Decision No. 936/QD-TTg Approves the Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development of the Central Highlands Region until 2020

Pursuant to …;

Approving the Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development of the Central Highlands Region until 2020

The Central Highlands Region Socio-Economic Development Master Plan until 2020 with the main contents as follows:

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PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government dated December 25, 2001;

Pursuant to Decree No. 92/2006/NĐ-CP dated September 7, 2006 of the Government on the establishment, approval, and management of socio-economic development master plans; Decree No. 04/2008/NĐ-CP dated January 11, 2008 of the Government amending and supplementing certain articles of Decree No. 92/2006/NĐ-CP;

Considering the proposal of the Ministry of Planning and Investment,

DECISION:

Article 1. Approving the Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development of the Central Highlands Region until 2020 with the following main contents:

I. POSITION AND ROLE

1. The Central Highlands has a strategic position of great importance in the socio-economic development, national defense, and security of the whole country; it has a natural corridor with southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia, and a transportation system connecting with coastal provinces of central Vietnam and southeastern Vietnam; international border gates along the East-West Economic Corridor and near deep-water ports along the central coast.

2. The Central Highlands possesses significant potential and advantages in land, minerals, unique climate resources (temperate, subtropical), and diverse flora and fauna, suitable for developing large-scale, concentrated commodity agriculture; scenic spots conducive to tourism development; favorable conditions for developing large-scale electricity and aluminum industries.

3. The Central Highlands feature the cultural characteristics of many ethnic groups and localities across the country; numerous tangible and intangible cultural heritages, various forms of folk life and community activities, and a rich treasury of folk literature; one of the places preserving many valuable historical and aesthetic tangible and intangible cultural heritages of the country.

Promote human factors, improve the quality of human resources, have policies to attract and effectively utilize high-quality human resources; have mechanisms to encourage the development of education and training, especially the civil service, business leaders, and workers.

1. The Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development of the Central Highlands Region until 2020 must be consistent with the National Strategy for Socio-Economic Development; ensuring synchronization and unity with sectoral and field-specific planning.

2. Efficiently exploit and utilize the potential and strengths of the Central Highlands Region; intensify international integration, especially within the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Development Triangle, strengthen cooperation between localities in the region and the rest of the country to mobilize and effectively use all resources for rapid, sustainable development, gradually narrowing the economic and social development gap between the region and the rest of the country.

3. Implement reforms in the growth model and structural transformation towards balanced and deep development to build a competitive economy that uses natural resources efficiently and sustainably. Socio-economic development should be linked with gradual urbanization and modernization of infrastructure networks in the region.

4. Socio-economic development in the Central Highlands must be consistent with the distribution and level of development of productive forces, ensuring balanced and harmonious development among regions, promoting social progress and equity at each stage of development; creating more jobs for workers; reducing poverty, caring for people's health, and stabilizing society; paying attention to human resource development; preserving and promoting the traditional cultural values of ethnic groups.

5. Closely combine economic development with building and consolidating a strong grassroots political system; enhancing solidarity among ethnic groups, maintaining political stability and social order and safety.

Basically complete the stable resettlement of residents, especially those relocated due to hydropower and irrigation projects, moving people to the border areas; basically resolve the issue of spontaneous migration; preserve and promote the cultural identity of ethnic groups, improve the material and spiritual lives of the people, especially those in ethnic minority areas, remote and mountainous regions, and border areas; curb social evils; integrate economic and social development with environmental protection, ensuring national defense, security, and political stability.

1. General objectives:

Stable and sustainable development based on organizing economic and social activities in space appropriately; building infrastructure systems at a level comparable to the national average, achieving fundamental changes in comprehensive socio-economic development; gradually transforming the Central Highlands into a driving force for national economic development; continuously improving the material and spiritual lives of the people, protecting the ecological environment; ensuring national defense and security.

2. Specific objectives

a) On economic development:

- Strive for an annual average economic growth rate (GDP) of 7.9% during the period 2011-2015 and 8.7% during the period 2016-2020. By 2015, per capita GDP reaches 24 million VND and by 2020 approximately 46 million VND;

- The proportion of agriculture-industry-service in the economic structure will be 43.6%, 29.2%, and 27.2% respectively in 2015, and correspondingly 34.7%, 35%, and 30.3% in 2020;

- Average export growth rate during the period 2011-2015 is 17% per year, and approximately 15.5% per year during the period 2016-2020.

b) On social development:

- Reduce the average annual natural population growth rate to about 1.5% per year during the period 2011-2015 and about 1.4% per year during the period 2016-2020. Strive for a population size of about 5.8 million people by 2015 and about 6.4 million people by 2020;

