Vinh cuu District Party committee: Prepare manpower to make necessary preparations for changes in its economic structure.

Tan trieu Pomelo village is a tourist attraction for a lot of visitors.

        The secretary of Doan Thanh District party committee said, “The district map shows clearly that three-fourths of the local’s natural land area is forest land and water surface of Tri An Lake. The left part is cut across and along by the system of overhead high-tension and medium-tension electric power lines. Therefore, the focus on industrial development in the condition of small and crumbled natural land area has been of great difficulty”. With the aim of helping the district escape from poverty, the staff of Executive Board along with Vinh Cuu District party committee thought a lot as well as brought about policies and measures. Finally, their major choice was making use of the natural condition of the district for its economic development. According to their viewpoint, economic structure is to transfer from industry-service-agriculture to service-industry-agriculture.

        Service industry of Vinh Cuu District has been determined to be the development of tourism in combination with commerce, and eco-tourism has been potentiality chosen to be the breakthrough. According to the district’s direction about commerce, there will be close combination between tourism and traditional trades of arts and crafts in rural areas. Vinh cuu District is favored by nature with the largest total area of natural and planted forest system. In this district, there are Tri An Lake with total water surface area of over 32,000 square meters, Tan Trieu pomelo village, such sites and areas of historical and cultural heritages as Central Committee for South Vietnam, War Zone D along with traditional trade villages of casting iron, making girdle cake, knitting, etc. In particular, Vinh Cuu District has poetic Dong Nai river along the whole district, and a lot of beautiful lakes ,streams, waterfalls that can be exploited for tourism and attract a lot of visitors. With such advantages, the development of eco-tourism combined closely with rural trades is an important highlight.  The secretary of district party committee said, “We “tossed and turned in bed” a lot because of district economic structure and we found “equation” to solve “the problem”. That was requirement of developing tourism. However, who will do it? This responsibility is for the whole officials, party members and people in the district; but the major manpower must be commune-level officials first, and then district-level officials.”

        It is clear that the human power for eco-tourism development connected with rural trades must be from grassroots and it also needs to mobilize people to take part in. Thus, When Vinh Cuu district party committee decided to appoint some district party committee members having enough professional and ability as the Secretaries and Chairmen of people’s committee of some communes such as Binh Loi, Binh hoa, Ma Da, Phu Ly…,they gained a lot of support. Additionally, Vinh Cuu district party committee not only took advantage of leadership of both  provincial party committee and provincial people’s committee as well as  provincial professional departments but also actively invited and appealed scientists, management professional, investors to study and redo the planning of economic development areas here. Binh Hoa commune adjacent to  Bien Hoa city and Dong nai river has been chosen to be the “key point” in order to activate change of  economic structure tourism development.

        In mid-2007, The Secretary of district party committee and Chairman of District people’s committee led a delegate consisting of secretaries and chairpersons of some communes to come to Thailand aiming at studying models of successful eco-tourism business. After the working trip, the district officials changed their old points of view and they all agreed that change in the district economic structure needs developing both tourism and commerce. At present, some enterprises have been willing for residential areas investment combined with eco-tourism and amusement parks in Binh Hoa commune. According to the planning of the District, Binh Loi commune with the same natural condition as Binh Hoa commune will be invested to become a ecotourism park in order to attract tourists to go for a rest. Besides, if Binh Hoa and Binh Loi tourism areas come into being, they will have positive effects on gardeners’ work in Tan Trieu pomelo village. According to the provincial policy, the district will develop 1,000 hectares of pomelo trees in the communes. However, in order to diversify products, Vinh Cuu district encouraged and some households began planting orchids. At “promising lands” such as Ba Hao, Phan truong 2 Lake in Ma Da commune, or the area of green hill in Tan An commune, the District has also had specific tourism investment intentions for particular products that few places in other regions have. Furthermore, traditional trade villages such as those of casting iron, knitting, making rice paper (banh trang)and rice cake (banh tet) along with those of new trades, for example, producing wine made from pomelos, raising stags and deer, etc. will be encouraged and invested. As judged by many specialists, traditional trade villages will be tourist attractions that will impress visitors in their tours to Vinh Cuu.

        As concerned, policies and plans for economic development in Vinh Cuu district have been opened in the orientation of combining strong ecotourism development and rural trade villages. It is thought that these trades require a lot of people to take part in. As a result, the manpower that can meet demands of this important change are not only from commune-level officials, so the district need  to pay more attention to train all people to take part in doing  tourism as well as developing traditional trade villages in the local.

Reported by Dong Nai Newspaper and translated by THKC.