Quyết định 114/2009/QD-TTg

DECISION

APPROVING THE MASTER PLAN ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THANH HOA PROVINCE UP TO 2020

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;
Pursuant to the Government's Decree No. 92/ 2006/ND-CP of September 7, 2006. on the elaboration, approval and management a/socio­economic development master plans; and Decree No. 04/2008/ND-CP of January 11, 2008, amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP of September 7, 2006;
At the proposal of the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province in Report No. 36/TTr-UBND of June 1, 2009,

DECIDES:

Article 1. To approve the master plan on socio-economic development of Thanh Hoa province up to 2020, with the following principal contents:

I. DEVELOPMENT VIEWPOINTS

1. To bring into the fullest play the potential and advantages of the locality, thereby efficiently using all resources for socio-economic development, accelerating economic growth and narrowing the gap between Thanh Hoa province and regional provinces as well as the whole country. To build Thanh Hoa province into a center for economic exchange between the North and northern Central Vietnam and a strong economic and socio-cultural center of the country.

2. To raise the quality of economic growth with a rational structure; to build a highly competitive economy and efficiently use natural resources; to develop quality industries, services and tourism; to develop agriculture towards safe and sustainable commodity production.

3. To concentrate investment resources on building dynamic economic zones and developing key product groups; to prioritize investment in quickly developing Nghi Son economic zone, creating a breakthrough in economic growth and restructuring.

4. To step by step make adjustments for a harmonious and rational development among areas in the province; to strongly develop the marine and coastal economy; to make the best use of investment supports of the State and economic sectors to develop the western midland and mountainous areas in order to bring these areas out of the underdevelopment state.

5. To combine economic development with gradual realization of social progress and equality. To step up the implementation of the policy on socialization of education, training, health care and environmental protection; to ensure high-quality human resources to meet the requirements of rapid development; to attach importance to hunger eradication and poverty alleviation, public health care, social stabilization and consolidation of solidarity among ethnic groups in the province.

6. To attach importance to scientific and technological development as the key to raising the quality of products, goods and services, thereby promoting the growth and raising the competitiveness of the economy.

7. To combine economic development with defense and security consolidation; to firmly defend the sovereignty over the border and islands; to maintain friendly relationships with neighboring provinces along the Vietnam-Laos borderline, and assure political security and social order and safety.

II. DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES

1. Overall objectives

To strive for a rapid, efficient and sustainable socio-economic development, creating a substantial progress in the growth quality and competitiveness of the economy, To strive for the objective that by 2015, Thanh Hoa will become a province of average development in the country and by 2020 it will become a substantially industrialized province with a rational economic structure and a comprehensively developed and modern socio­economic infrastructure system, and an economic, education and training, health care, sport and physical training, and scientific and technical center of northern Central Vietnam and the whole country, with stable political security and firm national solidarity.

2. Specific objectives

a/ Economic objectives

- The annual growth rate during 2011 - 2015 and 2016 - 2020 will be 17-18% and over 19%, respectively. By 2015, the province's per-capita GDP will attain the average level of the country and a higher level after 2015;

- To restructure the economy towards industrialization and modernization. By 2015 and 2020, the structure of agriculture - industry and construction - service will be 15.5% - 47.6% -36.8%, and 10.1% - 51.9% - 38%, respectively;

- To strive to achieve an export value of USD 800 - 850 million by 2015 and over USD 2 billion by 2020. The annual export growth rate will be 19-20%;

- To strive to achieve a budget revenue ratio of around 6 - 7% of GDP by 2015 and over 7% by 2020.

b/ Social objectives

- To slow population growth with a natural population growth rate of under 0.65% by 2015 and some 0.5% by 2020:

- To sustain and firmly consolidate results of the lower secondary education universalization and complete the upper secondary education universalization before 2020. To increase the percentage of trained laborers to 45% by 2015 and 55 - 60% by 2020:

- To create new jobs for some 50.000 laborers a year. To reduce the unemployment rate in urban areas to under 3% and the rate of underemployed rural laborers to under 3.5% by 2020:

- To reduce the percentage of poor households (under the current poverty line) by 3 - 5% every year;

- To improve the health care network from the provincial level to villages and hamlets; to strive for the target that 85%' of commune-level infirmaries will have medical doctors by 2015; there will be 23 patient beds and 25 patient beds for every 10.000 inhabitants by 2015 and 2020. respectively; to reduce the malnutrition rate among under-five children to 18 - 20% by 2015 and below 10% by 2020;

- By 2015, all provincial and district roads and roads to centers of communes and commune clusters will be asphalted or concreted: all households will have electricity and television broadcasting coverage.

c/ Environmental protection objectives

- To increase the forest coverage to 53 - 54% by 2015 and over 60% by 2020. To protect the ground, surface, sea and coastal water environment;

- By 2015, all urban centers will have their own facilities for concentrated waste collection and treatment: all newly built production establishments will have facilities for treatment of waste up to environmental standards or apply clean technologies. The percentage ol production establishments attaining environmental standards will be over 80% by 2015 and 90% by 2020;

- By 2015, all urban households will be supplied with tap water and 90% of rural households will have access to hygienic water and all of them will be supplied with tap water by 2020.

d/ Defense and security objectives

To maintain defense and security, firmly maintain the sovereignty over the national border and islands, assure political stability, and curb and eventually reduce crimes and social vices.

III. ORIENTATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF BRANCHES AND SECTORS

1. Industry

- To rapidly and firmly develop industries which make up the foundation for the provinces rapid economic growth and economic restructuring. To combine industrial development with infrastructure development, step by step form industrial parks and complexes. To quickly implement projects in Nghi Son economic zone and establish some other dynamic economic zones to serve as development hubs for the economy.

- To sustain the annual industrial and construction growth at over 21.5% (21.4% during 2011 - 2015 and 21.6% during 2016 - 2020):

- To internally restructure the industrial sector in the direction of vigorously developing basic industries and processing industries. By 2020, Thanh Hoa province will basically have a sustainably developed industrial sector with a modern structure;

- To develop the following major industries:

+ Petrochemicals: To complete Nghi Son petrochemical complex with phase-I capacity of 10 million tons/year and put it into operation before 2013. and concurrently investing in this project with phase-II capacity of 10 million tons/ year. To develop other industries and services such as production of polypropylene, synthetic fibers, plastic, synthetic fertilizers and detergents, and other products:

+ Construction materials: To accelerate the building of the second production line of Nghi Son, Bim Son and Cong Thanh cement plants; to build Thanh Son cement plant with a capacity of 1.4 million tons/year. To strive for the target that by 2015, the province's total cement output will reach 18 - 20 million tons;

To build a number of establishments to produce construction materials, including asphalt concrete, unhardened concrete, prefabricated concrete structures and roofing tiles, in Nghi Son economic zone and other industrial zones.

+ Electricity: By 2020, the commodity electricity output will reach over 20 billion kWh. To build Nghi Son thermo-power plant, thereby forming a big thermo-power center in northern Central Vietnam. To put into operation as soon as possible the thermo-power plant, phase I, with a capacity of 600 MW. and make phase-II investment to increase its capacity to 1.800 MW by 2015.

To build Trung Son hydropower plant with a capacity of 260 MW; Hoi Xuan hydropower plant. 92 MW and some other small- and medium-sized hydropower plants, including Ba Thuoc 1 and 2. Cam Thuy 1 and 2, and Luong river.

+ Mechanical engineering and machine building:

To step up the building of the POMIDO steel mill with a capacity of 650.000 tons/year and Nghi Son steel mill with a capacity of 750,000 tons/year. To attract more projects to produce steel sheets, shaped steel and high-class steel in Nghi Son economic zone, with a capacity of around 6 million tons/year, and steel for the defense industry.

To develop mechanical engineering for repair and manufacture: To assemble heavy equipment, vehicles and lifting devices; to manufacture equipment for construction material and agricultural product processing industries, electric and refrigeration electric equipment, electromatic parts; to assemble automobiles and manufacture locomotives, cars, railway equipment and accessories.

To complete the first phase of Nghi Son shipyard to make it fully capable of building ships of 50,000 DWT by 2010, and by 2015 to make phase-II investment in building ships of over 50,000 DWT and repairing those of over 100,000 DWT.

+ Agricultural, forestry and aquatic product processing: To renovate, upgrade and bring into play the production capacity of existing establishments and at the same time build new agricultural, forestry and aquatic product processing establishments associated with the building of concentrated material zones. To increase the capacity of Nhu Xuan and Cam Thuy rubber latex processing plants. To upgrade Nhu Thanh vegetable and fruit processing plant, build another in Bim Son district and some others in Hau Loc and Hoang Hoa where conditions permit, and build food processing plants in Thanh Quang industrial park (Thach Thanh district) and some coastal delta districts.

To renew technologies to raise the quality and productivity of Hoang Truong and Le Mon aquatic product processing plants and some modern processing establishments in Lach Bang, Lach Hoi and Lach Truong close to fishing urban centers; to build feed processing plants in districts where concentrated husbandry is conducted, such as Nong Cong, Trieu Son, Thieu Hoa and Ngoc Lac.

To build Chau Loc paper mill with a capacity of 60,000 tons of paper and 50,000 tons of pulp/ year; to invest in processing for export 5.000 tons of wooden artificial boards and 15,000 m³ of particle and chip boards a year, and building a plant to produce artificial boards from bamboo with a capacity of 16,000 m3/year close to concentrated material zones.

+ To further develop other industries, including mining, consumer and export goods production, garment, package materials, leather and shoes, tourist and sport gears. To step by step develop a number of hi-tech industries. To revitalize and develop traditional craft villages producing sedge mats and other articles of sedge, embroidery, silk weaving and brocade, wickerwork and stone fine-art articles and jewelry.

