At the discussion session of the 14th Open Conference of the 9th provincial Party Executive Committee, delegates said that the province’s economy over the past nine months continued reaching stable growth with positive changes in the right direction and gained comprehensive results in all aspects.

Industrial manufacture on stability

Addressing the discussion session, Vo Van Cu, Director of provincial Department of Industry and Trade said the province’s economy over the past nine months enjoyed advantages. The greatest advantage was that the economies of U.S, Japan, EU and ASEAN countries…were rebounding. Another advantage was that there was an increase by 10%-15% in the number of province-based enterprises’ export contracts signed.

 This is the overall picture of the the 14th Open Conference of the 9th provincial Party Executive CommitteeIn addition, province-based enterprises’ traditional markets like EU, U.S, Japan and South Korea also decided to increase their amount of imported goods. Province-based enterprises also expanded their export markets to South Africa, Angola and Bangladesh. More importantly, the province saw a stable labor market with the number of labor strikes considerably decreasing in comparison with 2012.

The quality of the province’s economy also secured positive changes. Processing industry accounted for 98% of the local industrial structure. Since early this year, it has seen constant development. This is a field to create the added value for the local industrial manufacture sector.

The province’s export turnover now accounts for 11.2 % of the country’s total export turnover. Over the past nine months, the province’s woodwork processing accounted for 11.3% of the country’s export turnover; garment and textile, 11.2% of total and footwear, 7.3% of total over the past nine months.  Province-based enterprises’ exports to US also increased by 17.1%; EU, 23.9%; ASEAN, 13.8%; Angola, 11.3%; New Zealand, 53.1% and Bangladesh, 45.4%.

The province’s export industries also saw growth in quality over the past nine months. The proportion of industries that use many laborers went down while those with high technologies went up. Particularly, the proportion of garment & textile industry decreased by 1% compared to the corresponding period; footwear, 0.7% and woodwork, 1.7%. Meanwhile, the province saw increase in the proportion of some industries of electronics, mechanism…

Removing hurdles

However, according to Mr.Cu, the province’s economy over the past nine months faced difficulties, due to the increase of gas and petrol prices, materials’ prices…It was very difficult for enterprises to get access to loans from banks, despite lending interest rates lowered. The average salaries of laborers were also grew by around 15%. This plus input costs increase made enterprises fail to secure high profit.

Nguyen Minh Thuy, Director of Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the district’s agricultural sector over the past nine months also encountered hurdles because of animal feed prices on rise. Bad weather with four whirlwinds hit the province with total losses of more than VND12bln.

But, according to Mrs.Thuy, the local agricultural sector enjoyed advantages from the support policy for agricultural development. Also upon this policy, the province opportunely improved difficulties, helping the local farmers maintain their agriculture production. The local agricultural sector is now developed towards urban and hi-tech agricultural models.

At the discuss session, provincial People’s Committee Chairman Le Thanh Cung suggested the local functional sectors to help remove enterprises’ hurdles so that they could fulfill 2013’s tasks, making a premise for 2014’s development. The local functional sectors were also ordered to complete the planning for the Bau Bang auxiliary industrial park and two hi-tech industrial parks to welcome new investment waves; focus on realizing key basic construction works; have good preparation to prevent epidemic diseases in human beings, crop plants, poultry and cattle…

Reported by a group of political correspondents-Translated by K.T