The establishment of economic foundation

“The land is of heroes and heroines who showed their valor and talented minds in fighting the enemy, protect the nation and liberate the people from invasion. They shared the same commonplace characteristics of not being well trained but they showed their best ability and strength much higher than their enemies. As the nation unifies, the soldiers returned home to enter the new front of economic building. Despite difficulties and complexity of economic building, they could eventually overcome on good management and education,” said Mr. Huynh Van Bay (aka Bay Thu) as the former Secretary of Ben Cat District Party Committee.

The land of poverty for heroic people

Bay Thu retold: “In fierce wartime, President Ho Chi Minh chose and taken plenty of his students abroad for learning and training in preparation of the day of unification and nation build-up. In Ben Cat, the same movements were incurred in the face of war. The elites were chosen including Huynh Thanh Son from Phu An. In the day of nation unification, Son attended to economic building and was honored by the State the title of Labor Hero in the reforming stage.”

A nowadays corner of Binh Duong New City. Photo: D. Chi

Together with Son was Mr. Nguyen Van Hung (aka Thang), the then chief accountant of Ben Cat Trading Company. During the stage, people working in trading field could get rich; however, local leaders demanded: “It’s complex and of confusing term in economic building up; however, we should earn as far as it is concerned. The profit, then, should be allocated to working staffs as encouragement and accumulation for growth. Economic building-up should be on the public basis as we could win by the public support.”

Nguyen Van Hung was then designated to General Director of Industrial Development Corporation (now Becamex IDC) for his tremendous achievements and title of Labor Hero in the reforming stage.

Extraordinary achievements established

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc An “Xe”, the former accountant in charge of irrigation in Tan Ba Collective of Thai Hoa Ward in Tan Uyen Town informed of a under-growing stage of the collective in competition with other economic components from 1990 through 1995; however, Binh Duong Province eyed the long-term development strategy of industrialization like today.

In 1997, after the agreement of PM Vo Van Kiet and his Singaporean counterpart, PM Lee Kwan Yew, Binh Duong Province became the venue of Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park and the National Highway Number 13 was upgraded by BOT project approved by the government. The first ever industrial park in Binh Duong Province was invested with outside facilities to make convenient cargo transportation. The construction was carried out by Becamex IDC which is now of much experience.

Despite difficulties, locomotive enterprises of the province have made use of all their forces to construct infrastructures to create foundation for long-term and sustainable development. As the State approved more economic components in the market, Binh Duong Province has lured other economic components together with State-own enterprises to join up the construction and development of the economy. In fact, aside from State-own enterprises, the industrial parks such as Song Than II, Dong An, Viet Huong, etc. invested by the private sector have been successfully built up.

Besides, the State-own enterprises have made active participation into the production, exportation, and joint venture with foreign enterprises. The model was Binh Duong General Production, Exportation and Importation Company which has connected with major economic groups. Thanh Le General Trade, Exportation and Imporation Company has contributed to ensure cargo for consumers in the stages of difficulties to prevent cargo scarcity and price hike.

Precious lessons

On the recent visiting trip to learn about planning and development of Binh Duong New City by the official delegation of Dong Anh District from Ha Noi, Mr. Nguyen Van Hung, General Director of Becamex IDC, on guiding the delegation, said: “We have been asked by many about how we could gather so great money amounts to develop so fast. Actually, we are in the same situation of financing but the local leaders pay more attention to investment luring. To develop the economy, we need friendly environment, god facilities, and satisfaction of investors in terms of fastness and safety. Binh Duong Province implements win-win investment cooperation, i.e., industrial planning should be customer-oriented not customer-pending to reduce costs. Aside from calling upon them, we should offer favorable polices and preferential treatments. Up to date, Becamex IDC still upholds such cooperative motto for the benefits of learning about operation and risk management.”

Aside from the achievements stated by Becamex IDC General Director, Mr. Tran Van Nam, the then Deputy Chair of Binh Duong Provincial People’s Committee and now Chair of Binh Duong Provincial People’s Committee, advised the delegation of Dong Anh District of risky physical demographic growth brought about by fast economic development which would create great pressure on traffic, education, health services, environment, and crime management.

Reported by Duy Chi – Translated by Vi Bao