It was a long pace from Hong Gai former mine, to Hon Gai town and Ha Long city today. During that development process, Ha Long has made many dramatic changes to become a modern, developed urban area in various aspects.
The socio-economic situation of the city has undergone many changes with the economic structure of increasing proportion of industry, services linking to social and cultural development, environmental protection, but less contribution from agro-forestry sector. Technical infrastructure has been upgraded to meet the international standard; social infrastructure has been invested aiming at improving people's quality of life and raising their knowledge and awareness. In its leadership, the Ha Long City People’s committee has had many creative ways to encourage and promote the will and resources of the city.
The city has been maintaining its economic growth at high speed. The average GDP growth since 2002 has been sustained about 13%/per year, greatly contributing to the provincial budget. Particularly in 2011, the total state revenue of the city was estimated to reach VND 16,400 billion, accounting for more than 50% of the total revenue of the province. Ha Long city’s appearance has been much changed. Many new modern and spacious urban areas were built. The system of roads, markets, cultural, educational, and recreational buildings were rationally allocated and developed.
To have the present Ha Long, thousands of billion VND has been invested in implementing a large number of projects on the urban technological infrastructure, including water supply and drainage; wastewater treatment plants, etc. in an effort to ensure a synchronized infrastructure for the city. At the same time, many projects were completed to speed up the economic development of Ha Long city; for example, planning for industry and industrial centers; planning for Ha Khanh industrial cluster with an area of 80 hectares. In addition, Ha Long city also invested in the development of tourism, trade, and agriculture. Particularly, the development of the city has a close interactive relationship with the development strategy of Quang Ninh province, which is a key economic zone in the North, and also with the development strategy called “two corridors-one economic belt” between Vietnam and China.
Mr. Vu Van Hop, Standing Vice-Chairman of Ha Long city People’s Committee said: “In the orientation to 2020, Ha Long will become a world famous tourist city and be on a par with other tourist cities in the South East Asia region; a big center of service and seaport in ASEAN region; a motivation to promote socio-economic development of Quang Ninh province as well as of the key Northern economic zone. In order to achieve this goal, Ha Long city has focused on improving both the people’s material life and spiritual-cultural life; at the same time, the city also implemented policies that attract investment and provide enterprises with the best conditions to conduct their trading activities within the city.
Also according to Mr. Vu Van Hop, Ha Long is actively carrying out socio-economic planning, science and human resource development, etc. The city is also reviewing outdated plans in order to make suitable amendments in an attempt to provide investors with the best facilities to develop their projects.
Specifically, in the time to come, Ha Long city will rapidly complete land planning and list all the vacant land in the city with specific data on land use coefficient, construction density, planning quota, form of investment and preferential mechanism. The city will also complete the land use planning and publicize the plan, while making favorable conditions to speed up the compensation and evacuation process.
Transportation planning will also be promoted by propelling the implementation of major projects that have been approved.The development of public transport will also be strengthened. Managemement of projects will be tightened so as to handle any problems that may arise in a timely manner. Additionally, Ha Long city continues to thoroughly carry out administrative reform; effectively implement the one-door mechanism to solve all problems of organization and people. This will facilitate a better sense of responsility and effectiveness in serving the people.
With its potentials and advantages, as well as the efforts of the Party and local authorities, Ha Long city is certainly on its way to further development.
Ha Chi
