote tourism, attracting Vietnamese and foreign visitors. Also, the Da Nang tourism service successfully organised the Da Nang Culture and Tourism Festival in late August, 2004, marking this important milestone.

In 2004, around VND 1,200 billion from the central budget was invested to Da Nang, helping the city build over 40 infrastructure facilities. Major works include the building of the Hai Van Tunnel, the upgrading and expansion of the Tien Sa seaport, the national highways of 1A and 14B and the Da Nang international airport, and the upgrading of the city’s electricity network. The city has invested VND 3,400 billion in capital construction, up by 41 per cent against that of 2003. Local enterprises have striven to improve the quality of their products. As a result, many textile, garment, mechanic and plastic products, which were overrun in Central Vietnam in the past years, have regained their positions. Da Nang was the first locality in Central Vietnam to promote investment in research and development activities, in particular information technology. The city is making efforts to promote economic development with a target to increase GDP by between 13.5 and 14.5 per cent.  Da Nang will do its best in receiving ships with a total volume of handled cargo estimated at 2.3 million tonnes. The city looks like a busy construction work.

The city is promoting economic restructure with a gradual fall in agriculture’s contribution and increase of the contribution of the industrial and service sectors. Per capita GDP increased from US$600 in 2000 to US$800 in 2004. Industrial production value has seen an annual increase of 20 per cent. This figure is put at 12 per cent for services and 22 per cent for export turnover. Development investment capital has also seen a rapid increase. In this period, Da Nang has seen its ever fastest development pace. When the Prime Minister signed a decision to recognise Da Nang as a centrally-run city, Da Nang welcomed the news as the turning point of its development with new challenges.

A breakthrough

If the building of the Song Han Bridge is considered as a warm-up period for Da Nang city to enter the new era the building of the Hoa Cam flyover with a length of 700 metres and width of 25 metres, which opened to traffic in October 2004, is the starting point for Da Nang to make a breakthrough. Earlier, the city opened to traffic the Tuy Son Bridge and organised technical inauguration of the Hai Van tunnel. The city successfully hosted the Vietnam-Thailand inter-governmental meeting and received 95 delegations of foreign guests. This May, the city will have one more bridge, which goes across the Da Nang bay to Son Tra, linking it with the Lien Chieu-Thuan Phuoc road. Also, the road via the Hai Van tunnel will open to traffic this May. This will be an opportunity for Da Nang to integrate into the regional economy via the East-West Corridor, linking the Tien Sa seaport with Laos, northeastern region of Thailand and Myanmar, via the Lao Bao border gate. In this period, the city will record more achievements. Having received support from ministries and agencies and taken advantage of resources from central and local budget, the city is accelerating the building of the Da Nang-Quang Ngai highway, the Son Tra-Dien Ngoc-Hoi An road, the Lien Chieu seaport, the Da Nang-Quang Ngai railway route,  and the upgrading of the Da Nang international airport. At the same time, Da Nang will promote capability building, improving the quality of banking and financial services, alongside with the development of the industrial, tourism and service sectors. The local authorities are guiding the tourism sector to develop an action programme to build Da Nang into an international tourism centre by 2010. The city will boost a project on developing the East-West Economic Corridor, including Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. When the building of the corridor is complete, Da Nang will become not only an economic centre in Central Vietnam but also an exchange centre of goods exported to Laos, north-eastern Thailand, Myanmar and Yunnan province (China).

The city is marching forward with firm steps. The rising of Da Nang as a young city will serve as a driving force for Central Vietnam in industrialisation and modernisation.

Geographic and natural conditions of Da Nang city

-          Area: 15,942 square kilometres

-          Population: 850,000 people, mainly Kinh people.

-          Geographic situation: At 108017’30” of the east meridian and 16017’30” north latitude, bordered with Thua Thien-Hue province in the north, Quang Nam province in the south and the west and East Sea in the east.

-          Administrative units: Districts of Hai Chau, Son Tra, Thanh Khe, Ngu Hanh Son, Lien Chieu, Hoa Vang and Hoang Sa Island.

-          Climate: two seasons: rainy and sunny

-          Average temperature: 25.7⁰ C

-          Rivers: Thuy Tu (40 kilometres), Cam Le (12 kilometres), Han (with a depth of around five metres and width of around 1,000 metres).

-          Transport: railway, road, airway and waterway

-          Seaports: Da Nang (Tien Sa) deep water seaport and Lien Chieu seaport, the third largest commercial seaport in Vietnam, with a depth of between 15 and 20 metres, capable of receiving ships of up to 28,000 tonnes

-          Airport: Da Nang, capable of receiving flights from Thailand, Macao, Siem Riep, and Hong Kong.

• Thanh Tung, Quoc Tuan