- To develop industrial parks and complexes:

To continue making in-depth investment and scale up the development of existing industrial parks: to establish some more industrial parks in Thanh Hoa city, Bim Son town and the districts of Ngoc Lac, Hau Loc. Quang Xuong, Hoang, Hoa. Nhu Xuan (Bai Tranh) and Thach Thanh (Thach Quang). By 2015, to completely build and gradually modernize infrastructure facilities of existing industrial parks, and to step up investment promotion in order to increase the occupancy ratio of local industrial parks.

- To develop small- and medium-sized industrial complexes and craft village clusters in the province's districts and towns. To strive for the target that by 2020 all delta communes and about 50% of mountainous communes will have craft village clusters.

2. Services

To quickly develop and diversify services in order to create numerous jobs and make great contributions to economic growth.

The annual growth rate of services during 2011 - 2020 will be 18.5%; the service value ratio in GDP will increase to 36.8% by 2015 and over 38% by 2020; the goods and service export value will be USD 800 - 850 million by 2015 and over USD 2 billion by 2020.

To develop major services:

- Commerce: To synchronously develop the commercial system, building Thanh Hoa into a major goods gathering center along the North-South route and the goods transfer route between the northwestern region and the northern provinces of Laos linked with Nghi Son port and mountainous regions nationwide.

To build a modern trade center in Thanh Hoa city and Nghi Son economic zone attached to non-tariff areas; to build Na Meo border-gate economic zone into a center for goods trade between Thanh Hoa and Laos, especially the northern Lao provinces and neighboring areas; to build some trade centers in Bim Son, Ngoc Lac and some urban centers with a wide pervasive effect.

- Tourism: To rapidly and sustainably develop tourism into an important industry with great contributions to the national economy. To concentrate on developing a number of key tourist resorts and spots, thereby creating diversified and high-quality tourist products and step by step building Thanh Hoa into a major tourist center of the country and an important tourist destination in the national tourist system. To strive for the target that by 2015 and 2020 the province will attract between 3 and 5 million tourists/year. 30% and 40% of whom will be foreigners, respectively:

To completely build infrastructure facilities in Sam Son tourist zone so that it can early become a big tourist town. To invest in building tourist resorts of Ham Rong. Ho dynasty citadel. Cam Luong fish stream. Lam Kinh. Ben En. Nga Son. Hai Hoa and Hai Tien. To build the eco-tourism resort of Cua Dat lake and Nghi Son eco-tourist resort and some others after 2010.

- Transport: To develop diversified modes of transport and combine the development of road, railway and waterway transport; to bring into play the advantages of Nghi Son deep-water port cluster and river ports in order to expand sea shipping and inland waterway transport. To develop passenger transport routes combined with tourism development; to form transport routes to tourist resorts; to concentrate on developing passenger transport in Thanh Hoa city, towns and major economic centers of the province.

- Finance and banking: To encourage domestic and foreign banks, especially giant financial institutions of the region and the world, to open their branches or representative offices in the province. To step by step form a big financial market to meet growing capital needs of all economic sectors.

- To promote the development of post, telecommunications and information technology, actively contributing to socio-economic development and defense and security maintenance.

- To quickly develop other services such as training, consultancy, technology transfer, etc.

3. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries

- To comprehensively develop agriculture and eventually build a hi-tech, clean and export-led agriculture, thereby quickly increasing the income value per land acreage unit. At the same lime, to gradually improve infrastructure facilities to serve agricultural development and effectively respond to natural disasters;

- The annual growth rate of agriculture, forestry and fisheries will be 5% during 2011 -2015 and 5.1% during 2016 - 2020; to reduce the ratio of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in GDP from 31.6% in 2005 to 15.5% by 2015 and 10.1% by 2020;

- To stably develop areas under food crops to 270,000 - 280,000 ha by 2020, including 220,000 -230,000 ha under paddy and 50,000 - 60,000 ha under maize. The total food output will be around 1.7 million tons by 2020, ensuring food security and supply a large quantity of commodity food. To vigorously restructure crops, form concentrated production zones and make key products. To increase the ratio of areas under crops of high economic value from around 30% of the total cultivated area in 2010 to over 50% by 2020:

- To develop other cultivation plants: By 2015, the area under rubber trees will be 25.000 ha; by 2020 areas under sugarcane and peanut will be 26,000 - 28,000 and 22,000 - 23,000 ha respectively; the area under sedge will be stabilized at 3,000 - 3,500 ha, for processing establishments.

- To strongly develop husbandry in terms of size and quality of cattle herds and poultry flocks in the direction of commodity production, and increase the ratio of husbandry in agricultural production value to 45% by 2015 and over 50% by 2020;

- To develop forestry in the direction of protection, development and rational exploitation of forest resources, ensuring their soil and environmental protection functions and, at the same time, to increase the forestry contribution to the economy. To strive for the target that by 2020 to zone off 250,000 - 300,000 ha for afforestation, to plant 10,000 - 13,000 ha of new forests a year, thereby increasing the forest coverage rate to 53 - 54% by 2015 and over 60% by 2020. To build material forest zones to supply luong (a bamboo species), paper materials, timber, etc., for processing establishments.