- Strive to reduce the percentage of children under five years old suffering from malnutrition to below 21% by 2015 and below 16% by 2020. The number of districts and towns recognized for universal secondary education coverage will reach 55-60% by 2020;

- Create employment annually for 140,000-150,000 laborers. By 2020, the unemployment rate of working-age labor in urban areas will be below 3%. Strive to achieve a labor training rate of 40-45% by 2015 and approximately 50-55% by 2020. Reduce the average poverty rate by 2.5-3.5% per year;

- Strive to increase the percentage of rural residents supplied with clean water from centralized water supply systems in cities of Class III and above to 90% by 2015, 70% in cities of Class IV, and 50% in cities of Class V. By 2020, the percentage of residents supplied with clean water from centralized water supply systems in cities of Class IV and above will reach 90%, and 70% in cities of Class V, with water quality meeting standards.

Ensure that 80% of the rural population uses hygienic water by 2015 and over 90% by 2020.

c) On environmental protection:

- Increase forest cover to around 57% by 2015 and over 59% by 2020;

- By 2015, over 80% of solid waste in cities and 40-50% of domestic wastewater in cities of Class III and above will be collected and treated to meet standards before being discharged into the environment, and this ratio will be over 90% and 60% respectively by 2020;

- Use natural resources reasonably, protect biodiversity; enhance education and raise public awareness about environmental protection.

d) On security and defense: Maintain political stability, social order and safety, strengthen ethnic unity, consolidate national defense and security; build provinces in the Region into solid defensive areas.

IV. DIRECTIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF SECTORS AND INDUSTRIES

1. Economic sectors:

- Comprehensively transform the agricultural structure so that by 2020, the Central Highlands will basically have a large-scale, concentrated commodity agriculture with high competitiveness, efficiency, and sustainability linked to processing industries; at the same time, apply advanced technology and biotechnology in forestry and agriculture production to increase productivity and product quality; establish brands for some products with comparative advantages in the Region such as coffee, rubber, cocoa, pepper, etc., stabilize the area of coffee trees, continue researching and developing some high-value cash crops, types of vegetables, flowers, and fruit trees with strengths in natural conditions (land, climate, ecosystem, etc.); encourage converting low-yield rice fields with unstable irrigation water to high-efficiency dry crops. Focus on developing animal husbandry, particularly large livestock (beef, dairy cattle, buffalo, goat, etc.). Strengthen the protection of national parks and nature reserves. Effectively utilize water resources, especially large reservoirs (hydroelectric dams, irrigation reservoirs, etc.) to develop aquaculture;

- Leverage the potential and strengths of each locality in the Central Highlands, vigorously develop industry to achieve growth targets and rapidly transform the economic structure. Prioritize the development of agro-forestry processing industries, focusing on processing products with raw material advantages. Develop mining and mineral processing industries, with a focus on aluminum ore extraction and alumina processing, determined to be one of the major industries nationwide. Develop mechanical manufacturing industries to serve agro-food processing, forestry processing, mining and mineral processing, small-scale industries in the region;

- Accelerate the development of service sectors to meet production and living needs. Develop trade, gradually modernize infrastructure to ensure smooth circulation of goods; focus on building commercial centers and supermarkets in cities, towns, urban areas, border economic zones. Diversify tourism products based on exploiting natural resource potentials, historical, cultural traditions of ethnic minorities; concentrate on developing forest mountain eco-tourism, waterfall lake tourism. Effectively utilize special climatic resources to form and develop high-end resort tourism in Da Lat City (Lam Dong Province), Mang Den (Kon Tum Province). Vigorously develop border gate economy, transportation services, telecommunications, finance, banking, insurance, technology transfer, other services serving production and people's lives.

2. Cultural and social sector:

- Improve physical facilities and equipment for primary schools. Enhance the quality and effectiveness of secondary education. Expand the scale and improve the quality of higher education, college, vocational training according to appropriate training methods to meet human resource requirements under the overall planning of the country. Develop strategies for training professions suitable for development needs and market demands; promote vocational training in rural areas and ethnic minority regions; link vocational training with employment and labor export;

- Gradually modernize and complete the basic health care system to enhance people's access, especially ethnic minorities, to basic health services of good quality. Expand the scale of general hospitals and develop specialized provincial hospitals, while increasing the number of hospital beds, improve the quality of health services, prioritize areas with few ethnic minorities. Develop the preventive health network to proactively prevent and control diseases, meeting the increasingly high demand for health protection, care, and improvement of the population in the Central Highlands;

Build a comprehensive cultural system down to the grassroots level; preserve and restore representative historical and cultural relics linked to tourism development. Consolidate and upgrade cultural arts colleges; modernize sports facilities such as stadiums, multi-purpose sports complexes, sports centers according to the overall planning of the country; technical infrastructure for sports at the grassroots level is synchronized, gradually modernized.

