Summarizing 40 years of renovation, the lesson for Vietnam is to "untie" economic thinking, shifting from a centralized, bureaucratic, subsidized economy to a multi-sector commodity economy. From there, it gradually shaped itself towards a socialist-oriented market economy.

A great success is to revive the country from a severe food shortage crisis to become the world's leading rice exporter, while the export value of other items is constantly increasing, reaching a total import-export turnover of nearly 800 billion USD in 2024.

Quang Nam has made strategic decisions since the “eve of renovation” to surpass itself. Especially when determining the journey of economic restructuring after the re-establishment of the province, Quang Nam has taken steps to “untie” (even considered as “breaking the fence”) to promote the development of industry and services.

Lesson "The night before contract 10"

After the country's reunification, with the heroic spirit of victory, the campaigns to reclaim fields, destroy bombs and mines, intensive farming, and increase crops... created a completely different appearance for Quang Nam's agriculture.

In particular, thanks to the enormous contributions of the people, a widespread irrigation network was built, of which the Phu Ninh irrigation project is a century-long project, which started on March 29, 1977. This project is still a beautiful symbol of half a century of building peace, and will have positive effects in the future.

With land, water, and hard-working hands, green has returned to the dead fields. The trend of collective economy with the cooperative model has initially brought many changes to the homeland. However, for many reasons, including the policy mechanism that has “tied the hands” of farmers in the fields, the situation of “no one cries for the common father”, hunger and poverty are still severe.

Gradually, from the plowed furrows, farmers asked questions about who they worked for, why the fields were not given to them, why the State had to cover all inputs and outputs of production and products... The key point of frustration was the reason for "breaking the fence": demanding fields, demanding contracts, or leaving them in the ravines to reclaim land...

In response to practical requirements, in 1981, Directive 100 of the Central Party Secretariat was issued to contract the final product to groups and workers. However, after 6 years, this contract mechanism revealed shortcomings, so in many places, the fields were still barren.

In the summer of 1987, the Quang Nam - Da Nang Provincial Party Committee held a conference on "Consolidating and strengthening production relations in agriculture". The conference was tense when it pointed out the weaknesses of the collective economy according to the cooperative model. Unable to resist, the "fence" of the old mechanism was torn apart and from that point led to the birth of Resolution 03 of the Provincial Party Committee on June 29, 1987 on "Continuing to consolidate and strengthen production relations, perfecting the contract mechanism in agriculture". The mechanism according to this resolution (contract 03), can be considered "Contract 10 of Quang Nam", was born nearly 1 year before the Central's Contract 10, renewing the thinking of agricultural management, making farmers excited, the fields overcame the pain of labor to give birth to a good crop.

“

Localities must consider and think “on their own land”, promote the spirit of initiative and creativity for development… We must liberate labor and production capacity, mobilize material and spiritual capital among the people, and make the people feel that they are the ones enjoying those achievements, then everyone will join hands and work together to achieve them.

Speech by General Secretary To Lam at the National Conference to disseminate and summarize the implementation of Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW

Untie the open economic knot

Before and after the re-establishment of the province in 1997, Quang Nam's economy was mainly agricultural. Determining a new journey was to shift the economic structure, but where to start? It had to start from cultural traditions. In 1999, Hoi An and My Son were recognized as World Cultural Heritage, opening up opportunities for tourism development.

However, for rapid change, industry must take the lead. History has chosen Nui Thanh as the place for the “first victory over the US”, with the Chu Lai core, an open economic mindset outlined on the background of a desolate white sand strip.

Cherishing the dream of an open economy like the prosperous Hoi An port, many seminars were held to develop a project to submit to the Government. On June 5, 2003, the Prime Minister issued Decision 108 for Quang Nam to "pilot" the construction of Chu Lai Open Economic Zone. The first to attract investment was Thaco, opening up the automobile industry.

But it is not easy to “open”, because once opened, it was quickly closed. The mechanism for Chu Lai was late when a series of economic zones and industrial parks in the country were established one after another, with no difference in preferential policies. Therefore, Chu Lai has not been able to fulfill its dream of building a duty-free zone, developing Chu Lai airport into an international transit center, or developing a regional financial center...

However, the effectiveness of removing the initial investment bottleneck has gradually turned Chu Lai Open Economic Zone into a driving force for Quang Nam's development, in which Thaco has grown into a multi-industry, multi-field corporation, including: automobiles; agriculture; mechanics - supporting industry; investment - construction; trade - services and logistics, contributing more than 50% of the province's industrial production value and budget revenue. Revenue has increased hundreds of times compared to the time the province was re-established thanks to the open economic zone, which continues to develop from Nui Thanh to the eastern areas of Tam Ky and Thang Binh, attracting many domestic and foreign investors.

Half a century of building the homeland, there are still many more remarkable achievements, but just mentioning the two lessons above to see that the important thing is the policy mechanism, the bold decision to dare to think, dare to do, "untie" institutional bottlenecks to be self-reliant and self-reliant.

Now, with the acceleration of the 5-year plan (2020-2025) and striving to become a well-off province in the country by 2030, Quang Nam needs to find effective policies to realize its development aspirations. Correct policies that meet the aspirations of the people will liberate production capacity, attract strong investment, and stimulate innovation to effectively exploit human potential and natural resources.