- To comprehensively develop fishery, both fishing and aquaculture, in the direction of raising efficiency and protect the eco-environment, and creating stable material sources for export processing. To strongly develop freshwater, blackish water and saltwater aquaculture. By 2015 and 2020. the total area for aquaculture will be 19.000 - 20,000 ha and over 30,000 ha, respectively. To harmoniously combine investment in raising the offshore fishing capacity with organized rational onshore fishing in order to increase the total fishing output to 70.0(H) tons by 2015 and stably at over 90,000 tons by 2020.

- To diversify services for agriculture, forestry and fishery.

4. Social domains

a/ Education and training

To develop education and training in the direction of standardizing and raising the quality of teachers and education administrators, and build a learning society; to step up the education and training socialization in order to mobilize all resources for education and training development. By 2015, all teachers at all educational levels will attain set standards, 30 -35% of whom will be above the quality standards. To consolidate physical foundations for teaching and learning, and complete the building of permanent schools and classrooms in the province before 2015. To intensify the building of national standard schools and strive for the target that by 2020 the percentage of pre-schools. primary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools up to set standards will be 65%, 65%, 65% and 50%. respectively.

To sustain and consolidate results of the lower secondary education universalization and promote the upper secondary education universalization for the target that it will be completed before 2020.

To diversify forms of job training; to attach importance to job training for rural laborers; to increase the percentage of trained laborers to 45% by 2015 and 60% by 2020. To continue investing in building Hong Due University into a high-quality training center. To elaborate the planning on development and expansion of human resource training establishments in line with the national general planning.

b/ Medical care and public health care

To develop medical care and public health care in the direction of active and intensive prevention, assuring that all people will have access to primary medical examination and treatment and essential medical services.

To step up the socialization of health care and intensify investment in physical foundations, equipment and training of medical workers for medical establishments from provincial to grassroots levels in order to raise the quality of medical examination and treatment and population and family planning work. By 2015, 85% of commune health stations will have medical doctors and attain national medical standards, and by 2020 every 10.000 people will have 23 and 25 patient beds respectively. To complete the upgrading and modernization of the provincial general hospital, and to supply adequate equipment for and expand some specialized departments of the hospital. To complete the building of the pediatric hospital and Ngoc Lac general hospital and a number of district-level hospitals. To consolidate specialized hospitals up to grade-2 hospital standards.

To effectively implement national health programs. To reduce the malnutrition rate among under-five children to below 20% by 2015 and below 10% by 2020, the mortality rate of under-one infants to below 1.5% by 2020, and the birth rate by 0.05% annually in order to reduce the natural population growth to 0.5% by 2020.

c/ Science and technology

To intensify technological research, application and development; to select and transfer advanced, modem and environmentally friendly technologies in line with development orientations of all economic sectors. To concentrate investment on building a number of establishments to operate in scientific and technological areas in which the province has advantages, encourage and create every favorable condition for enterprises to invest in researching, applying and developing science and technology.

d/ Radio and television broadcasting

To rapidly and widely develop the digital television network; to invest in building technical infrastructure to receive information from VINASAT-1 satellite; to expand the signal coverage to remote areas and make more radio broadcasts in ethnic minority languages. By 2020, the whole province will be covered by radio broadcasting. The whole province will be covered by television broadcasting before 2015.

e/ Culture, physical training and sports

To raise the quality of cultural and information activities and entertainment and recreation facilities to meet the people's cultural and spiritual needs. To make further investment in the conservation, embellishment and promotion of values of important historical and cultural relics. To complete Lam Kinh project, conserve Ho dynasty citadel vestiges, build a monument to Ba Trieu. and upgrade and embellish other historical and cultural relics. By 2020 all villages and hamlets will have cultural houses, entertainment places, public-address system and law bookcases.

To develop physical training and sports by stepping up the socialization of these activities. To invest in building the provincial sport complex and an athlete training center for northern Central Vietnam and physical and sport training facilities in districts. To attach importance to the selection and training of gifted athletes in order to develop some high-achievement sports and put Thanh Hoa province once again in the top 10 provinces in physical training and sports.

f/ Labor, employment, hunger eradication and poverty alleviation:

To improve local people's living standards; to reduce the rate of poor households by 3 - 5% annually. To well realize social security policies in the province. To create 40,000 - 50.000 new jobs every year and send abroad more guest workers, thereby reducing the unemployment rate in urban areas and the rate of underemployed rural laborers. To concentrate on training human resources to meet the requirements of socio­economic development.

