In 2023, against the backdrop of the difficulties in the global and national economy, and internal local problems, the Da Nang government and city-dwellers, along with business community, have overcome obstacles and challenges to implement the resolution on directions and tasks for the year 2023. On the occasion of the New Year 2024, the Da Nang Newspaper had a discussion with Chairman of the Da Nang People's Committee Le Trung Chinh about achievements in socio-economic development, as well as opportunities opening up for Da Nang in the coming time.

Chairman of the Da Nang People's Committee Le Trung Chinh.

The scale of the Da Nang economy has increased by nearly VND 10,000 billion

* In 2023, Da Nang chose the theme ‘Year focusing on unlocking resources and attracting investment; maintain economic growth and ensure social welfare’. Looking back at a year when the economy faced many difficulties and challenges due to the impact of epidemics and natural disasters, what outstanding results has Da Nang achieved?

With the highest determination to achieve the set goals, the city leaders have focused on directing relevant agencies to advise on many drastic solutions to promote the city’s strong aspects to make development strides on such fields as tourism, transportation, information technology; promulgate many regulations and solutions to remove difficulties and obstacles, especially problems that have existed for many years and organize business meetings and dialogues to find solutions. The city’s government has also directed agencies to both perform their regular tasks well and promptly handle arising problems lingering from previous years in parallel with ensuring adaptation to the new context.

The city’s total growth rate in 2023 was recorded at 2.58%, and the scale of the economy increased by nearly VND 10,000 billion compared to 2022. Specifically, sectors such as services continued to affirm itself as a bright spot, contributing positively to the city's overall economic growth. There are some service industries achieved good growth based on the very high growth of the previous year such as retail sales of goods up by 6.2%. Revenue generated from accommodation, food and travel services increased by 44.5% compared to 2022.

The city has successfully organised many national and international events, notable among which were the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival, Da Nang Enjoyment Festival 2023, Da Nang Golf Tourism Festival and Asian Development Golf Tournament - BRG Open Golf Championship 2023, Da Nang Manulife International Marathon 2023, along with other attractive tourism events, products and services that took place continuously and attract many tourists.

2023 also witnessed coordination between Da Nang and foreign countries and airlines. To date, it has restored 15 regular international routes, 11 international charter flights, 8 domestic routes, and it opened new air services connecting with to Macau (China), Japan, Laos, China and the Philippines. Transportation, warehousing, and postal revenue is estimated to increase by 31.6%. Likewise, information and communications industry revenue in 2023 is projected to climb by 8.1% compared to 2022 and a rise of 12% is predicted to be recorded by software export turnover.

The city focused on promoting investment attraction, implementing new licenses and adjustments for 40 domestic projects with a total registered investment capital of VND 46,698.5 billion (same period in 2022: VND11,722.9 billion) and US$181 million worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) (same period 2022 attracted US$133.4 million). It is estimated that for the whole year of 2023, total domestic investment capital may reach about VND 60,000 billion whilst FDI attraction is likely to hit more than US$200 million, thanks to actively removing obstacles facing old investment projects with a total additional capital of over VND47,500 billion. The city handled well the issues of social security, order and social safety. 

The city has implemented a 3-year preliminary review of Resolution No. 119/2020/QH14 dated June 19, 2020 on piloting the urban government model and a number of specific political mechanisms to develop Da Nang; thereby proposing and recommending amendments and supplements to a number of articles of Resolution No. 119/2020/QH14 to overcome obstacles and inadequacies in the process of piloting the organization of the urban government model, supplementing new specific mechanisms and policies to create motivation for the city's development in the coming period and they have been agreed upon by the National Assembly.

Right from the beginning of the year, the city has focused on many solutions and implementation plans, thereby putting into operation the multi-tasking Intelligent Operation Centre (IOC, Phase 1), actively coordinate with naitonal agencies to resolve problems to put the Da Nang Software Park No. 2 into operation.

During the year, the city won many prestigious domestic and international awards for efforts in building a smart city and digital transformation such as the Da Nang Public Service Portal ranked A by the National Committee on Digital Transformation; Da Nang leading the ICT Index 2022 rankings, receiveing the Outstanding Digital Transformation State Agency Award and Smart City Award for the 4th consecutive time, wining the award ‘Top typical organisations/localities actively implementing Industry 4.0 and digital transformation” as announced at the award ceremony of the ‘I4.0 Awards’ 2023.

Tourists enjoy taking photos at Sun World Ba Na Hills tourist area. Photo: THU HA

With the above-mentioned encouraging results, besides favourable factors, how has the city identified opportunities, challenges and difficulties for the Da Nang development?

