DECISION

APPROVING THE OVERALL PLANNING ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SON LA PROVINCE IN THE 2006-2020 PERIOD

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;
At the proposal of the People's Committee of Son La province in Report No. 75/TTr-UBND of September 12, 2005, and Document No. 2870/UBND-TH of November 28, 2005;
At the proposal of the Ministry of Planning and Investment in Official Letter No. 190/BKH-DT&GSDT of January 10, 2006, on the overall planning on socio­economic development of Son La province in the 2006-2020 period,

DECIDES:

Article 1- To approve the overall planning on socio­economic development of Son La province in the 2006-2020 period with the following main contents:

1. Development viewpoints:

- To speed up the economic development on the basis of taking advantage of the construction of Son La hydroelectric power plant, tapping to the utmost capital sources, technologies and infrastructure systems, step by step narrowing the gap between the province and the entire country, and quickly getting out of the list of underdeveloped provinces;

- To associate economic growth with social progress and justice, reducing the living standard gap between people of different strata and between different regions in the province. To better implement the policies on nationality, hunger elimination and poverty reduction as well as policies toward difficulty-hit border regions in the province;

- To actively restructure the province's economy in the direction of industrialization and modernization. To link materials production to processing industry. To introduce cottage industry to district towns, townships in association with agriculture and rural areas. To increase the ratio of services, particularly trade, transport, information and communication, tourist, financial and monetary services, suitable to the market mechanism;

- To continue developing the multi-sector economy, taking advantage of various internal resources, creating conditions for all economic sectors to develop, creating favorable environment for attracting investment capital and new technologies from the outside;

- To closely associate economic development with ecological environment protection, sustainable development and maintenance of security and defense. In the immediate as well as long future, to ensure safety for Son La hydroelectric power plant and Hoa Binh hydroelectric power plant.

2. Development objectives:

a/ General objectives:

To build Son La into a mountainous province with a stable and comprehensively developed socialist-oriented market economy, civilized society, a protected ecological environment and maintained security and defense. To vigorously restructure the current agriculture- forestry-industry-service economy into the industry-service-agriculture- forestry economy by 2010, striving to become a developed province in the northern mountainous region by 2020.

b/ Specific objectives:

- To strive for the average annual GDP growth rate of 15% in the 2006-2010 period; 14-14.5% in the 2011-2015 period and around 8-9% in the 2016-2020 period;

- To achieve the average per-capita GDP of USD 600-630/year by 2010 and around USD 2,200/year by 2020;

- To strive for the average export turnover increase of 15-17%/year in the 2006-2020 period, achieving USD 120-150 million by 2020;

- For the economic structure: To quickly shift the current agriculture-forestry-industry-service economic structure into the industry-service-agriculture economic structure by 2010:

- To step by step reduce the population growth rate to 1.55% in the 2006-2010 period; 1.48% in the 2011-2015 period and 1.35% in the 2016-2020 period. To reduce the rate of malnourished under-five children to below 20% by 2010 and to 6% by 2020; to achieve the target of 95% of the households having access to clean water by 2020. To raise the average life expectancy of 70 years at present to 72-73 years by 2020;

- To eliminate hungry households, to reduce the poor household rate to 25% by 2010 and to below 10% by 2020 (according to the current poverty line). To annually create jobs for around 22,000-25,000 laborers;

- Regarding educational universalization: To complete the lower secondary education universalization by 2007 and complete the higher secondary education universalization by 2020. To raise the rate of trained laborers to 25% by 2010,40% by 2015 and 50% by 2020.

3. Branch and domain development:

a/ Industries:

To concentrate efforts on the construction of Son La hydroelectric power plant, which is a great opportunity for development of other industries in the province, markedly shifting the purely agricultural economy into one with high industrial and service proportions.