5. Infrastructure development

a/ Transport

- Roads:

To develop a synchronous road transport system, ensuring the transferability and linkability of roads in the region and roads connecting areas of the province and linking the province with the national key economic regions; to attach importance to opening transport routes linked with the northwestern region and build east-west belt roads connected to the axis running through Laos, Thailand and Myanmar and coastal roads linking the province with the northern delta. To build modern traffic systems in Nghi Son economic zone, Thanh Hoa city. Bim Son and Sam Son towns, and some routes important for economic development and defense and security maintenance, especially those connected to the following trunk roads:

National highway 1A: To upgrade national highway 1A up to grade-Ill delta road standards. To build railway crossings and transversal roads with heavy traffic, and feeder roads for daily activities in industrial parks.

Ho Chi Minh road: To implement phase II of the road. To invest in building a transversal road linking Ho Chi Minh road with national highway 1A (Thach Quang - Bim Son) up to grade-Ill road standards and feeder roads for local daily activities along Ho Chi Minh road.

To build the 100-km section of the North-South expressway running through Thanh Hoa province.

To build 53-km Nghi Son - Bai Tranh road to link Nghi Son port with Ho Chi Minh road up to grade-Ill road standards, especially the section in Nghi Son economic zone up to grade-II road standards.

To build Yen Cat - Ben Sung - Chuong - Tan Dan road.

Other national highways: To upgrade national highway No. 47 up to grade-Ill road standards, national highways No. 10, 45. 15A and 217 up to grade-IV road standards. To extend national highway No. 10 from But Son to national highway No. 1A (But Son - Do Dai - Moi T-junction - Chet mountain); to extend national highway No. 45 to Nghe An province to national highway No. 48 (along Yen Cat - Thanh Xuan road) and national highway No. 47 through Kheo border gate to Laos (along Thuong Xuan - Bat Mot provincial road) before 2010. Subsequently, to upgrade all sections of national highways running through the locality up to grade-Ill road standards. Some important sections will attain grade-II road standards. To extend national highway No. 217 to national highway No. 10, and to build national highway No. 217 into a trans-Asia highway.

Provincial roads: During 2011 - 2020, to further upgrade provincial roads up to grade-Ill or grade-IV road standards in delta areas and grade-Ill. grade-IV and grade-V road standards in mountainous areas. Sections running through townships will attain grade-II and grade-Ill standards. To build other traffic hubs at crossroads and crossings with heavy traffic. To upgrade some important sections into national highway ones.

Transversal roads include 70-km Van Mai -Muong Lai road; 44-km Lang Chanh - Yen Khuong - Meng border gate road; 139-km Hoi Xuan - Ten Tan - Muong Chanh (Cang border gate) road; 60.3-km Thuong Xuan - Bat Mot -Kheo border gate road; 64-km Yen Cat - Thanh Quan - Bu Cam road; 21-km Muong Min - Na Meo road, and 22-km Yen Nhan - Kham border gate road. After 2020, to expand some important sections up to grade-IV road standards.

Urban roads (some trunk routes)

In Thanh Hoa city: To build national highway No. 1A bypassing Thanh Hoa city: an avenue to the south of Ma river (Ham Rong - .Sam Son); extended Le Loi avenue: belt roads in the west of the city: Sam Son - Thanh Hoa city section of national highway No. 47 by 2010. To renovate weak and narrow bridges and build some new ones, such as Coc, Lai Thanh, Sang, Cao and Hac bridges.

In other urban centers: To synchronously build inner-town roads in Sam Son and Bim Son towns and new urban centers of Nghi Son and Ngoc Lac. By 2020, all big urban centers in the province will have complete and modern traffic systems.

Coastal roads: To build a 100-km coastal road from Dien Ho, Nga Son to Nghi Son urban center of Tinh Gia district and transversal roads connected to trunk routes and big urban centers. After 2010, to invest in building some bridges spanning creek estuaries and some transversal roads connected to national highways No. 1A and 10 and the North-South expressway.

Border patrol roads: The road for border patrol will be 289 km long; to build roads of a total length of 49 km leading to the border, landmarks and observation places and roads of a total length of 317 km from border-guard stations and commune centers to the border patrol road. By 2015, 60-70% of these roads will be completed. By 2010, all of them will be completed.

Rural roads: By 2010, all communes will have motor roads to their centers. All district roads and 70% of commune roads in delta areas and 60% of district roads and 50% of commune roads in midland and mountainous areas will be solidified. After 2010. to renovate and upgrade rural roads, with district roads up to grade-V and grade-VI road standards and wholly asphalted and commune and village roads up to class-A rural road standards.

By 2020, to basically stabilize road infrastructure to facilitate socio-economic development.

To complete building bridges spanning big rivers before 2015, such as Tham bridge (Nga Son). But Son bridge (Hoang Hoa). Do Dai bridge (Hoang Hoa). Hoanh bridge (Yen Dinh). Thieu Khanh bridge (Thieu Hoa). Hoang Khanh bridge (Hoang Hoa). Cam Van bridge (Cam Thuy). Ben Kem bridge (Ba Thuoc). Nam Tien bridge (Quan Hoa). Lat bridge (Muong Lai) and Kim Tan bridge (Thach Thanh) and cable-stayed bridges in mountainous districts.