Da Nang, with its current stature as is an education - training, science and technology and health center of the whole region, where the largest intellectual team of the Central Key Economic Region gathers. This is an advantage for Da Nang to transform its growth model from land and labour intensive to a knowledge-based growth model, creating value-added science and technology and innovation products to serve the entire central key economic region.

In the coming period, Da Nang will have to face challenges in connecting to the global market, in terms of competitiveness, attracting FDI, whilst the economic market is still small in scale and vulnerable to current economic conditions, natural disasters and unforeseen impacts. The position of Da Nang seaport is also competitive with others along the central region of the northern and southern localities. The North-South high-speed railway system, which promotes convenient trade between localities in the region, will reduce Da Nang's position if it does not soon change its growth model towards developing a knowledge-based economy, becoming a central hub for providing scientific, technical and technological services that bring high added value to the entire region.

On the other hand, there are many risks hindering world economic growth still exist and some tend to incre ase, which are considered consequences of the epidemic, trade war, and large countries’ strategic readjustment to reduce the external dependence which changes supply chains, the trend of intertwining trade liberalization with trade protection, increasing nationalism, trade wars, and anti-globalization, financial risks and other issues. All of them together make the world economic growth to slow down, negatively impacting the socio-economic development of Viet Nam, and Da Nang in particular.

Unfavourable developments in the world economy will have a strong and rapid impact on all aspects of the city's development. Infrastructure development policies from mobilizing capital investment and land resources almost run out of room for development. The way of organizing economic management is no longer suitable for a rapidly developing urban economy based on services and high-tech industry. There is no specific policy mechanism for development. The time for verifying and appraising investment policy approval documents for off-budget investment projects is still relatively long. In addition, issues of human resources, urban infrastructure, land, climate and the environment are also challenges that have a significant impact on social life, requiring timely redirection, innovation to create breakthroughs for Da Nang.

The appearance of a large urban area in the future

* At the end of November 2023, the Prime Minister approved the Da Nang Master Plan for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision toward 2050. What opportunities does this plan open for Da Nang to make further breakthroughs in the coming time?

Da Nang is the first among the 5 centrally-run cities to have its municipal master plan approved. At the same time, the city has focused on drastically directing and speeding up the progress of preparing, appraising and approving zoning plans. Up to now, two out of the nine urban subdivision projects have been approved and submitted for approval. Regarding natural conditions, geo-economic - political location, regional connectivity, the development and cooperation in the Mekong sub-region based on the East - West economic corridor and the East - West Economic Corridor 2 connecting the Central Key Economic Region with Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar is an extremely large development potential for Da Nang city and the Central and Central Highlands regions.

If the road transport system connecting intra-regionally and inter-regionally is upgraded and achieves advantages in import-export customs procedures, immigration and customs clearance conditions from both Laos and Thailand and Myanmar, Da Nang will attract a large number of tourists and promote goods exchange between these markets in the Northeast region. At that time, the Da Nang port system will become the main seaport facing the Pacific Ocean of both the Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands regions.

Positive impacts from the trend of regional cooperation and integration in the Central Key Economic Zone and effects from the rapid socio-economic development of neighbouring regions create conditions for Da Nang to open expand economic space beyond the city's narrow administrative space. Da Nang is the core urban area of the urban chain Hue - Da Nang - Chu Lai, Ky Ha (Quang Nam) - Dung Quat (Van Tuong) - Quy Nhon, forming the Da Nang urban area including Chan May (Lang Co) - Da Nang - Dien Ban - Hoi An - South Hoi An.

Linking in transportation and urban infrastructure planning has created a synchronous and modern urban space, a systematic connection between Da Nang and localities, motivation to develop the key economic zone of the Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands regions, and Da Nang in particular. This area can serve as a potential market for Da Nang's products and services, a key partner for trade and cooperation between Da Nang, Central regional localities and the Indochina at large.

Da Nang also received support from the national government to become one of the major socio-economic centres of Viet Nam and Southeast Asia as a whole. Resolution No. 43-NQ/TW dated January 24, 2019 of the Politburo is the fundamental direction for the city's future development. In addition, Da Nang and localities in Central Viet Nam are key areas of the country in terms of marine economy and maritime security, so they will receive a lot of attention from the national government in their actions, boost inter-provincial coordination to effectively implement plans to both develop the marine economy and protect sovereignty and territorial integrity at sea.

Currently, the world economy is developing in a green, circular, creative, sustainable direction and based on the achievements of the 4.0 industrial revolution. The development connection between countries and between sectors is becoming closer and more effective. Viet Nam's economic structure is forecast to continue to shift towards services, the national government will mobilize domestic and foreign economic sectors to upgrade and build infrastructure and technical facilities. Modern technology, serving service development. One of the large-scale service hubs in trade, tourism, finance and logistics will be formed in Da Nang.

