General information

- Geographic location: The region is bounded by Red river delta to the North, by Laos to the West, by South central coast to the South and by the South China Sea to the East.

- Area: Approx. 51,552 km².

- Topographic features: it is narrow coastal plain but consists of midland, mountains and islands.

- Administrative units: include 6 provinces of Thanh Hoá, Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên Huế.

- Population: Approx. 10,668,300 (Statistic Yearbook of 2006)

Regional advantages

- Transportation advantages: The region lies on the North – South railway & roadway transportation axis with many automobile roads in direction of East – West (national highways No. 7,8,9, 29) connecting Laos and the South China Sea. It has airports of Vinh, Đồng Hới, Phú Bài, seaports of Nghi Sơn, Cửa Lò, Cửa Hội, Cửa Gianh, Nhật Lệ, Cửa Việt, Thuận An, etc. creating favourable conditions for economic development in the region and with other countries, especially with Laos, Northeast of Thailand, Myanmar, etc.

- Mineral resources: The region has various mineral resources, accounting for 60% iron ore, 80% tin, 100% cronite, 40% limestone of the whole country. There are valuable mineral mines such as iron mine in Thạch Khê (Hà Tĩnh), cronite mine in Cổ Định (Thanh Hoá), tin mine in Quỳ Hợp (Nghệ An), granite (billions of tons), cement limestone (billions of tons), iron (half billion of tons), tin, kaolin, etc. It has potentiality for developing oil, gas exploitation as well. These are good foundations for developing mining, metallurgy, construction material production to help the region obtain an outstanding position in term of industry.

- Forest advantages: The regional forestry authority is in charge of managing 3,436,860 hectares, 163,300 hectares of land with forest with wood reserves of 134,737 million m³, 1,466.49 million bamboo and Neohouzeaua trees; ranking behind the Central Highlands in term of forestry resources but it has mainly poor forests. Land without forests of 1,599,800 hectares (excluding 204,011 hectares of rock mountains) is object to be exploited for forestry development.

- Sea economic advantages: The region has approx. 670 km of coastal line with 23 estuaries, many beautiful beaches, lagoons, large bench, suitable for developing tourism and sea economy (reserves of fish: 620,000 tons, shrimp: 2,750 tons, cuttlefish: 5,000 tons, etc.).

- Tourism advantages: There are many beautiful beaches such as Sầm Sơn, Cửa Lò, Nhật Lệ, etc. and other interesting landscapes such as rivers, streams, mountains, forest, lakes, lagoons. Thanks to its long tradition, the region has many valuable cultural, architectural and historical monuments (ranked 144 out of 1,221 monuments) and many special traditional festivals. Many minority ethnic groups are living here. There are many natural conservation zones, national parks (accounting for 1.7% of the total area) which have been expanded such as Bạch Mã, Bến én, Vũ Quang, Anh Sơn, Tam Quì, Hòn Mê, Thanh Thuỷ, Bù Huống, Ngọc Trạn, Lam Sơn, Kẻ Bàn, especially Phong Nha cavern and natural forest.

Economic situations

- Economic growth rate: Over the past years, the Government has had encouraged investment, even on science, technology to develop agriculture, rural coastal areas of the Central coast in general and in the North Central Coast in particular. Thanks to this, the region’s economy developed quite fast (8.4% in the period 1991 – 2002) with an increase of 5.29% in Agriculture – Forestry – Fishery. However, the region’s economy is still facing many difficulties, GDP per head is only 3.5 million VND/head/year in 2002 (56% of the average national rate).

- Economic structure has been changed in a positive way with annual decrease on Agriculture of 14.3% (average annual decrease of 1.3%). However, Agriculture – Forestry – Fishery still accounts for a big proportion of 37.8%. The changes in the economic structure are slow. Product value per hectare is low (approx. 17 million VND/hectare). Rural labourers lack of jobs, have low income and lead hard lives.

Development plans up to the year 2010

- Several objectives to the year 2010: Speed up the economic growth to reach the GDP per head of 670 – 780 USD in 2010. It is planned that Agriculture – Forestry – Fishery will account for 21.3% – 21.9%, Industry – Construction account for 34% – 34.1% and Service account for 44.1% – 44.6% and approx. 2.5 – 3 million new jobs will be created.

- Sectors’ development plans:

- Industry: Keep the construction of Dung Quat oil refining factory to the planed progress, encourage investment on Nghi Son oil refining factory; Implement the project of iron mining in Thạch Khê in combination with the construction of metallurgy complex in Vũng áng (Hà Tĩnh); Construct shipbuilding and repair factories; Construct cement factories in planned material areas; Develop Agriculture – Forestry – Fishery product processing, textile, garment and footwear; Build pulp factories in Thanh Hóa, Nghệ An; Promote salt production (especially industrial salt); Speed up the progress of construction of hydro-electricity plants in combination with irrigation system; Connect regional communes to the national power grid.

- Agriculture – Forestry - Fishery:

Agriculture: Develop commodity production, raise the effectiveness of farming, adapt to severe weather conditions; Plan centered material areas in connection with processing industry; pay attention to short term crops such as sugarcane, peanut, tobacco, cotton and long term industrial crops such as cashew nut, pineapple, coffee, tea, rubber, pepper, fruits; better exploit the western areas; develop breeding with proper scales.

Forestry: Develop afforestation, protection forests, watersheds to reduce flood, ensure safety of regional hydro-electricity and irrigation works; develop afforestation in the sea to prevent sand and salt; raise the forestry coverage to 44 – 45%.

Fishery: Improve infrastructure for aquaculture to ensure sustainable development and ecology protection; develop offshore fishing in combination with sea security; improve infrastructure for ports, services which support fishing, safety places for ships in popular estuaries and islands during storms.

- Services:

Tourism: exploit regional advantages of ecology, convalesce, cultural and historical tourism; develop tourism centers in coastal areas and islands: tours to Phong Nha - Kẻ Bàng, ancient capital Huế; Combine development of urban and industrial zones with tourism development; Combine tourism with the development of East – West economic corridor, expanding trade, tourism, services with Lao, Cambodia and Thailand, participating into tourism of Mekong region with Red river delta.