3. Science and technology:

Vigorously apply high technology and clean technology in economic sectors; enhance the effectiveness of science and technology activities; strengthen technical infrastructure and create favorable conditions for the development and enhancement of the effectiveness of research institutes and scientific bases in the region.

4. Resource protection and environmental management:

- Properly conduct basic surveys on resources and minerals to plan rational resource utilization; effectively exploit and strictly manage natural resources, especially land, forests, and minerals;

- Address degradation and improve environmental quality; protect biodiversity and ecological environments; proactively forecast, warn, and mitigate the consequences of natural disasters and climate change.

5. Infrastructure development:

Based on approved planning, gradually build an infrastructure system as a driving force for socio-economic development. Focus on developing transportation networks, power supply, irrigation, urban infrastructure, industrial zones. Specifically:

- Develop a transportation network towards forming three vertical axes (East Ho Chi Minh Road and National Highway 20; Ho Chi Minh Road through the Central Highlands; border road from Kon Tum Province to National Highway 14C - border road from Dak Nong Province) and four horizontal axes (National Highway 24 - National Highway 14 - National Highway 40; National Highway 19; National Highway 26; National Highway 28 - National Highway 14 - Provincial Road 686 - National Highway 14C). Upgrade and construct provincial and district roads according to planning. Focus on developing transportation networks in remote rural areas, border regions.

- Gradually modernize the Liên Khương and Pleiku airports; study and plan airfields for helicopter and small fixed-wing aircraft operations to meet the needs of citizens and businesses;

- Study and select appropriate investment forms at each stage to develop railway lines serving transportation, industrial production, and mineral extraction from Dak Nong Province to Binh Thuan Province; the Thap Cham - Da Lat railway line; the main Western Highlands railway axis (Da Nang - Kon Tum - Buon Ma Thuot - Chon Thanh - Ho Chi Minh City); and the Tuy Hoa - Buon Ma Thuot railway line;

- Focus on completing and putting into operation the Dong Nai 4, Dak R'Tih, and Upper Kon Tum power plants; construct hydropower plants according to planning for Dong Nai 2 and Dong Nai 5, 500 KV and 220 KV transmission lines connecting the Western Highlands and national power grid with hydropower plants built within the region and some in Laos and Cambodia. Renovate and build medium and low voltage grids, intermediate substations at district level. Improve urban power grids to ensure safety and aesthetics. Prioritize investment in substations and power grids in border economic zones, industrial parks, and tourist areas. Install street lighting systems to ensure urban illumination. Strive to achieve rural electrification targets throughout the Western Highlands;

- Invest in reinforcing and modernizing existing irrigation systems to ensure proactive operation and improve efficiency. Construct multi-purpose medium and large-scale irrigation projects, prioritizing water storage during the rainy season for drought resistance during the dry season. Prioritize irrigation facilities for high-value cash crops and other crops. Continue to invest in integrated infrastructure from main works to canals, reinforce canals, and reservoirs to ensure sufficient water supply during the dry season. Develop medium and small-scale water supply and power generation projects to support production development, stabilize living conditions, especially for ethnic minorities in remote and border areas to maintain social stability and national defense security. Construct and reinforce embankments along major rivers and streams to protect production and daily life;

6. Regarding national defense and security:

- Develop defense-related economic zones in the Western Highlands to improve and gradually enhance the material and spiritual lives of the people, ensuring national defense and security in strategic areas and borders. Based on population resettlement plans for production and national defense-security goals, form clusters of villages and border communes, creating a border belt as the foundation for building a comprehensive people's defense posture to defend the country;

- Prioritize the construction of defense-related economic zones linked with youth settlement villages, programs for arranging and stabilizing populations near border areas, restoring and establishing new settlements according to new rural planning. Continue implementing combined military-civilian health programs aimed at remote and isolated areas, contributing effectively to disease prevention, healthcare, and the well-being of the people and troops;

- Continue constructing and upgrading border patrol roads according to planning to ensure mobility for military forces and equipment along the border, meeting defense and security requirements; while promoting economic and social development, improving the material and spiritual lives of border ethnic groups;

- Consolidate and perfect the multi-level administrative system with nationwide campaigns to protect national security; build a solid security posture from the grassroots level, preventing illegal migration, and combating social evils. Train and equip regular police forces with modern equipment to effectively detect and combat illegal incursions, subversion, and organized political instability, maintaining public order and social security in the Western Highlands;

V. ORGANIZATION OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SPACE

1. Regarding the development of sub-regions:

- The Northern Western Highlands sub-region comprising Gia Lai and Kon Tum Provinces: Develop hydroelectric industry; establish eco-tourism areas and tourism zones linked with national parks and natural reserves. Stabilize and improve the quality and yield of cash crops; promote cross-border trade along the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia border corridor;

- The Central Western Highlands sub-region comprising Dak Lak Province: Focus on developing agro-industrial processing industries, particularly coffee production, processing, and export;

- The Southern Western Highlands sub-region comprising Dak Nong and Lam Dong Provinces: Develop service and resort tourism; mining and high-tech agriculture;

2. Regarding urban space development:

Strive to reach approximately 31.5% urbanization rate for the entire Western Highlands by 2015 and about 36.2% by 2020. Among which:

- Develop Buon Ma Thuot City into the central city of the Western Highlands; a center for services, industry, science and technology, education, and healthcare; a core city in the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Development Triangle;

- Da Lat City, with its unique natural conditions (climate) and cultural and historical values, is one of the largest domestic and international tourist resorts; a multi-disciplinary training center, scientific research, and technology transfer center for the nation;

- Develop Pleiku City into one of the core cities in the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Development Triangle;

- Continue investing in developing Kon Tum City and the International Border Economic Zone Bo Y to become important driving forces for the Northern Western Highlands region;

- Establish and develop new cities linked with concentrated industrial zones, border economic zones, and newly established administrative units;

- Form market towns and concentrated residential areas; gradually build infrastructure networks and public works (markets, post offices, retail stores, etc.) in areas conducive to economic development and exchange, laying the groundwork for urban formation.

3. Continue to organize and implement well support policies, national target programs on poverty reduction, employment resolution; population and family planning; clean water and rural environmental sanitation; housing support policies for poor households, creating favorable conditions for people in difficult areas to develop production, increase income, and improve living standards. Effectively implement the Program to rapidly and sustainably reduce poverty in poor districts in the Region.

VI. MAJOR SOLUTIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

1. Vigorously attract domestic and foreign investment:

Mobilize and effectively utilize all resources from various economic sectors; focus on capital sources from residents, non-state-owned enterprises, and foreign direct investment. Continue to create a favorable environment and build preferential mechanisms and policies, especially special incentives for developing several fields with great potential and advantages to attract investment resources and promote rapid and sustainable development in the Central Highlands region.

2. Develop and promulgate mechanisms and policies to support socio-economic development in the Central Highlands region until 2020.

- Study appropriate mechanisms and policies to develop infrastructure in rural areas and difficult regions; effectively implement poverty reduction, health, education policies for difficult areas and ethnic minority groups; compensation, land clearance, resettlement, land allocation for resettled households, resource tax policies; have preferential policies to attract businesses to invest in sparsely populated areas, especially mountainous, remote, and ethnic minority areas;

- Encourage the development of primary processing industries for agricultural and forest products in remote areas, using local ethnic labor; invest in high-tech and advanced technology in producing and processing export agricultural products (rubber, coffee, beans, etc.); support businesses, cooperatives, and farms to invest in production, processing, and trading in the area; develop clean, high-yield, high-quality agricultural products, especially export products;

- Effectively implement preferential credit policies for afforestation and development of raw material areas serving the processing industry; policies to utilize land for planting, protecting, and preventing forest fires; policies benefiting those engaged in planting and protecting forests; encourage ensuring income for forest workers and their attachment to the forest.

3. Develop human resources:

- Expand the recruitment quota and prioritize ethnic minority groups in education, recruitment, promotion, and appointment. Focus on training local ethnic minority labor. Support vocational training, career guidance, language and cultural education to provide quality human resources for businesses operating in the area and participating in labor export;

- Develop and promulgate policies to train and enhance the capacity of grassroots cadres; organize short-term and long-term training sessions for village, commune, and district cadres on knowledge of economic and social management, program and project management; skills in building and implementing plans;

- Study and promulgate policies to attract scientific and technical cadres from other places to work long-term in the Central Highlands, especially in remote, ethnic minority areas. Provide conditions for residential land, housing (production land if family members follow to engage in agriculture and forestry); recruitment policies into state civil service positions; policies encouraging young intellectuals to work in remote and extremely difficult areas.

