In the 2016 - 2020 period, Quang Binh province has mobilized more than VND93 trillion (US$4 billion) from the central budget, ODA funds, local budget, corporate investment and people’s funds. Public investment capital has been more effectively channeled to important and essential projects such as transport, irrigation, agriculture and rural infrastructure. In particular, the province has paid special attention to major infrastructure projects that create breakthroughs such as airports, economic and industrial zones, transportation routes, water supply, electricity, post and telecommunications. The infrastructure development not only meets socioeconomic development needs, but also helps to draw more investors in the coming years.
Improving connectivity
Efforts to widen roads and build big bridges to modernize and synchronize the transport system are outstanding highlights of the Quang Binh transport sector in 2016-2020. With determination of the entire political system, Quang Binh province has carried out many solutions to mobilize and effectively use resources for modern and synchronous transport infrastructure development. Up to now, Quang Binh has built many important projects to create momentum for socioeconomic development such as expansion projects of National Highway 1, Nhat Le 2 Bridge, Provincial Road 565 and Mai Thuy-An Thuy Street (Le Thuy district). Importantly, the transport sector has made great progress in construction capacity to undertake many sophisticated large-scale sophisticated projects, especially the research and transfer of modern construction technology of suspension bridges and large-span cable bridges such as Nhat Le 2 Bridge.
In addition to arterial routes that create the driving force for the socioeconomic development, the province has upgraded many urban roads in Dong Hoi City such as Huu Nghi, To Huu, Nguyen Huu Canh., Nguyen Trai and Pham Van Dong streets, and installed traffic lights and signs at intersections in towns, towns and cities.
Quang Binh has also carried out many solutions to utilize resources for rural transport system development; conducted regular repair and maintenance of national highways 9B, 12A, 15 and provincial roads, and coordinated with the Ministry of Transport to implement the Rural Bridges Construction and Local Road Asset Management Project (LRAMP), which consisted of 11 roads (55 km) and 22 bridges (1,723 m); and maintained 3,086 km of district roads.
Currently, the province is speeding up ongoing projects to quickly put them into operation such as the road from Nhat Le 2 Bridge to Ho Chi Minh Road (including a 3.7-km main road, four 17.3-km extended roads and four 3.9-km city roads); proposing additional investment for construction and upgrading of bridges and culverts to support vehicles of less than 30 tons on all provincial roads (e.g. Duc Nghia Bridge on Provincial Road 570B and My Cuong Bridge on Provincial Road 567B).
In addition, the Provincial People’s Committee has also worked with central authorities to invest in building and upgrading important roads such as the North-South Expressway (the eastern section passing Quang Binh province), Quan Hau - Vinh Tuy section and Van Ninh - Tang Ky crossroad on National Highway 9B and a bypassing road on National Highway 12A in Ba Don Town.
With the efforts of the whole political system, over the past five years, Quang Binh province has built and upgraded 1,989 kilometers of roads; built 78 new bridges with a total length of 3,976 meters, 2,663 culverts with a length of 15,584 meters, and 16 spillways with a total length of 559 meters. At present, Quang Binh province has 9,377 kilometers of roads, including 905 kilometers of national highways, 490 kilometers of urban roads, 763 kilometers of district roads, 2,114 kilometers of communal roads, 4,680 kilometers of village roads and 54 kilometers of specialized roads. Currently, all communes have roads capable of supporting motorized vehicles to their administrative centers and 95 out of 128 communes have reached Criterion 2 on traffic in the new countryside construction movement.
More synchronous infrastructure
In addition to strong innovations in transportation, local socioeconomic infrastructure systems have also been remarkably improved.
The power grid develops quite synchronously between the source and the transmission network thanks to considerable investment for upgrading high-voltage grid systems and distribution stations to expand the supply coverage to meet consumer needs. In 2020, all communes in the district had access to electricity, of which 98.53% of communes, wards and townships had access to the national grid and 99.8% of households had access to electricity.
Telecom and broadband internet Infrastructure systems and services have developed strongly to meet consumers’ service demands and make an important contribution to socioeconomic development, ensuring national defense and security. Information technology is widely used, enabling the construction and development of e-government. The wide area network (WAN) of the province is deployed on a specialized data transmission network that connects all provincial and district agencies and 28% of grassroots governmental agencies.
Investment has been focused on education and training facilities. Schools, classes and educational scale have been expanded; educational and training facilities and equipment have been upgraded and modernized. 86% of classrooms and 78% of supporting facilities like administrative offices, libraries, equipment and practical experiments, have been cemented, helping improve the quality of comprehensive education.