- To strive to achieve the average added value growth rate of 32-33%/year in the 2006-2010 period; 18.5% /year in the 2011-2015 period and 10%/year in the 2016-2020 period; and 18.35%/yearforthe whole 2006-2020 period;

- To concentrate on building the electric energy industry into a major industry in order to boost the development of such relevant industries as construction industry (manufacturing cement, quarrying, mechanical engineering, labor protection...);

- To quickly build other major industries on the basis of bringing into full play the advantages and increasing modern equipment and technologies, creating products of high market competitiveness: agricultural and forest products (tea, coffee, dairy product,...)-processing industry, consumer goods- and exports-producing industry;

- To quickly construct Mai Son industrial park and work out appropriate mechanism for management thereof according to the Prime Minister's Document No. 1909/CP-CN of December 16, 2004. To step up the domestic and foreign investment promotion for industrial development. To develop satellite industrial clusters, processing industry, services in rural areas;

- To develop handicraft and cottage industry, to build traditional craft villages in association with urban centers for production of hi-tech commodities, in service of tourism and consumption.

b/ Trade:

- To build Son La into a major goods and service provision and exchange center of the northwestern region; to well perform the branch function as a bridge linking production and consumption. To step up marketing in order to expand the province's export market, linking intra-provincial trade with other localities throughout the country, creating driving force for accelerating socio­economic industrialization and modernization;

- To quickly build and form trade centers, general trade service centers at the provincial capital and towns in the future, the system of wholesale markets, commune cluster center markets to better satisfy the goods exchange demand of people, paying special attention to ethnic minority people in highland and remote areas;

- To step by step form and develop border-gate economy, raising the province's export value to USD 120-150 million by 2020.

c/ Tourism:

- To build Son La into a tourist center within the Hanoi-Son La- Dien Bien tour itinerary with cultural-historical-ecological tourist locations;

- Son La shall take hydroelectric power plant reservoir eco-tourism, cultural-historical tourism as core for the general development of tourism-service sector of the province and attraction of tourists;

- To plan the development of Moc Chau tourist resort into a national tourist site in association with the overall northwestern region tourism; at the same time to develop Son La tourism in relation to the nation and the Southeast Asian region;

- To attract 350,000 tourists, including 35,000-40,000 foreign tourists by 2010, which will double by 2020, with the average growth rate of over 7%/year.

d/ Services:

To vigorously develop service activities in service of socio-economic development of the province, particularly those in direct service of the construction of hydroelectric power plants such as airport, transport, insurance, financial, banking and information and marketing services.

e/ Agriculture, forestry, fishery and rural development:

To quickly restructure agricultural production and rural economy toward commodity production. To form the agriculture-industry-service-market linkage, ensuring the sustainable development with higher and higher efficiency.

Agriculture:

- To ensure food security in the province in the direction of commodity production. To achieve the grain food output of 350,000- 360,000 tons with the average of 340 kg/person/year by 2010, and around 424,000 tons by 2020;

- To build the belt of food, flower, annual industrial crops in service of Son La hydroelectric power plant construction site, urban centers and people's demand;

- To build hi-tech agricultural production areas in regions endowed with favorable natural conditions;

- To stabilize and develop long-term industrial trees of high value such as tea, Arabica coffee, mulberry,...; to concentrate on developing a number of fruit trees which can yield high output in association with processing industry such as longan, mango, medlar and to import a number of temporate-zone fruit trees of high quality;

- Husbandry: To develop husbandry toward the production of commodities of high economic value (meat, dairy, leather...) on the basis of making full use of advantage of a mountainous province endowed with favorable conditions. To quickly develop bovines such as milch cows, beef cows of high quality, buffaloes, goats, lean pigs. To develop poultry raising by industrial mode with security at three different scales of industrial enterprise, farm and household.

Fisheries:

To use the existing water surface areas of ponds and reservoirs for aquaculture and fishing for commodity production purposes. To develop fish-breeding centers in order to meet the local demand for fries and to supply fries for northern Lao provinces.

Forestry:

- To prioritize the construction of the system of forests for protection of Hoa Binh hydroelectric power plant, Son La hydroelectric power plant, Ma River basin and other important headwater areas together with the national special-use forests of Xuan Nha and Sop Cop with the acreage of 850,000 ha by 2020;

- To encourage the development of system of production forests, including paper- raw materials forests, industrial-timber forests, forests for production of bamboo shoots for export, ecological forests in service of tourism;

- To manage and protect the existing forest funds and quickly increase forest funds, bringing the forest coverage to 55% by 2010 and 60% by 2020.

f/ To develop systems of economic and technical infrastructures:

Communication and transport:

- To raise the traffic road density from 0.35 km/km2 in 2004 to 0.70 km/km2 by 2010;

- To continue improving and upgrading in the second stage national highways 6,37,43,279,4G and a number of other important routes. To improve and upgrade Na San airport, Van Yen and Ta Hoc river ports, to build the new port of Ta Bu, the solid bridges of Muong La, Pa Uon and Van Yen;

- To quickly develop the networks of rural roads, inter-district and inter-commune roads, ensuring smooth traffic even in the rainy season;

- To raise the quality and volume of cargo and passenger transport, encouraging all economic sectors to participate therein, attaching importance to development of transport routes to highland, border, deep-lying, far-flung communes.

Post and telecommunications:

To raise the quality of postal and telecommunication services, ensuring fast, accurate, timely communications to people in various regions in the province, mainly to commune cluster centers, townships, border posts, district towns and key regions. To increase the number of fixed telephone sets per 100 people from 4 in 2005 to 6-7 (by 2010) and 10 (by 2020). To have 100% district towns and townships covered by mobile phone wave. To quickly develop the Internet.

g/ Education, science, healthcare, culture, social affairs:

Education and training:

To expand the school system to suit the requirements of educational and training development, to encourage the development of various forms of education and training, in furtherance of the Government's Resolution No. 05/2005/NQ-CP of November 18,2005, on stepping up the socialization of educational, healthcare, cultural, physical training and sport activities; to mobilize most pupils to go to school at the eligible age; to step by step raise the education and training quality and level, ensuring suitable human resources for branch and trade structure, economic development level, security and defense of the province; to quickly raise the rate of training in jobs particularly those related to restructuring of labor in resettlement areas, new urban centers and in service of Son La hydroelectric power plant; to train and re-train the contingent of cadres and civil servants particularly of commune/ward level; to standardize the contingent of teachers at all educational grades and disciplines; to step by step modernize the material and technical facilities in service of education and training; to speed up the construction of Tay Bac (northwest) University and vocational training centers.

- To speed up the universalization of lower secondary education throughout the province, to complete the program on lower secondary education universalization by 2007. To strive to have 100% communes, wards and district towns recognized to have achieved the lower secondary education universalization by 2008; to achieve the higher secondary education universalization in Son La province by 2020;

- To achieve the percentage of trained laborers of 25% by 2010,40% by 2015 and over 50% by 2020. To strive to have sufficient science and technical workers with qualifications suitable to tasks undertaken by factories, workshops, scientific research institutions by 2020.

Public health, care for and protection of people's health:

To build a system of disease prevention and treatment establishments with rational human resources and modern and synchronous material facilities in order to meet the people's medical examination and treatment demands. To build the northwestern region's healthcare center with modern equipment and facilities in service of people in Son La province and the region. To upgrade the system of district and commune healthcare establishments. To reduce to the lowest the Vitamin A deficiency, tuberculosis, malaria, malnutrition, iodine deficiency-related disorder and minimize the rate of HIV/AIDS infection and other social diseases. To increase the life span from 70 years at present to about 72-73 years by 2020.

Culture and social affairs:

- To develop and raise the quality of cultural and information activities, to build the civilized cultural lifestyle in order to preserve and promote the cultural identities of various nationalities in the province. To build cultured villages and hamlets with 50% of the total hamlets being awarded the title of cultured hamlet by 2010. To step up the construction of childhood world center in the northwestern region in Son La provincial capital;

- To modernize the radio and television broadcasting systems. To upgrade the district, provincial, commune cluster television-receiving stations according to the approved planning on radio and television supplemen­tation in order to raise the rate of population having access to television to over 95% by 2010 and 100% by 2020;

