Yen Bai Province Owning Great Potentials for Economic Development

Yen Bai province is located between the North-West region and the midland of North Vietnam, with an area of 6,882 sq. kilometres and population of 710,000 including over 30 minority groups.  Several ranges of high mountains running across the province create different climate zones and diversified terrain with different mammals and vegetation.

Yen Bai is regarded as the gate to the North West region, linking Hanoi and Haiphong with Lao Cai by road, river and rail and further to Yunnan (). The province has a natural area of 6,883 sq. kilometres, over four fifths are the mountains and hills of Hoang Lien and Con Voi mountain ranges, 10.23 per cent is arable land. The forest covers 296,995 hectares (34.7 per cent) including 193,928 hectares of natural forest and 103,067 hectares of planted forest.  286,891 hectares remain to be cultivated.

The province is in a region of tropical monsoon with temperature of 15-20 degree Celsius in Winter and 25-29 degree Celsius in Summer, rainfall of 1,400-2,200mm a year, humidity of 80-87 per cent. The two rivers (Red and Chay rivers) with large tributaries creating 1.5 km of rivers and springs for each square kilometre and important resources of hydro-power (17,000KW). Thac Ba reservoir, covering 23,500 hectares is favourable for the development of forestry, aquaculture and tourism.

The population percentages include 53 of Kinh, 17 of Tay , 9.3 of Dzao, 8.1 of Hmong, 6.1 of Thai, 1.9 of Muong, 1.9 of Nung, 1 of San Chay, etc. The working age population is 395,743 with 16 per cent trained or skilled.

Yen Bai has 6,054 industrial establishments including four foreign investment projects. The main industrial products are cement, insulator porcelain, kaolin, graphite, De paper, gems, tea, cinnamon, cassava flour, etc. The investment capital in 2004 was VND1, 340 billion and mainly for agriculture-forestry processing and infrastructure development. Currently the province has 12,000 hectares of tea with an output of 10,000 tonnes a year, 25,000 hectares of cinnamon and over 1,000 tonnes for export, 60,000 hectares of paper materials with nearly 30,000 tonnes of De paper for export and over 8,000 hectares of fruit trees.

The province focuses on tea as the main export, expanding the planting area, improving the quality with new species and 61 enterprises processing 480 tonnes of fresh tea buds a day.  The province also has famous fruit such as Luc Yen orange, Dai Mong grape fruit and Van Chan longan. In recent years, Yen Bai has planted 500-700 hectares of high-quality fruit for home consumption and export. The province has also developed animal husbandry, especially cattle, on 2,000 hectares of grassland. 21,400 hectares of lakes and rivers, and 19,050 hectares of Thac Ba reservoir are most favourable for the development of fisheries.

The province is also rich in mineral resources such as coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, gold, pirite, kaolin, quartz, graphite, gems, etc. In particular, the two biggest pieces of ruby were found in Luc Yen-Yen Binh weighing 2,300 and 1,960 grams.

The province has developed three industrial complexes with an annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes of cassava flour, 3,000 tonnes of insulator porcelain, and 300,000 tonnes of kaolin and quartz. Projects are also underway for the annual output of 100,000 cubic metres of stone and 100,000 tonnes of iron ore.

Small and medium size hydro-electricity stations are being developed together with tourism in Thac Ba reservoir and traditional tea in Suoi Giang. In fact, Yen Bai is becoming more important to the economic development of the region as a whole.