DECISION

APPROVING THE MASTER PLAN FOR SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF CENTRAL VIETNAM'S KEY ECONOMIC REGION UP TO THE YEAR 2010

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government of September 30, 1992;
At the proposal of the Chairman of the State Council for Appraisal of Investment Projects under the Ministry of Planning and Investment in Official Dispatch No.6854/HDTD of October 28, 1997.

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To approve the master plan for socio-economic development of Central Vietnam's key economic region, encompassing 4 provinces and cities directly under the Central Government (Da Nang City and the provinces of Thua Thien - Hue, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai) up to the year 2010 with the following contents:

I. MAJOR DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES:

1. Economically:

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- To achieve an average annual economic growth rate of 14.5% for the period from now to the year 2000 and 15 % for the 2001-2010 period.

- To attain an average annual import-export value growth rate of 25%-30% for the whole period from now to the year 2010.

- To attain an annual GDP accumulation rate of over 10% by the year 2000 and over 19% by the year 2010.

2. Socially:

- To strive to reduce the annual birth rate and raise the quality of human resources by diversifying training forms so as to raise the people's intellectual level and educational standard and raise the percentage of trained laborers to 16% by the year 2000 and 35% by the year 2010, thus meeting the national industrialization and modernization requirements.

- To raise the percentage of crech and kindergarten children who are in the pre-school education age group; to ensure that all children aged from 6 to 14 go to school.

- To develop the grassroots medical network and pay attention to people's healthcare.

- To better meet the demands for electricity, water, transport, information and communications, to ensure the basic living conditions for the people, especially those in rural areas, high mountainous regions, islands and coastal areas. To build a civilized life style and cultural families associated to the community and get rid of social evils.

- To strive to basically settle the question of employment, to well achieve the objective of hunger elimination and poverty alleviation.

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3. On defense and security:

- To develop economy in parallel with consolidating defense and ensuring political security and firmly maintaining the national sovereignty through the rational and effective use of potentials and resources.

- To maintain the social discipline, order and safety. To carry out the two strategic tasks of national construction and defense.

II. MAJOR DEVELOPMENT TASKS:

1. On infrastructure:

To build and renovate the system of urban and rural infrastructure. To pay attention to communications networks in urban, mountainous and border areas so as to create conditions for the areas facing with difficulties and former resistance bases to develop.

To build a coastal corridor linked to Highway 1A, the trans-Vietnam railway, seaports and airports, to establish a communications and transport hub stretching from ports to Central Highland along Highway 14B and Highway 24 to Laos, Northeastern Thailand and Northeastern Cambodia along the trans-Asia axis road.

To develop the system of seaports, including Thuan An, Tien Sa, Song Han, Ky Ha and Sa Ky; to step by step build and modernize three deep-water ports: Dung Quat, Lien Chieu and Chan May.

To step by step modernize Da Nang and Phu Bai airports and renovate Chu Lai airport in service of national industrialization and modernization.

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To renovate and build head-waters irrigation works for the preservation of fresh water, the regulation and control of floods, the prevention of saline water infiltration and ensuring water supply and drainage in service of production and people's life.

Regarding the electricity grid: To invest in building transformer stations for industrial parks, develop provincial and regional electricity grids in combination with the national grid. To simultanously develop an electricity grid in service of processing industry and consumption in rural areas.

Regarding post and telecommunications: To perfect and modernize the telecommunications network to meet the demand for intra-regional and inter-regional communication as well as international exchange. To strive to attain the targets of 3.5 telephones for every 100 people by the year 2000 and 13.4 telephones per 100 persons by the year 2010.

Regarding the arrangement of the territorial space: To upgrade and develop the existing cities, towns and townships. To build new urban areas and attach importance to the preservation, renovation and development of Hue and Da Nang cities. To arrange the urban space along the development corridors; and at the same time organize the development of population centers in rural, deep-lying and far-flung areas and areas of ethnic minorities, thus creating conditions for an even development of the whole region and the whole country.

2. Regarding the development of agriculture, forestry and fishery:

To strive to attain an agricultural and forestrial growth rate of 4.5% from now to the year 2000 and over 4% in the 2001-2010 period.

To develop agriculture in order to create concentrated commodity producing areas by altering crops, restructuring the cultivation and husbandry, investing in intensive farming suited to the ecological system and environment and the prevention of natural calamities, floods and storms; to combine agriculture with processing industry, creating a position for sustainable development. Special attention should be paid to short-term industrial plants like sugar cane, peanut and tobacco... suited to the climate and soil conditions of the region so as to supply raw materials for processing and export.

To develop husbandry along the direction of diversification: raising pigs with higher percentage of lean meat, developing the herds of milch and beef cows, developing poultry rearing in service of people's life and food processing for export.

To combine the agricultural development with the construction of new rural areas.

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On fishery: To coordinate marine economies with coastal economies along the direction of combining fishing, aquaculture, aquatic products processing, and salt making; coastal farming and afforestation. To establish and develop fishing villages as providers of tourist services as well as fresh food of high quality and high value. To invest in modernization of facilities, equipment and infrastructure for sea-fishing, especially off-shore fishing, encourage and create conditions for export processing.