- To step up the socialization of physical training and sport activities. To concentrate investment on development of technical infrastructures and development of a number of spearhead sports in order to train out athletes for high achievements at national tournaments and athletes for participation in international tourneys. To launch the movement of doing physical exercises and playing sports by the entire population.

h/ Urban and rural development:

- To build Son La province under planning in order to bring into full play its role as the central province of the Northwestern region;

- To develop urban space toward modernization. To adjust administrative boundaries, establishing Son La city and the provincial towns of Moc Chau, Hat Lot and Mai Son when conditions permit;

- To form urban population quarters linked to district towns, industrial parks, formulating a system of satellite urban centers to alleviate the population and infrastructure pressures on urban centers;

- To plan the transformation of agricultural and rural areas in combination with the formation and development of commune cluster centers;

- To perform the task of restoring order in management of urban architecture and construction, taking initiative in controlling the urban development under planning, plans and law. In the immediate future, to concentrate efforts on directing the elaboration of detailed planning on land use and enhancement of land use management under current regulations.

i/ To maintain security and defense, international relations in association with sustainable economic development:

- To associate two strategic tasks of national construction and defense; to associate economic development with defense consolidation and vice versa. To build up firm defensive regions, all-people security and defense postures; to firmly consolidate border posts. To increase the integrated strength of the people's war posture, build the armed forces, the mobilized reserve force and the militia and self-defense forces, ensuring combat readiness in all circumstances. To ensure absolute security and defense, particularly the protection of 250 km border lines with the viewpoints of solidarity and friendship, marker posts and cooperation between the two countries of Vietnam and Laos and the Son La hydroelectric power plant;

- To build, consolidate and develop the Vietnam-Lao friendship ties, build the comprehensively strong border region, firmly maintain national independence and sovereignty. To intensify cooperation with northern Lao provinces, building conventions and conduct periodical border briefings between bordering provinces, districts and communes;

- To adopt proper distribution policies and social policies in order to link economic growth with the improvement of the material and spiritual life of the vast majority of people, to develop people all-sidedly, to exercise democracy and social progress as well as justice. To adopt proper policies on job creation, particularly for rural areas, regions inhabited by ethnic minority people... To take job creation, encouragement of lawful fortune-making and hunger elimination as well as poverty reduction as three important factors of integrating economic growth with sustainable development;

- Environmental protection must be included in the step-by-step comprehensive development of Son La province, in which the protection and development of forest funds constitute the primary solution. To exploit and use the natural resources (land, water, forests, minerals,...) rationally, efficiently and in combination with treatment of urban and industrial wastes as well as storm and flood prevention and combat and natural disaster alleviation.

4. Resettlement of population:

- To take advantage of the opportunity of the construction of Son La hydroelectric power plant and other hydroelectric power plants to develop economy, reorganize production and stabilize the people's life, maintain security and defense throughout the province;

- To expeditiously step up the resettlement for Son La hydroelectric power plant according to the overall planning on migration and resettlement of population for Son La hydroelectric power plant under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 196/2004/QD-TTg of November 29, 2004, and other hydroelectric power plants according to the requirements on progress of construction of hydroelectric power plants with the total number of to be- relocated 13,000 households;

- To attach importance to construction of synchronous socio-economic infrastructures (traffic, irrigation, electricity, water, schools, health stations...), arrangement of production land and residential land in order to receive people relocated for Son La hydroelectric power plant and other projects, ensuring quick integration and a better life and production conditions for displaced people at new places; at the same time to create conditions for people in host localities also to enjoy sustainable development, solidarity and equality;

- To attach importance to the maintenance of national security and defense in resettlement localities.

