Shorten the distance between regions

Immediately after the merger, the new Thai Nguyen province has been focusing on drastically implementing many solutions on the basis of effectively operating the two-level local government, striving for double-digit growth in the coming term.

Urgent, decisive and early action

In the article “The Power of Great Unity”, General Secretary To Lam emphasized: “The merger between a mountainous province and a delta province, or between a “rich” province and a “poor” province requires the leadership team to be truly impartial and have a vision, in order to ensure the balance of resources and harmonize development interests. Inequality in the allocation of resources can easily lead to regional inequality, causing cracks in the common great unity bloc”.

In fact, in Thai Nguyen, the gap in development level and living standards between the northern region (formerly Bac Kan , one of the most disadvantaged provinces in the country) and the southern region (formerly Thai Nguyen) is quite large. Therefore, how to shorten the development gap between the two regions is posing a huge challenge for the province.

Immediately after the merger, Thai Nguyen immediately promoted the issue of ensuring social security. The province established a Steering Committee, sent 16 working groups, regardless of holidays, to inspect, urge and direct the removal of nearly 1,000 temporary and dilapidated houses this August. The province ensured sufficient resources, including budget, socialization and technical support so that each house after completion would meet standards, be sustainable and safe for people to live in long term. With this determination, households eligible for support have started construction and will complete the removal of temporary and dilapidated houses on schedule.

Regarding tourism, although there is a lot of potential, tourism in the northern communes of Thai Nguyen has not developed proportionally. The number of visitors to the southern region is more than three times that of the northern region. Immediately after the merger, the province organized a scientific conference to discuss directions for tourism development in the whole province. According to Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Duong Xuan Hung, the merger of the province is not simply an accumulation but a resonance of tourism resources of the two former provinces of Thai Nguyen and Bac Kan. Exploiting this potential is an important task for Thai Nguyen.

According to the Provincial People's Committee, after the merger, Thai Nguyen has the strongest lake ecosystem in the country, of which Ba Be Lake is still the most important lake. Based on the planning for preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of the special national relic of Ba Be Lake, which has been approved by the Prime Minister, the province is urgently implementing the planning. The province will develop sustainable tourism at Ba Be Lake, forming a unique tourism brand, becoming a national tourist area before 2030 and a key tourist center of the entire midland and mountainous region of the North. With the realization of this goal, almost all the northern communes of the province will benefit and have conditions to strongly develop tourism in the future.

However, traffic is the biggest obstacle to shortening the development gap between the northern and southern regions of Thai Nguyen. The Cho Moi-Bac Kan Expressway project is determined by the province to "untie" this bottleneck. For over a month, excluding holidays, Thai Nguyen leaders have directly gone to the area to direct the acceleration of site clearance and handover to the investor, Project Management Board 2 (Ministry of Construction).

The determination of the provincial leaders has helped to resolve many previous shortcomings and weaknesses. For example, the settlement of records at the grassroots level has significantly shortened the time for processing records and increased the effectiveness of mobilization and persuasion, so many households have agreed to help speed up the site clearance progress. Thanks to that, the total length of the more than 28km route of this expressway project has handed over more than 23km of the site to the investor. And with the determination to complete the site clearance for the project early, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Pham Hoang Son requested to complete it in August by the on-site handover method.

Regarding the development of transport infrastructure in the northern region of the province, the Chairman of the Thai Nguyen Provincial People's Committee also assigned the Department of Construction to coordinate with the Department of Agriculture and Environment to soon draft a project on rural transport construction to submit to the Provincial People's Council for approval to ensure connectivity and communication. Thai Nguyen also approved the policy for the Cao Bang Provincial People's Committee to be the governing body to implement the investment project to build the Bac Kan-Cao Bang expressway with a total investment of more than 29 trillion VND. This route not only opens the door to trade with China but also acts as a driving force for comprehensive development, especially promoting the exploitation of tourism, mineral, agricultural and forestry potential in the northern region of Thai Nguyen province.

Synchronize long-term strategic solutions

To narrow the development gap between regions, Thai Nguyen has determined to implement comprehensively in all areas, but with a focus and key points to create a foundation to promote development. According to Provincial Party Secretary Trinh Viet Hung, the Provincial Party Committee has requested agencies and units to focus on advising to promote socio-economic development in northern communes. In particular, priority is given to the development of education, health care, culture, transport infrastructure, and religious culture with the ultimate goal of making the material and spiritual life of the people, especially the people in the northern region of the province, increasingly better.

With the motto "Resources from thinking, motivation from innovation, strength from the people", ensuring the dual goal of "fast but sustainable and inclusive development", Thai Nguyen has implemented many fundamental solutions and policies to shorten the development gap between regions. Right in the third session, the People's Council of Thai Nguyen province approved many important policies, such as: Regulations on the level of support for agricultural production to restore production in areas damaged by natural disasters and plant pests; regulations on policies to support the development of the tea industry in the area; regulations on the content and level of expenditure for industrial promotion activities; planning medium-term public investment for the period 2026-2030.

Accordingly, the northern communes will be invested in improving synchronous infrastructure with many key projects expected, such as: Renovation, repair, upgrading of facilities and purchasing equipment for Bac Kan General Hospital; construction of northern irrigation lakes; road connecting CT.07 highway to Bac Kan ward; Bac Kan High School; restoration of Khuoi Linh, Pu Co, Na Pau relics in Cho Don Safety Area relic... The province will strengthen the linkage in production, processing, and consumption of high-quality tea, medicinal herbs, and agricultural products; at the same time, orientate to attract investment in developing high-end tourism services in the northern region.

Thai Nguyen is also researching and planning to issue a number of unified policies in the area, such as: Supporting the teaching and learning of Vietnamese for ethnic minority children before entering grade 1; supporting lunch money for children in public preschools and students in ethnic boarding schools; teaching and learning English to develop education and human resources, especially in the northern region of the province.

Thai Nguyen is also actively seeking solutions to exploit the strengths, potentials and advantages of the northern region, which is more than 400,000 hectares of forestry land, of which the production forest area is up to about 100,000 hectares, which is an abundant source of raw materials for the wood processing industry. Given the situation that most of these areas have not been granted FSC certification, leading to difficulties in accessing export markets, the province aims to grant FSC certification to 8,000 hectares of forest in northern communes by the end of 2025. When completed, northern forest growers will not only have a stable livelihood but also increase their income and become rich.

To promote growth and economic restructuring, the province is focusing on reviewing and adjusting the provincial planning to suit the post-merger administrative units. In the draft political report submitted to the Provincial Party Congress for the 2025-2030 term, the major goal that Thai Nguyen plans to achieve is to build the province into a modern industrial center with high average income before 2030, striving to become a developed province with high income before 2045. With major policies and guidelines on economy, infrastructure, and society that have been and will be implemented, the gap in regional development and the living standards of people in Thai Nguyen will be increasingly narrowed.