Prime Minister (PM) Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently made specific recommendations about promoting Da Nang’s progress in the years ahead.

A beautiful corner of Da Nang

PM Phuc asked the municipal authorities and local residents to uphold their spirit of solidarity and intensify joint efforts to make even more breakthroughs with the aim of ensuring the city’s comprehensive development and make it a more attractive destination in the South East Asia region in the near future.

To realise these key goals, the focus should be on effectively implementing the resolutions of the 12^th National Party Congress and the 21^st Congress of the municipal Party Committee, and surpassing this year’s socio-economic targets.  Da Nang, along with Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, should become driving forces for improving the country’s average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate.

With regard to urban planning strategies, Da Nang should target to become a ‘smart city’, an international hub of trade and services, and an ideal investment destination for investors from both home and abroad.  In particular, greater efforts should be made to make Da Nang on a par with Singapore, Hong Kong and other prosperous and beautiful cities across the world in the near future.

The PM stressed the need for the city authorities to enhance the efficiency of the use of local land resources, promote the city’s open mechanisms and its global integration, and roll out the red carpet for high-quality human resources from both home and abroad.  Also, special attention should be given to ensuring the size, geographical distribution and quality of the local population.

As for specific tasks for furthering the local economic development, importance should be attached to appealing for more FDI inflows into local hi-tech, IT and environmentally-friendly projects, creating even more favourable conditions for local small and medium-sized enterprises, and creating more job opportunities for locals.  The city should aim to be home to between 40,000 and 45,000 businesses by 2020.  Furthermore, tourism and trade should be considered as local spearhead economic sectors, with the aim of developing Da Nang into a major tourism hub in Viet Nam, and playing a vital role in furthering the tourism development of the whole central coast region.

More effective measures should be taken to bolster the maritime economy, with a focus on increasing the number of fishermen and high-capacity fishing vessels and providing more financial credits and training courses for fishermen.  The intention is to encourage local fishermen to continue with their fishing activities and protect the nation's sovereignty over its sea and islands.

He also proposed that the Da Nang authorities should work closely with government agencies to make the best possible preparations for the 25^th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2017) summit, which will take place in the city next November.  This international, large-scale event is a golden opportunity for the city to advertise its tourism brand name, boost the development of the local trade sector, and appeal for more domestic and FDI inflows.

Prime Minister Phuc also agreed to the drafts of resolutions concerning special mechanisms for the Da Nang Hi-tech Park, and the city’s reasonable proportion of its annual tax revenue collections over the 2017 - 2020 period.  He also pledged that the national government would assist Da Nang in appealing for more multinational corporations to seek investment opportunities in the city in the years ahead.

The Prime Minister also fully concurred with the city’s plans for implementing its key projects, including the East-West Economic Corridor No 2, the city’s High-tech Business Incubators Centre, the construction of the Lien Chieu Port, and the relocation of the city’s railway station based on the public-private partnership (PPP) form of investment.   The national government also gave the go-ahead to upgrade the existing municipal Biotechnological Centre into a centre for promoting biotechnological research and applications in agriculture and medicine for the south central localities.