In five years, the province has also invested in building technical facilities for science and technology agencies and technical infrastructure for information technology to serve scientific research and technological development. To date, Quang Binh province has also financed technical facilities for scientific and technological research and application, laboratories for quality testing, analysis and measurement to meet up to 80% of local requirements.
In addition, the medical infrastructure has been gradually improved. At the provincial level, Vietnam - Cuba - Dong Hoi Friendship Hospital was upgraded by the Ministry of Health and served as a provincial general hospital. At the grassroots level, hospitals/health centers were invested to upgrade infrastructure, especially in waste and wastewater treatment facilities, to enhance environmental protection. Many new medical facilities were built while existing ones were given facelifts. All 159 health facilities have working offices, 145 out of 159 commune-level clinics (91.2%) reached national standards. The ratio of hospital beds to 10,000 residents is 21.
Over the past time, the tourism industry has strongly developed in all aspects, especially infrastructure development and accommodation facilities, to improve service quality and diversify tourism products. Currently, the province has 350 accommodation establishments with 5,100 rooms (10,000 beds), of which 84 hotels and tourist resorts are ranked 1-5 stars; nearly 3,000 food and drink facilities designed to serve tourists in local places of interest (21 restaurants meet tourist service standards). Currently, many investors have registered to invest in tourism, focusing on resorts and hotels, like the resort, villa and entertainment complex invested by FLC Group, Sunrise Bao Ninh Tourism and Service Project invested by Truong Thinh Group, and TMS Resort invested by TMS Global Company.
The urban infrastructure system has been expanded and embellished according to the approved planning and the urban face has been increasingly lifted. Dong Hoi City has been upgraded to a second-grade city. Ba Don, Hoan Lao and Kien Giang towns will reach fourth-grade urban areas. Many new residential and urban areas have been established with synchronous infrastructure, providing a spacious, clean and beautiful face to meet the housing fund of local people and create a driving force for economic and social development. The commercial and service infrastructure has been available for retail and distribution channels to ensure smooth circulation of goods from urban to rural areas, especially to remote and isolated areas.
In particular, being aware of the importance of building and developing technical infrastructure and support facilities of economic and industrial zones, the province has centrally directed and prioritized investment for essential projects, use the central budget to speed up site clearance and build technical infrastructure of industrial zones and some trunk roads in Hon La Economic Zone and technical infrastructure in Cha Lo International Border Gate Economic Zone. The infrastructure system in economic and industrial zones has been invested and constructed in line with development objectives and approved planning criteria. Initially, essential infrastructure items such as road, seaport, water supply, power supply, drainage and water treatment facilities have been constructed to facilitate and motivate the development of industrial and economic zones.
Effort for new goals
Despite considerable investment for development, due to a low starting point and insufficient finance for concentrated investment, the province’s socio-economic infrastructure system is generally poor relative to the whole country in terms of systemization, quality, modernity, equipment, management and operation.
In the 2021 - 2025 period, the province will focus on investing in building synchronous and modern social and economic infrastructure to lay a solid foundation for development; create a breakthrough in socioeconomic development and economic restructuring in order to successfully realize the objectives set out by the 17th Provincial Party Congress and bring Quang Binh to a fast and sustainable development.
Quang Binh will endeavor to mobilize about VND135-150 trillion of investment capital, of which 80% will come from non-government sources and 20% will come from governmental sources. This fund will ensure synchronous connectivity across the province and with other localities in the country, improve transport capacity, ensure smooth and safe traffic, provide active irrigation and drainage for rice areas, nonfood crops, and aquaculture; proactively prevent floods and storms, respond to climate change and sea level rise; build electrical energy infrastructure and essential and important infrastructure works for economic and industrial zones for investors. Besides, the province has gradually invested in tourist centers and service systems, information and communication systems and electronic credit services; and upgraded facilities for major schools to meet human resource training requirements and for high-quality medical facilities to serve people’s needs.
Accordingly, Quang Binh province will strengthen the planning work; mobilize investment capital sources for infrastructure development; consolidate cross-sector coordination in supervision and evaluation of infrastructure investment; and reform project establishment, management and operation methods. The province is confident that, with the support of central authorities and the determination and effort of the whole political system, Quang Binh will achieve new results in mobilizing and effectively using investment resources for infrastructure development to meet socioeconomic development needs and investors’ demand.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi