The miracle of Binh Duong

In 36 years of national reforms and especially in 25 years of construction and development, Binh Duong has gained tremendous achievements in all fields. From a purely agricultural province, Binh Duong has become an open model of investment luring, industrialization, and urbanization. The socio-economic achievements are considered 25-year miracle and the inheritance of tradition on the basis of developing Song Be province in the spirit of unity, activeness, and creativity of the CPV, authorities, people, and business communities.

Achievements of pride

25 years since the the beginning of construction and development, Binh Duong's Party Committee, authority and people have promoted the spirit of solidarity, dynamism, creativity, and efforts to overcome drawbacks and challenges to bring the province to the next levels strongly and quite comprehensively a bright spot in the southern economic region and the whole country.

Determining the central task of economic development, over the past 25 years, the province has continuously made efforts to promote the advantages of geographical location and potentials and labor. It has grasped and made effective use of renovation guidelines and policies of the CPV and State to step by step promote economic restructuring towards industrialization and modernization. Over 2 decades of efforts, creativity, and daring thoughts, Binh Duong has risen to become one of the provinces with fast socio-economic development of the country. The strong development of Binh Duong over the past time has attracted the attention of many scholars and scientists to research and draw the lessons.

Speaking at the conference of inheriting tradition in Binh Duong province of a quarter of a century - achievements and prospects by Binh Duong Provincial Party Committee in collaboration with the Central Political Theory Council and Communist Journal, Dr. Tran Du Lich, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Group, said that Binh Duong has now formed the economic structure of an industrial province. “After 25 years of separation from Song Be province, Binh Duong has achieved impressive socio-economic achievements. As a small area and starting as an unknown area on the economic map of the whole country as well as the southern region, Binh Duong has so far been the locality with the highest GRDP that would reach VND 152 million a person in 2021 and is also an area with a strong attraction of labor from many localities throughout the country. Binh Duong's labor attractiveness is such that "who needs a job, they recommend Binh Duong." This is an important indicator of a locality in the process of strong development. Up to now, it can be affirmed that Binh Duong is a major industrial center of the country. Besides domestic enterprises, Binh Duong is still an attractive destination for foreign investors. The number of FDI enterprises ranks third in the country after Ho Chi Minh city and Hanoi. In the GRDP structure, the industry - construction sector contributes 68%, trade - service 21.3% and agriculture only about 3%. In terms of the value structure in the economic structure, Binh Duong is an industrial province,” analyzed by Dr. Tran Du Lich.

From a purely agricultural province, Binh Duong has become an open model of investment luring, industrialization, and urbanization. Photo: Quoc Chien

During 2015-2020, the Party Committee, authorities and people in the province have made great efforts to achieve many comprehensive achievements. The economy has maintained an average growth rate of 9.35% belonging to the group of provinces and cities with high growth rates. The economic structure continued to shift in the right direction; the industrial structure had a positive shift, and unskilled labor-intensive industries has reduced by increasing the application of science and technology. The supporting industry has been initially developed in association with value chain links of multinational corporations. Developing industrial production is going deeper and deeper to prioritize the manufacturing industry.

Ensured social security

Thanks to perseverance and creative application of the policy of comprehensive renewal of the country initiated and led by the CPV, Binh Duong has reaped many important achievements in socio-economic development. Also at the conference, the Prime Minister's economic advisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Dinh Thien, on delivering his speech, was impressed by the spectacular development of the province. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Dinh Thien said that from a poor province, Binh Duong has caught up and is surpassing the previous localities leading the country in many key aspects. “At first, Binh Duong's economic scale was only VND 3,919 billion. By the end of 2021, the province's economic scale was at VND 408,861 billion, which is 104.3 times higher than in 1997; growth rate of GRDP at constant prices in 1997-2021 reached 10.86% a year; GRDP surpassed Ho Chi Minh city, Hanoi, and Hai Phong to the 3rd position in the country. In February 2022, Binh Duong was honored as one of 21 communities with a typical smart city development strategy in the world (Smart 21) by 2022. This is the fourth time Binh Duong has entered the list of Smart 21 by ICF (Intelligent Community Forum). The above achievements bear the shadow of a development miracle. And it can only be explained by the fact that Binh Duong has persistently pursued to implement a smart development strategy based mainly on a breakthrough approach towards constant innovation and progress," Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thien explained. At the same time, he affirmed that the development of Binh Duong in the past time is a miracle: "The miracle is not too big or exaggerated, but to Binh Duong, it is well deserved. Compared to Korea or Singapore, we still need a lot of efforts, but compared to domestic, Binh Duong is a miracle."

Along with the industrialization process, soon realizing the importance of urbanization as an important driving force of growth, the province has implemented an appropriate urbanization strategy of building a new urban area, forming a new industrial - service - urban complex, smart city development to step by step research and invest in the model of industrial parks - science - technology urban centers for the province in both medium and long term.

Not only did it pay attention to socio-economic development and a smart city construction, Binh Duong also care about the material and spiritual life of the people by implementing throughout the guidelines on ensuring social security. Since 2017, Binh Duong is the first and only province to have no poor households according to the central government's criteria. In 2019, 100% of communes will meet new rural standards, completing the set plan of 1 year in advance. Most of the vulnerable and disadvantaged groups are cared for to enjoy social protection policies according to regulations. Along with ensuring social security, the province also promotes investment in building cultural and sports institutions to meet the requirements of serving the culture and spiritual life of the people and workers in the province. Besides, the province focus on reviewing, restoring, embellishing and promoting the value of local historical and cultural relics in association with tourism development.

For 25 years of construction and development, Binh Duong has grown to become a leading locality in socio-economic development as a proud achievement and a premise for Binh Duong to promote its internal resources and take advantage of external forces to actively explore and be creative in development and become the country's ideal model of industrialization and urbanization, building a rich and strong life for the people.

Reported by Dinh Hau – Translated by Vi Bao