3. Regarding industrial development:

- To form spearhead industries on the basis of developing branches with concentrated investment and advantages in natural resources, labor and market in order to attain high growth rates and quickly accelerate the process of economic restructuring of the region. To give priority to investment in the development of branches which see high efficiency in production and contribute to the promotion of export so as to create advantages for the process of regional and international integration. To invest in such industrial parks as Dung Quat, Dien Nam-Dien Ngoc, Hoa Khanh-Lien Chieu, Phu Bai, An Don, Chan May and Tinh Phong. To prepare conditions for the development of a number of other industrial locations, related mainly to such branches as processing of agricultural, forest and aquacultural products; food industry, shipbuilding industry and consumer goods industry. To invest in synchronous infrastructure in order to attract more investment ital.

To follow the direction of developing small-scale processing industry in rural areas for such branches as: production of construction materials, fine art and handicraft and subcontracted production for big industrial parks with a view to creating a new face for the countryside.

To strive to achieve an industrial growth rate of 18%-20% in the period from now to the year 2000 and 17%-18% in the 2001-2010 period.

4. Regarding the development of trade and services:

The development of trade and services must be closely linked to the common development process of economic branches of the whole region with a view to achieving the set socio-economic objectives.

To build Hue and Da Nang cities into import-export centers. To develop entrepot stations, build a number of supermarkets and trade centers in Hue, Da Nang, Quang Ngai and new urban areas.

To build, from now to the year 2000, an international trade and fair center in Da Nang city. To develop import and export, restructure trade, service and tourist branches as well as financial, banking and port services.

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To invest in material and technical bases and infrastructure, develop tourist resources, bring into play the national traditions and preserve the national identities. To apply different forms and measures to attract investment in joint venture and cooperation so as to create a comprehensive strength, making tourism one of the region's important economic branches.

5. Regarding culture, education, public health and society:

To continue renewing and raising efficiency of education and training, to balance the sizes of disciplines, to diversify forms of training and raise the quality of human resources. To enhance material foundation for the general education system, to universalize the primary education and eliminate the illiteracy by the national standards set for the year 2000; to universalize the senior-high school education by the year 2010.

To renovate and upgrade the existing medical stations, strengthen and develop the regional medical network able of providing local population with medical treatment. To raise efficiency in disease prevention and combine traditional medicine with western medicine in medical treatment; to basically liquidate epidemics, parasites and children's six contagious diseases.

To invest in the development of culture, communications, radio and television broadcasting, physical education and sports so as to achieve the modern level and meet the requirements of production and people's life.

To build mountainous commune clusters and to step by step eliminate hunger and alleviate poverty.

To efficiently solve the matter of waste water, solid waste matters and waste gas in order to combat pollution, maintain environmental surroundings and achieve the objective of sustainable development.

III. MAIN SOLUTIONS:

Basing themselves on the master plan for socio-economic development of Central Vietnam's key economic region, the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in the region shall organize the uniform implementation and application of the system of solutions concerning the mechanism and policy so as to mobilize to the utmost the provincial/municipal, regional as well as national and overseas potentials and resources. On each provincial territory, appropriate measures and steps should be creatively applied so as to concretize the major socio-economic development orientations of the master plan into the long-, medium- and short-term plans, programs and projects for the control and management of development according to the set orientations.

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To renovate the mode of organization and management and conduct administrative reform in order to create favorable conditions for the attraction and encouragement of domestic and foreign investment.

To make concentrated investment for practical results; to give priority to the construction of technical infrastructure, thus creating motive force for some key branches being the region's advantages, such as: oil refinery, communications and transport, goods entrepots, tourism and services.

To implement policies of high economic incentives for border-gate economic areas so as to create motive force for development of the whole region.

On the basis of the approved master plan for socio-economic development of Central Vietnam's key economic region, the regional localities should revise the master plan as well as socio-economic development programs, plans and projects so as to arrange them in a rational order of priority through annual plans and component projects.

Article 2.- The ministries, the ministerial-level agencies, the agencies attached to the Government, the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam's key economic region shall have to closely inspect and monitor the implementation of the master plan for socio-economic development of Central Vietnam's key economic region, and work out five-year and annual plans, programs and investment projects in conformity with this master plan.

In the course of implementation, the Ministry of Planning and Investment shall coordinate with the concerned ministries, branches and local People's Committees in making reviews and evaluation thereof and drawing experiences for timely adjustment and supplement.

The ministries and branches at the central level shall have to coordinate with and assist the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam's key economic region in revising and organizing the implementation of the set programs and projects, thus ensuring the conformity between provincial/municipal plans and the regional as well as national master plans.

Article 3.- This Decision takes effect 15 days from the date of its signing. The presidents of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam's key economic region and the relevant ministers, heads of the ministerial-level agencies, and heads of the agencies attached to the Government shall have to implement this Decision.

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THE PRIME MINISTER




Phan Van Khai