Cai Lay Town: 10-Year Efforts to Create New Stature

Ten years after its establishment, Cai Lay Town has kept developing, growing and affirming its role as a dynamic urban area in the west of Tien Giang province. Mr. Tran Van Thuc, Chairman of Cai Lay Town People's Committee, told Vietnam Business Forum’s reporters about the 10-year effort to create this new stature.

The year 2023 marked the 10th founding anniversary of Cai Lay Town (December 26, 2013 - December 26, 2023). How do you think the past decade of development?

Over the past 10 years, with its solidarity, determination and effort, Cai Lay Town has made remarkable progress in many aspects.

First of all, the essential infrastructure has changed radically. In 2016, Cai Lay achieved only 42 out of 59 standards in five third-class urban area criteria. In 2019, it fulfilled 50 out of 59 standards. In 2023, it completed 51 out of 59 standards and scored 81.1 out of 100 points. Cai Lay Town is striving to complete eight remaining standards and become a provincial city by 2030.

Framework infrastructure has been built, restored and upgraded to smoothen mobility and expand development spaces, including the bypass road for National Highway 1, Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway, the bypass road for Provincial Road 868, District Road 60, Day Thep Road and the western embankment of Ba Rai River. Administrative offices, schools, clinics, cultural houses and other facilities were also newly built and upgraded to meet operational requirements of urban authorities and local people’s needs. Besides, the urban landscape system is cared for and embellished. For example, streetlights not only make traveling convenient but also make Cai Lay "bright" every night. Sidewalks, trees, parks and roads are upgraded and cared to create a fresh, spacious urban appearance.

In addition to effectively using State budget, the town successfully called four large projects with a total investment fund of VND1,318 billion, including Cai Lay Supermarket (VND110 billion), My Phuoc Tay Cemetery Park (VND50 billion), Road 4 and roadside residential areas (VND300 billion) and My Phuoc Tay Industrial Complex (VND858 billion). Besides, many more supermarkets, electronics stores and clinics have bene built to foster robust trade and service development and make the town a shopping destination for people in neighboring districts.

The past decade has also been a journey of care for developing production and business activities. 481 companies have been established since 2014, bringing the total companies in the town to 514. As many as 400 new business households are licensed each year, totaling more than 5,000 active business households to date. The diverse and effective business development has helped boost the town’s annual budget revenue, which rose from only VND45 billion 2014 to VND181 billion in 2023, an increase of 3.98 times.

Local leaders embark on a visit to the Co.oop.mart Supermarket

Developing high-quality agriculture is always a consistent direction. To date, the town has successfully converted 3,494 ha of rice land to land for fruit trees and aquaculture. Only 3,000 ha of rice land is still cultivated with high quality rice and more than 90% of production, transportation and consumption processes have been mechanized. The area of perennial crops expanded from 4,028 ha in 2014 to 7,500 ha in 2023, including 3,000 ha of durian, 1,806 ha of jackfruit, 314 ha of grapefruit and 520 ha of longan. The value is 4-8 times higher than rice farming. The town currently has 22 growing area codes licensed for official import, 14 producers of packaging for durian and jackfruit exported to China and one packaging producer for agricultural exports to the United States. In 2020, the town was recognized to complete new rural development standards. Since then, Cai Lay Town has paid attention to upgrading quality and six out of 10 communes were accredited to meet advanced new rural development standards and one commune to complete model new rural development standards.

Economic development creates momentum for cultural and social development and social security. The people's material and spiritual life has been improved and the poverty rate falls to 0.69%.

After 10 years of development, Cai Lay Town is growing strongly with comprehensive achievements. That is the foundation for the town to awaken its potential and strengths to make breakthrough development in the coming time.

How has Cai Lay Town reformed administrative work, improved the business and investment environment and attracted investors?

Today’s development first of all came from the close attention and direction of the provincial government, especially Resolution 09-NQ/TU dated March 22, 2017 of the Standing Board of the Tien Giang Provincial Party Committee on construction and development Cai Lay Town to meet third-class provincial urban standards by 2020. Besides, it stemmed from the effort of the entire political system, local people and the business community. The key for Cai Lay Town to unlock resources is the town always pays attention to promoting administrative reform and improving the business and investment environment.

To date, administrative procedures have been made transparent at the single-window divisions of the town, communes and wards. Implementation processes are controlled with the TCVN ISO 9001:2015 quality system. Fully online and partially online public services; the sending, receiving and processing of documents in the electronic environment has been enhanced and reporting standardization has been promoted. The town has also directed the operation and usage of electronic information pages of the town, communes and wards; digitally converted official account (OA) pages, proactively provided information for people; provided supports for researching and looking up administrative records, sending recommendations, and answering requests for information provision to people and businesses.

The urban charm of Cai Lay town

The town also established community digital groups, built a core force in conducting digital transformation, including 535 community digital members and 144 people. Digital transformation associated with administrative reform have been well executed, with all hamlets and neighborhoods having deployed public digital signatures for people in handling online administrative records. Over 90% of people are guided, supported and activated electronic identification accounts (10 out of 16 communes and wards completed or exceeded their given plans and progress). Community digital groups have also helped guide organizations and individuals with more than 3,000 cashless online public service records, thus engaging more people in administrative reform and digital transformation of the town and providing ways for people to inspect, monitor and report administrative reform and provide online public services of the town, communes and wards.

The Tien Giang Provincial Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, is opening up any new investment opportunities for the town. What do you think about this issue?

According to the Tien Giang Provincial Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, Cai Lay Town is defined as the urban center of the western economic and urban sub-region of Tien Giang province, helping form the Cai Lay - My Tho - Go Cong economic and urban development corridor and also serve as an important economic exchange center from the southern Tien River region and the Dong Thap Muoi region for My Tho City and Ho Chi Minh City.

To realize the above goals, Cai Lay Town has focused on attracting investors to unlock potential advantages of the urban center of the western economic and urban sub-region of Tien Giang province, one of the important transit centers in Cai Lay and Cai Be districts towards My Tho City and Ho Chi Minh City.

Cai Lay has also taken advantage of the Ba Rai river route, which flows through 10.5 km of the eastern area of the town in the North - South direction to the Tien River and connects with Canal 12 - Nguyen Van Tiep Canal to form an important waterway to transport rice to serve milling, polishing and logistics development.

In addition, the town has prioritized attracting investors for residential areas, markets combined with residential areas, and roads combined with residential areas and entertainment areas such as My Phu Residential Area, My Loi Residential Area, Cai Lay Water Park and residential areas in Nhi Quy, Phu Quy and Tan Phu communes.

Thank you very much!

By Ngo Khuyen, Vietnam Business Forum