Introduction about the development potential of Thai Nguyen province

Thai Nguyen province has the great potential for economic and social development. Many potentials have become a source of human life, however, several potentials are still opportunities waiting for being exploited by the investors.

  I. Development potential

1. Agro-forestry potential

Thai Nguyen is favored by nature in terms of climate and land, therefore, it has many possibilities for agro-forestry development. Thai Nguyen tea, especially Tan Cuong tea, is a famous product in Vietnam for a long time. Currently, there are over 22,3000 hectares of tea across province which is the leading in the country in terms of area, output and value of products obtained on 01 hectares of land for planting tea. The whole province has 6,813 hectares of safe and organic tea production, is certified for meeting the safe stardards accounting for 34.5% of the total area for tea products. Some tea specialty areas of the province have high value of products after processing, such as: Tan Cuong, Thai Nguyen city; Trai Cai, Minh Lap, Dong Hy district; La Bang, Dai Tu district; Tuc Tranh, Vo Tranh and Phu Luong district.

Thai Nguyen has a total planned land area for the forestry of 179,914.28 ha, of which: 36,411.2 ha of special-use forest; 45,971.63 ha of protection forest; 97,731.53 ha of production forest. The forest cover rate is stable at over 47%, the forestry production value is reached by VND 845.2 billion in 2020. The average yield of timber from planted forests is about 157,000 m³ per year. The whole province has 555 facilitiess of manufacturing, trading and processing forest products and 240 production facilities of wood household goods.

Cinnamon and medicinal plants in Thai Nguyen have existed for a long time and are widely distributed in the natural forests. Cultivation and development of a number of medicinal plants are invested and developed. Currently there are about 3,136 hectares of cinnamon and medicinal plants in the whole province which concentrated in a few districts such as Dinh Hoa, Dai Tu, Phu Luong, and Vo Nhai.

Besides, the province has a number of branded agro-forestry products such as vermicelli, noodles, Bo Dau cake, palm blinds, rattan, bamboo woven,...

Currently, Thai Nguyen has 14,680 ha of fruit trees of all kinds, in which there are some fruit trees with large area and output such as: Grapefruit (1,945 ha), banana (1,755 ha), longan (1,741 ha), litchi ( 1,421 ha), custard-apple (740 ha)…

There are 400 agricultural cooperatives in the whole province; there are 112 agricultural, forestry and fishery production and business enterprises, 6,136 facilities of producing, processing and trading in agriculture, forestry and fishery.

2. Mineral resources potential

Thai Nguyen province has very rich mineral resources in terms of types which is a great comparative advantage in the development of metallurgical and mining industries. Thai Nguyen province has the second largest coal reserves in the country with the (bitum) coal reserves over 15 million tons and the coal reserves about 90 million tons. Iron ore is being exploited for steelmaking by Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Corporation. Titanium has exploratory reserves of about 18 million tons. Non-ferrous metals with tin, lead, zinc, tungsten, gold, copper, nickel, mercury, etc. Currently, Tin has been exploited and exported to other countries. Minerals in construction materials have great potential as raw materials for the production of cement, paving stones of all kinds and building materials.

Thai Nguyen province always encourages the projects that invest in deep processing of mineral.

3. Tourism potential

- Thai Nguyen province has the following main tourist attractions:

+ Nui Coc Lake tourist area has been invested quite a lot. Currently, the province is focusing on investment in building road along the lake. Thai Nguyen province always encourages the investment projects to expand the tourist area.

+ Tourist area Phuong Hoang Cave, Mo Ga Stream in Vo Nhai district is about 45 km from Thai Nguyen city. This place is in need of investment capital for the cable car projects, luxury motels and entertainment projects.

+ The ATK historical relic site in Dinh Hoa district has been invested.

+ The Museum of Vietnamese Ethnic Culture (in Thai Nguyen City) and architectural works of the temples and pagodas such as Duom Temple (Phu Luong), Hang Pagoda (Dong Hy), Phu Lien Pagoda, Xuong Rong Temple , Doi Can temple (Thai Nguyen city).

- Thai Nguyen can build the tourist routes connecting attractions and tourism in the province with tourist attractions of the neighboring provinces such as: Historic banyan tree Tan Trao

(Tuyen Quang); Ba Be Lake (Bac Kan); Pac Bo (Cao Bang); Tam Thanh, Nhi Thanh caves and Mau Son mountain (Lang Son); Tam Dao - Dai Lai Lake (Vinh Phuc); Hung Temple (Phu Tho); Con Son, Yen Tu, Kiep Bac Temple (Hai Duong)

- Thai Nguyen has great tourism potential, however, it has not been exploited to develop strongly yet. Thai Nguyen is in need of attracting the large investment capital in this field including the system of high-quality hotels and services.