- Waterway: To completely build Nghi Son port cluster. In the near future, to build Nghi Son general port capable of accommodating ships of up to 30.000 tons, and create conditions for expanding and raising the capacity of Nghi Son port to 50 million tons/year before 2015. To study the building of a deep-water transshipment port on Me island. To expand the general port and build some special-use ports in service of the petrochemical complex, the thermoelectric plant, the steel mill and the cement factory.

To upgrade and expand river ports: Le Man port. Len port (1.6 - 2.5 million tons/year). Lach Hoi port and Ham Rong tourist port. After 2010, to start the construction of Quang Chau port with 5 wharves for ships of 1,000 DWT and with a total handling capacity of 1.5 million tons/year.

To develop waterway transport to the northeastern provinces (Quang Ninh. Hai Phong. Thai Binh....).

- Railway: To develop the intra-provincial railway network connected to areas with high transport demands, especially Nghi Son economic zone. After 2010. to upgrade the existing railway system and build a North-South high-speed railway. To build a number of railway flyovers at crossings with national highways and important provincial roads.

- Airway: Before 2020. to start the construction of a civil airfield in Quang Nhan -Quang Xuong.

b/ Irrigation and fishery infrastructure:

To start the construction of the canal system to the north of Cua Dat lake to irrigate Thuong Xuan, Ngoc Lac. Yen Dinh and Thieu Hoa districts and some other areas.

To concentrate investment in important irrigation works, such as Len dam. upgrading of Hoang Khanh. Xa Loan and Yen Ton irrigation systems, and irrigation systems for districts suffering from severe drought and salinization. To complete a water supply system for Nghi Son economic zone, a water drainage system in the east of Thieu Thi. Kcnh Than drainage channel and drainage pump stations in the systems of northern Chu river, southern Ma river. Phong Chau Luu. Hoang and Nhom rivers.

To build the river dikes, especially Con river dike. To complete the sea dike system (including estuary dikes) before 2012.

To complete the system of fishery urban centers and projects to develop farms combined with freshwater aquaculture.

c/ Development of the power supply network

To build new power transmission facilities and upgrade and gradually modernize the whole power transmission and distribution system, ensuring the stable and quality power supply and meeting the local socio-economic development requirements.

To attach importance to building small-sized hydropower plants and power supply networks in highland, remote and deep-lying areas. To strive for the target that before 2015. all inhabitants in the province will have access to electricity with a total load output of 5 - 6 billion kWh.

d/ Water supply and drainage

To synchronously build water supply and drainage systems for the city, towns and big economic zones and industrial parks: to upgrade and expand existing water supply systems and build new ones for townships and concentrated residential areas. To prioritize the building of water plants for Thanh Hoa city. Bim Son and Sam Son towns. Nghi Son economic zone and district capitals, ensuring the supply of standard tap water for big urban centers with an average norm of 180 - 200 liters/person/day by 2020.

By 2015, to synchronously build the water drainage system and wastewater collection and treatment facilities for Thanh Hoa city, towns, townships, industrial parks and economic zones. For industrial parks, wastewater drainage systems and treatment facilities will be built for each section to ensure that the whole volume of wastewater will be treated up to set standards before being discharged into the environment.

e/ Post and telecommunications

To develop the postal network across the province. To concentrate efforts on developing modern-technology telecommunications infrastructure to provide a large-capacity and high-speed and quality services throughout the province and meet information and communication needs of Party committees, local administrations, enterprises and people, actively contributing to the socio-economic development, security and defense maintenance, storm prevention and combat and natural disaster mitigation.

IV. PLANS ON ORGANIZATION OF SOCIO­ECONOMIC SPACE

1. Plans on development of regions

a/ Delta region: To bring into play this region's role as a motive force for accelerating the province's economic growth and restructuring. To develop such industries as manufacture and repair of means of transport, processing, cement production, light industries, electronic and information technology, and hi-tech industries. To accelerate the construction of infrastructure and increase the occupancy rate of existing industrial parks. To develop industrial complexes and rural craft villages.

To strongly develop such service sectors as trade, finance, banking, transport, post and telecommunications.

To develop agriculture towards commodity production: to form zones for intensive farming of food crops and industrial plants and concentrated husbandry zones.

b/ Coastal areas: To build coastal areas into dynamic economic zones, creating a motive force for promoting economic growth of the province and northern Central Vietnam.

To accelerate the building of industrial parks and large industrial projects on cement, thermo-power, ship building and repair, petrochemical industry and post-petrochemical industry establishments and agricultural, forest and aquatic product processing.

To develop and fully exploit islands, coastal waters, ports, river and creek estuaries. To build Ghep urban center into a center for North-South economic exchange. To build Le Mon and Len ports and Nghi Son deep-water port cluster.

To synchronously and modernize infrastructure facilities of Sam Son tourist center; to build Hai Tien and Hai Hoa tourist resorts and Nghi Son island linked with other tourist spots and routes in the province and neighboring provinces.

To develop trade, import, export, sea transport, finance and banking. To build the non-tariff area in Nghi Son economic zone into an international exchange center of the province and northern Central Vietnam.

To develop agriculture through building zones for intensive growing of rice, peanut, soybean, leguminous vegetables, flowers and bonsai trees. To develop husbandry and aquaculture towards building industrial-scale farms and large-scale commodity production.

c/ Midland and mountainous areas: To protect and zone off existing forests. To develop forest resources and combine the plantation of protection forests with production forests, creating areas with sustainable ecosystems. To develop production forests in the direction of intensive plantation to form concentrated material forests to supply raw materials for wood processing.

To build zones of industrial plants with advantages such as rubber, sugarcane, pineapple and concentrated zones for rearing animals, especially high-quality beeves, to supply raw materials for food processing.

To develop mining and mineral processing, construction material production, hydropower generation, agricultural and forest product processing (paper, wood particle board, flooring planks for export). To build a number of clusters of rural industries and craft villages associated with the redistribution of population and new urban centers along Ho Chi Minh road.

To build Na Meo border-gate economic zone, upgrade Ten Tan border gate and some other border gates into international ones within border-gate economic zones.

To build Ben En, Yen My lake, Cua Dat lake and Cam Luong fish stream tourist resorts. To protect and rationally exploit national parks and nature reserves in the region for tourism development and scientific research.

2. Orientations for urban space development

By 2020, Thanh Hoa will have 65 - 70 urban centers developed at three grades: core urban centers of the province and the region; urban centers in the heart of districts; and urban centers in the heart of communes and commune clusters. The urban population of Thanh Hoa province will reach around 850,000 by 2010 and 1,500.000 by 2020 with the respective urbanization rates of 20% and 35%. The average urbanization rate will be 5.5 - 6%/year. The orientations for development and organization of urban space from now to 2020 are as follows:

The province's system of urban centers will develop from the central city to coastal and southwestern areas, and be located along national highways.

- Thanh Hoa city will be developed and expanded southeast and eventually consolidated with Sam Son town into a grade-I urban center before 2020 with a population of 450,000 -500,000 by 2020.

- Bim Son town will be invested and upgraded from the current grade IV to grade III before 2015.

- Nghi Son urban center (Tinh Gia) will be invested and upgraded to grade III by 2015 and grade II by 2020 to suit the development of Nghi Son economic zone and the region south of Thanh Hoa and north of Nghe An.

- Ngoc Lac urban center in the heart of the western region: To concentrate on quickly building the infrastructure of Ngoc Lac township up to grade-IV town standards; to further expand the urban space of Ngoc Lac urban center to upgrade it into a grade-Ill town by 2020 which will play its role as a development core of the midland and mountainous areas in the west of the province.

In addition to the above urban centers, to review and adjust the planning on other urban centers in the province. From now to 2015. to concentrate on building the infrastructure of district capitals, especially urban traffic, power supply and water supply and drainage systems. To build urban centers where commercial services and rural and mountainous bazaars will be developed.

V. LIST OF PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS PRIORITIZED FOR INVESTMENT STUDY

1. List of programs prioritized for investment study:

- Program on building Nghi Son general economic zone infrastructure;

- Program on socio-economic development in the western region of Thanh Hoa;

- Program on development of Thanh Hoa province's tourism;

- Program on building rural infrastructure for development of a new countryside;

- Program on rapid and sustainable poverty alleviation in 7 poor districts under the Government's Resolution No. 30a/2008/NQ-CP of December 27, 2008;

- Program on comprehensive development of Thanh Hoa city;

- Program on development of rubber trees in the province:

- Program on building areas for intensive paddy cultivation with high yield, quality and efficiency.

- National target program in response to climate change.

2. List of projects prioritized for investment study: (See the enclosed Appendix)

VI. MAJOR SOLUTIONS FOR MASTER PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

1. Mobilization of investment capital sources:

Total investment capital needed for the 2011-2020 period will be around VND 452 trillion, including:

- Investment capital for industry - construction sectors: around VND 262 trillion:

- Investment capital for service sector, around VND 161 trillion;

- Investment capital for agriculture - forestry - fishery sectors: around VND 29 trillion.

To raise investment capital, the province should closely coordinate with concerned ministries and sectors right at the stage of planning and plan elaboration, ensuring that all key programs and projects, especially big traffic, irrigation, defense and security projects, are included in development planning and plans together with plans on raising capital for these programs and projects.

To diversify investment; to further step up administrative reform, thereby creating an open investment environment; to formulate attractive mechanisms and policies and further promote investment to encourage all economic sectors to invest in production and trading development in the locality.

In addition to investment capital from the state budget, to encourage enterprises to make investment under BT. BOT or BTO contracts and other forms of investment to vigorously attract capital for infrastructure development. To accelerate the raising of foreign investment capital in various forms in order to make the best use of ODA and FDI capital sources of foreign countries and international organizations.

2. Human resource training and development

To build the training capacity of universities, colleges and secondary schools in order to satisfy socio-economic development requirements of the province and northern Central Vietnam. To concentrate investment in universities and vocational training centers to upgrade their equipment and physical foundations and raise the capacity of their teachers and trainers.

To expand forms of vocational training, focusing on such professions and jobs with high labor needs as petrochemical refinery, construc­tion, mining, construction material production, manufacturing mechanical engineering, electricity and agricultural product processing.

To encourage enterprises to vocationally train their own employees and outside laborers. To intensify associated training in various forms in order to expand the training scope and diversify forms of training and trained professions. To attach importance to training skilled workers and highly qualified managers.

To step up the socialization of training and strongly develop people-founded and private schools in order to attract all resources for human resource training.

3. Scientific and technological solution

To intensify investment in. and mobilize and effectively use resources for research and application of scientific and technological advances to production and daily life; to adopt preferential mechanisms and policies to encourage enterprises, organizations and individuals to invest in researching, applying and transferring scientific and technological advances to production.

To improve the organizational and managerial structures of science and technology institutions towards socialization, and heighten the autonomy and accountability of organizations and individuals engaged in scientific and technological activities.

4. Protection of natural resources and the environment

To intensify propaganda and education to raise the awareness of people, organizations and enterprises about environmental protection, making it a common responsibility of the entire society.

To review, supplement and perfect regulations on rational, economical and efficient exploitation and use of natural resources for socio-economic development and environmental protection.

To invest in waste treatment facilities in industrial parks and complexes, hospitals and urban centers, ensuring that waste will be treated up to environmental standards before being discharged into the environment. To formulate mechanisms to support enterprises in renewing technologies and applying advanced and clean production technologies in order to minimize pollution and protect the environment. To regularly inspect and supervise and strictly handle violations of the environmental protection law.

To effectively implement forestation programs in barren land areas, bare hills and mountains in order to increase forest coverage and protect water sources.

VII. ORGANIZATION AND SUPERVISION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MASTER PLAN

1. Publicization and dissemination of the master plan

- To publicize and disseminate the master plan among the province's Party committees, local administrations, sectors, mass organizations, enterprises and population.

- To organize the introduction and public information on the province's potential and advantages, priority programs and projects to investors.

2. Elaboration of action programs

- After the master plan is approved by the Prime Minister and based on the master plan's objectives, the province shall elaborate action programs to step by step implement the master plan.

- To concretize the master plan's objectives in five-year and annual plans for implementation. Depending on the socio-economic development in each period, to review, adjust and supplement the master plan in a timely manner to make it suitable to practical development.

- Local authorities, branches, socio-political organizations and people shall inspect and supervise the implementation of the master plan.

Article 2. To assign the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province to base itself on the province's socio-economic development objectives, tasks and orientations set forth in the approved master plan to coordinate with the concerned ministries and sectors in directing under regulations the elaboration, submission, adjustment, supplementation and implementation of the following:

1. District-level socio-economic development master plans; construction planning; land use planning and plans; and development planning of branches and sectors in order to ensure the synchrony and combination between socio­economic development and defense and security maintenance.

2. Long-, medium- and short-term plans, key socio-economic development programs and specific projects which will serve as grounds for making intensive investment and rational allocation of capital sources.

3. To study, elaborate, promulgate or propose competent state agencies to promulgate (for issues falling beyond the competence of the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province) a number of mechanisms and policies meeting the province's development requirements to attract and mobilize resources for the implementation of the master plan.

Article 3. Concerned ministries and sectors shall, within the ambit of their functions, tasks and powers, perform the following tasks:

To guide and assist the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province in studying and elaborating master plans and planning specified in Article 2; studying, elaborating and submitting to competent authorities for promulgation a number of mechanisms and policies meeting the province's socio-economic development requirements to efficiently use resources; promoting and attracting investment according to the province's socio-economic development objectives and tasks set forth in the master plan.

To accelerate the execution of works and projects of regional magnitude and nature and important to the socio-economic development of Thanh Hoa province in which investment has been decided. To study, consider, adjust and add works and projects identified in the master plan to sector development planning and investment plans. To assist the province in seeking and allocating domestic and foreign investment capital sources for the implementation of the master plan.

Article 4. This Decision takes effect on November 15, 2009.

Article 5. The chairperson of the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province, ministers, and heads of ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies shall implement this Decision.

APPENDIX

LIST OF THANH HOA PROVINCE'S PROJECTS PRIORITIZED FOR INVESTMENT STUDY DURING 2010 – 2020
(To the Prime Minister's Decision No. 114/2009/QD-TTg of September 28, 2009)

* Note: Locations, sizes, land occupancy rates and total investment capital amounts of the above-listed works and projects shall be calculated, selected and specified at the stage of elaboration and submission for approval of investment projects, depending on the demand for and capability to balance and raise investment capital in each period.-