Airport urban development is a future development trend, because it brings positive economic, social, environmental benefits to the city and the whole region, this is a development opportunity. New development for the Da Nang international airport with a convenient location in the city centre. Da Nang also has extremely favourable conditions to promote development into a smart city.

The rapid development of science and technology, sharing economy, digital economy and Industry 4.0 can create breakthroughs to support the growth momentum of Da Nang’s economy. All of the factors analyzed above are the basis to confirm that Da Nang Master Plan for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision toward 2050, will give the locality a great urban appearance in the future.

Semiconductor chip design, tablet manufacturing and assembly at Trung Nam EMS Joint Stock Company (Trung Nam Group) at the Da Nang High-Tech Park. Photo: Dang Khiem

* Da Nang identifies innovative startups and the semiconductor chip industry as two priority ecosystems for investment and development. So what is the specific development orientation of these two new areas of the city?

With regard to the field of innovative startups, Resolution No. 43-NQ/TW of the Politburo on building and developing Da Nang to 2030, with a vision toward 2045 has identified the goal to 2030: Building Da Nang to become one of the major socio-economic centres of Viet Nam and Southeast Asia as a whole as a centre for startups and innovation. Under the set vision toward 2045, Da Nang will become a large, ecological and smart urban area, a centre for startups, innovation and a livable coastal city at the level of the Asian region.

To achieve this ambitious goal, in recent times, the city has focused on building, creating, and promoting the development of the city's innovative startup ecosystem. Many important legal documents were issued to create a legal basis for implementing innovative startup activities across the city. With the results achieved, in 2023, Da Nang won the Viet Nam Smart City Award in the category of Attractive City for Innovative Startups by VINASA. This is the third time Da Nang has received this award. The city was also honoured by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a locality with outstanding contributions to the innovative startup ecosystem.

As for the semiconductor chip industry, the city must clearly recognize the development of this field, in which innovation plans for this field are extremely necessary and groundbreaking to create outstanding new values, creating conditions for people to develop new products, especially ‘Make In Da Nang’ ones.

In the plan for developing the IT industry in Da Nang until 2030, priority has been given to developing the IC design and manufacturing industry. The city has set a goal that by 2030, the digital economy will account for at least 30% of its GRDP; reaching at least 8,950 digital technology enterprises and 115,000 digital technology human resources with at least 7 information technology parks and software parks.

To date, Da Nang has 2,450 digital technology businesses (an average of 2.3 technology businesses/1,000 people, ranking 2nd nationwide and 3 times higher than the national average). There are 46,000 digital technology workers. Da Nang also orients its approach to participate in the global circuit and semiconductor production chain based on human resources as the decisive factor and prioritises human resource development for the design, testing, packaging and necessary stages.

For human resources, additional training and retraining are identified as tasks that need attention in addition to new training, which focuses on 3 groups of human resources including: short-term training of lecturers through support support from firms to form long-term core human resources for skills training; Training graduate and recent engineers to use advanced tools according to international standards to train human resources to serve local, domestic and international businesses; Successfully attracting experienced experts, especially overseas Vietnamese, to the city to work and transfer knowledge.

Create a breakthrough to complete the 5-year plan

* 2024 is considered a very important year to implement the goals of the second half of the term of the 13^th National Party Congress and the 22^nd Da Nang Party Congress. What are important and breakthrough solutions?

The city has chosen the theme of 2024 as the year ‘Promoting administrative reform, strengthening discipline, continuing to open up investment resources, promoting economic growth and ensuring social welfare. Based on the achieved-mentioned results that need to be promoted, as well as the work of forecasting domestic and international situations, the city will continue to focus on effectively compiling the Da Nang Master Plan in the 2021 - 2030 period, with vision toward 2050, soon complete the construction of specific policy mechanisms to promote the city’s development according to the goals of Resolution No. 43-NQ/TW dated January 24, 2019 of the Politburo and the Resolution of the Da Nang Party Committee.

The city will focus on investing in building synchronous, key infrastructure, striving to complete the public investment disbursement plan; develop businesses, promote startups, innovation, and strongly deploy digital transformation in all industries and fields; ensure the sustainable tourism development to make Da Nang truly become a the city’s key economic sector. Da Nang continues to accelerate the process of calling for investment in infrastructure construction of industrial clusters and industrial parks, and promote investment attraction in a focused, key direction, with a focus on large projects with spillover effects.

For Da Nang, 2024 is determined to be the year to create a breakthrough to complete the 5-year plan 2021-2025. In addition to the national government promptly issuing policies to gradually remove difficulties in production and business and promote economic growth, the city also proposed the national government to add a number of more specific policy mechanisms for Da Nang, complete zoning plans and specialized technical infrastructure plans. In 2024, the city strives for economic growth of 8-8.5%.

Reporting by DUYEN ANH  - Translating by A.THU