4. Potential of human resources

Thai Nguyen is the third largest training center in the whole country with nine universities, of which seven Universities of (Industry, Agriculture, Forestry, Pedagogy, Medicine, Science, Economics, Information Technology) ; Viet Bac University; University of Transport Technology; 12 colleges, 8 technical vocational  schools, 30 vocational training centers located in the whole province are playing the role of training centers and research & technology transfer centers. Annually these universities and schools train over 100,000 students with qualifications and skills to meet the technical labor requirements for the Thai Nguyen province and the Northern midland and mountainous provinces.

5. Medical potential

Thai Nguyen is a medical center of the Northeast region with one specially ranked central hospital, eight provincial hospitals and three district general hospitals (Phu Binh, Dinh Hoa, Dai Tu), nine district health centers; 4 Centers: one for Disease Control; one for Control of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, medical equipment; Medical Assessment Center; one for Forensic Medicine and Population- Family Planning Counselling and Services.

In 2020, the whole province has 97.2% of communes meeting the national criteria for health, reaching 48.5 hospital beds per ten thousand people (in 2015 it was 35.5 hospital beds per ten thousand people), higher than 1.7 times of the national average.

II. Development direction

1. Economic sector

Thai Nguyen focuses on concretizing the Party's guidelines and policies in building mechanisms and policies to ensure rapid and sustainable development, economic restructuring associated with growth model innovation, and promotion of regional linkages.

The province focuses on building provincial plan for the period of 2021 - 2030 with the vision to 2050 in line with the national master plan, the Northern Midland and Mountainous region planning, and Thai Nguyen urban system planning in the direction of rational distribution among regions. This will lead to the favorable connection with the urban system of the Northern Delta region. The province sets target to formulate specific mechanisms and policies to attract the resources and investors to invest, in which priority is given to attracting investment in industrial zones and clusters with groups of potential industries and advantages of the provinces such as electricity, electronics, mechanical engineering, mineral processing, agricultural and forestry products associated with environmental control and protection.

The province purchases the objectives to step by step transform the economic structure and renew the growth model, improve the growth quality, labor productivity and competitiveness. Also, Thai Nguyen will research and implement models of night economy, sharing economy, and circular economy in line with the development trend of the digital economy, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the province's development practice. The province will create a favorable environment, equal competition between the traditional economy and the sharing economy model; focus on network security, well implement risk reduction policies, solve problems arising in labor, employment and social security in sharing economy activities. Thai Nguyen will promote vertical and horizontal regional linkages in order to enhance the connectivity and promote the strengths of each local in the region.

Industrial development - construction:

Thai Nguyen will take advantage of the advantages, achievements and opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to shift the industrial structure in the direction of prioritizing groups of industries and high-tech industrial products with great added value, clean industry and export production. Also, The province will concentrate investment in developing infrastructure of industrial zones and clusters in the southern region and mobilize as well as effectively use resources; focus on developing industries that have comparative advantages and great contributing to socio-economic development; restoring and developing the province's strengths. Developing supporting industries and forming industrial clusters in a number of priority industries are also the direction of Industrial development – construction of the province.

The province focuses to develop the construction industry to be able to design and execute construction works in fields according to the country's socio-economic development requirements. It has the policies to attract investment in modernizing the construction industry, using new and energy-saving materials, and applying modern construction technologies.

Development of the agriculture, forestry and fishery

The province continues to carry out agricultural restructuring towards increasing added value, strengthening chain linkages and sustainable development in association with the goal of building a new countryside. The focus is on developing key agricultural commodities and strengths of the province; forming concentrated, large-scale commodity production zones, safe and organic agricultural production, and high-tech application. The quality and value of tea plants and tea products are also focused to improve. In addtion, the province encourages all economic sectors to invest in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fishery; encourages and promotes the concentration and accumulation of land to facilitate large-scale, high-tech agricultural production and Forest economic development associated with sustainable forest management; focus to improve the quality and effectiveness of the national target program on building new rural areas.

Development of the services, trade and tourism

The province has policies to step up the development of the service sector, especially those with local potentials and advantages; support the services for industry and agriculture; develop the services and trade in association with provinces, cities and major economic centers of the country; connect the agricultural production, handicrafts, traditional craft villages with e-commerce to expand domestic and international markets; plan the key tourist areas; focus on developing key tourism products of the province; develop Nui Coc Lake tourist area, spiritual and historical tourism from the homeland of Emperor Ly Nam De (Phu Yen town) to Dinh Hoa ATK, connect with tourist areas and Historical - cultural relics of provinces and cities throughout the country.