5. Planning orientations for territorial development:

a/ The motive economic zone along highway 6:

To form the industry-agriculture, forestry-service economic structure in the direction of industrialization and modernization; to strongly promote its motive role in socioeconomic development of the entire province. To form three industrial and urban clusters: Son La provincial capital, Mai Son, Moc Chau and Muong La; at the same time to build Ta Xa-Mai Son industrial park and Moc Chau hi-tech agriculture zone. To organize the reception of relocated people.

b/ The economic zone along Da river:

To complete the construction of Son La hydroelectric power plant, to well organize the resettlement of people, ensuring the progress of construction of the hydroelectric power plant. To build other hydroelectric power stations such as Huoi Quang, Nam Chien, Suoi Sap. To build the protective forest system for big hydroelectric power works on Da river. To develop infrastructure, production and services suitable to the construction of hydroelectric power plants on Da river.

c/ Border highland region:

To settle the burning issues in the social life: hunger elimination, poverty reduction, sedentary farming and residence, raising of people's intellectual level, training of the contingent of grassroots officials and shift to commodity production, cattle raising, headwater forest protection. To build the entire-population security and defense postures.

6. A number of major solutions to implementation of the planning:

a/ Organization of implementation of the planning: On the basis of the planning approved by the Prime Minister, to build detailed plannings according to branches, districts. To formulate specific investment projects in an order of priority for step-by-step inclusion into the implementation plan. To elaborate a number of policies to encourage production development. To detail the planning for elaboration of annual and five-year plans to be implemented.

b/ Human resource development:

- To adopt preferential policies towards ethnic minority people, giving them priority in recruitment for job learning and training while encouraging big enterprises to provide funding supports for their training and employment. To enhance agricultural and forestry extension, technical application popularization for people to restructure their crops; to develop economy.

- To step up the alignment between training establishments of the province and job-training centers in Hanoi and big cities in order to expand the scale and forms of training of labor force for the province.

c/ Capital solution:

- The province should draw up a scheme on mobilization of resources for each period and adopt specific and reasonable solutions such as reduction of tax on land use purpose change, investment encouragement, preferential land rent rate,... in order to attract investment capital within and without the country, ensuring to attain the set objectives;

- To elaborate, promulgate or submit to competent state bodies for promulgation a number of mechanisms and policies suitable to the requirements of the province's development in each period with a view to attracting and mobilizing resources for implementation of the planning.

d/ To intensify the market development:

- To encourage the development of trade in various forms, to accelerate the planning on and the construction of the network of wholesale markets, commercial centers in important and potential localities;

- To raise the marketing capability of economic units, to develop economic information services in order to grasp and forecast the market situation;

- To step up the alignment with other provinces and big cities in order to create markets for the province's production.

e/ To apply scientific and technical advances, renew technologies, to protect natural resources and environment:

- To step up the movement for study and application of scientific and technological advances in all fields of production, service and management;

- To exploit natural resources in combination with the protection of natural resources and environment, attaching importance to the protection and development of forest funds, to adopt policies and special regulations to protect the urban environment, concentrated population quarters, industrial factories, enterprises, handicraft and cottage industry establishments.

Article 2.- The approved planning shall serve as a basis for elaboration, submission, approval and implementation of specialized plannings (construction planning, land use planning and plans and other specialized plannings), investment projects in the province according to regulations.

Article 3.- To assign the People's Committee of Son La province, based on the objectives, tasks and orientations of the province's socio-economic development under the planning approved by the Prime Minister, to coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in directing:

- The elaboration of general planning on construction, planning on development of urban center system, land use planning and plans, planning on development of branches and domains to ensure the overall and comprehenstive development;

- The study to elaborate and promulgate or submit to competent state bodies for promulgation (in cases where matters fall beyond its jurisdiction) a number of mechanisms and policies according to law, which are suitable to the development requirements of the province in each period, in order to attract and mobilize resources for implementation of the planning.

Article 4.- To assign concerned ministries and branches to coordinate with the People's Committee of Son La province in implementing the overall planning on socio-economic development of the province; studying mechanisms of encouraging and attracting investment in order to ensure the attainment of socio-economic development objectives, tasks and orientations of the province and considering the adjustment and supplementation of plannings on branch development, plans on investment in relevant works and projects suitable to the overall planning on socio-economic development of Son La provincain the 2006-2020 period already approved by the Prime Minister.

Article 5.-This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in "CONG BAO."

Article 6.- Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of Government-attached agencies, and the president of the People's Committee of Son La province shall have to implement this Decision.