Strengthening the budget management, financial services and banking

The province always ensure financial disciplines in the management of the state budget; continue to restructure budget expenditures in the direction of saving recurrent expenditures and increasing development investment spending.

Thai Nguyen will focus to develop financial, banking and insurance services to support and create favorable conditions for the activities of other industries, and create a grounded infrastructure for attracting the investment to the province.

Attracting the investment and development of the economic sectors

The province focuses to innovate the investment promotion in the direction of prioritizing the selection of large-scale, advanced and environmentally friendly projects; attract the investment in the development of transport infrastructure and industrial parks in the South in association with the development of the Hanoi Capital region; support the favorable conditions for mechanisms, policies, investment environment, private economic development, encouraging the establishment of small and medium-sized enterprises, start-up enterprises and innovation in all industries and fields area; continue to innovate, invest in development and improve the efficiency of the collective and cooperative economy.

Synchronous development of all kinds of markets

The province focuses to develop a variety of markets, including: commodity market, financial and monetary market, real estate market, science and technology market, and labor market, ensuring that these factors are allotted effectively, creating dynamics, contributing to promoting the dynamic and sustainable economic development.

The province focuses the development of economic and technical infrastructure; concentrate on developing and upgrading the urban system; develop rural residential areas and clusters according to planning; improve the quality and efficiency of urban management; develop the transport infrastructure to create a smooth connection and continuity from the national transport network to provincial, district and communal roads among major commodity production areas, raw material areas and clusters of processing industry; concentrate on mobilizing investment resources for construction of irrigation works in service of agricultural production; reservoirs and dams for the multi-purposes.

2. Socio-cultural

 Education and training development

The province implements effectively the general education program; firmly consolidate and improve the quality of education universalization at all levels and national standard schools; promote socialization in education and training development; continue to pay attention to education in extremely difficult areas, ethnic minority and mountainous areas; promote the potential and strengths of Thai Nguyen University and its member universities in scientific research, training and development of high-quality human resources; well implement the social policies, supporting jobs, reducing poverty and improving people's living standards; mobilize resources to fully, promptly and effectively implement the social policies; well implement the planning and rearrangement of the network of vocational education centers; improve the quality of vocational training in association that with jobs providing and social and labor market needs; continue to effectively implement the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction.

Developing medical care of the people

The province’s target improves the quality of protection and care for people's health; continues to consolidate and perfect the medical network in a streamlined and efficient manner; develops the specialized medical; promotes the role and strengths of Thai Nguyen Central Hospital and provincial hospitals in receiving, transferring technology and providing professional support to the lower levels; promotes the socialization of investment in infrastructure development in the health sector; encourage the development of non-public forms of health care; focuses inheriting, preserving and developing traditional medicine and pharmacy; improves the quality of the population in physical, intellectual and spiritual factors.

Development of the culture, sports, information and communication

The province’s target is developing culture and people to meet the requirements of sustainable development of the country; doing well the conservation, embellishment and promotion of the value of cultural heritages; revolutionary historical sites; culture and arts bearing the traditional identity of the ethnic minorities in the area; increasing investment, promoting socialization, mobilizing and create favorable conditions for organizations and individuals to participate in cultural, sports and tourism development activities; paying attention to the developing high performance sports; promoting activities of information, propaganda and orientation of public opinion; improving the efficiency of state management of press and publication; protectation, ensuring safety and security of the network; strengthening the external information activities, promoting the province's potentials and strengths.

Development of science and technology

The province’s target is perfecting mechanisms and policies to support the research, application and transfer of science and technology into production and life; promoting the innovation activities, actively participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution; increasing investment in research, development and technology transfer activities associated with the priority sectors and industries.

Well performance of the ethnic and religious work

The province’s target is effectively implementing the guidelines and policies of the Party and State on ethnicity and religion according to the principles of equality, solidarity, respect, cooperation, support, and mutual assistance for mutual development, contributing to the growth and development of great national unity.

Information sources:

1. The Political Report of the 20th Congress of Thai Nguyen Provincial Party Committee in the period of 2020 - 2025.

2. The Resolution of the 20th Congress of Thai Nguyen Provincial Party Committee in the period of 2020 - 2025.

3. The Report on providing information about Thai Nguyen province by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

4. The Website of the Investment Promotion Center - Department of Planning and Investment of Thai Nguyen province.