4. Administrative reform:

- Vigorously carry out administrative reform, improve the quality of cadres and civil servants, clearly define the authority between agencies at different levels and sectors; strengthen administrative discipline, combat bureaucratic corruption and waste; ensure the implementation of citizens' democratic rights;

- Effectively implement policies on cadre rotation and strengthening cadres from provinces and districts to communes to assume key leadership positions; implement initial allowance policies for cadres under rotation; have salary, allowances, and appointment policies after successfully completing tasks at the grassroots level.

5. Cooperation and linkage development:

- Continue to vigorously promote cooperation among localities within the region in investment promotion, trade, tourism; coordinate and cooperate in building raw material areas, developing processing industries, expanding product markets; coordinate in utilizing water resources, protecting and developing forests;

- Enhance the effectiveness of cooperation between localities in the Central Highlands and the Southeast and South Central Coast regions. Priority cooperation areas include: attracting investment; processing, import-export, promoting trade of main products such as coffee, rubber, cashew nuts, fruits, wood products. Cooperate in constructing transportation axes connecting the Central Highlands with Southeast and South Central Coast provinces, especially to seaports and major transportation hubs; coastal tourism routes of the South Central Coast and Southeast with Central Highlands ecological, mountain, and cultural tourism; cooperate in building hydropower plants, water use, and raw materials for agricultural and forest product processing factories;

- Vigorously promote cooperation between the Central Highlands and localities of neighboring Laos and Cambodia within the framework of the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Development Triangle cooperation; Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) cooperation; East-West Economic Corridor development cooperation and bilateral cooperation; cooperation between Central Highlands provinces and localities of Laos and Cambodia.

VII. ORGANIZATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN

Organize the announcement and public disclosure of the Comprehensive Plan for Socio-Economic Development of the Central Highlands until 2020; organize investment promotion activities, publicity, and attraction of domestic and foreign investors and various economic sectors to participate in implementing the Plan; strengthen supervision and inspection of investment development according to the Plan.

Article 2. The localities in the Central Highlands region shall proactively review, adjust, supplement, or submit to the competent authority for approval the overall socio-economic development plan of their locality until 2020, ensuring compliance with the objectives and tasks approved in Article 1 of this Decision; organize supervision and inspection of the implementation of investment projects within their jurisdiction.

Article 3. Responsibilities of Ministries and sectors:

1. The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall take the lead and coordinate with relevant ministries, sectors, and localities in the Central Highlands region to have the responsibility to:

- Organize the publication of the Master Plan and investment promotion activities aimed at attracting and mobilizing various sources of capital from domestic and foreign economic sectors to invest in the Region; monitor, urge, supervise, and inspect the implementation of the Master Plan by relevant ministries, sectors, and localities in the Region;

- Review existing mechanisms and policies for the Region; study amendments and supplements, and propose appropriate mechanisms and policies (if necessary), particularly mechanisms for coordination and linkage policies between localities in the Region and other regions; advise the Prime Minister on the harmonization of investment capital for development projects in the Region, especially infrastructure investment projects, to avoid scattered and overlapping investments among localities in the Region;

2. Ministry of Finance:

- Take the lead and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and People's Committees of provinces in the Region to review and adjust preferential financial mechanisms for localities in the Region, key programs, and projects with regional scale and characteristics;

- Coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and related ministries, sectors, and localities to study and propose investment policies for the Region.

3. The Ministry of Transport:

- Take the lead and coordinate with localities to review and complete investment and development plans for the transportation infrastructure system; study and propose incentive mechanisms to attract investment from non-state budget sources for transportation infrastructure development;

- Take the lead and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and localities in the Region to develop medium- and long-term investment plans for transportation infrastructure; propose solutions to mobilize investment funds.

4. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development: Take the lead and coordinate with related ministries, sectors, and localities in the Region to review and complete plans for stable population distribution, agricultural production areas, irrigation systems, and agricultural service infrastructure; focus on researching and applying high technology and biotechnology in agriculture and forestry production to increase productivity and quality, creating high-value products with high added value, especially key products in the Region such as coffee, rubber, pepper, cold-region vegetables, and flowers...

5. The Ministry of Industry and Trade: Take the lead and coordinate with related ministries, sectors, and localities to study and propose policies to promote production and consumption of products in the domestic market and export, especially agricultural products; build wholesale markets and large-scale commercial centers at the regional level, and develop border gate economies.

6. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment: Take the lead and coordinate with localities in the Region to study and assess the impact of climate change on production and people's lives; direct relevant localities to implement environmental protection measures at mineral extraction and processing projects; protect national parks, nature reserves, and biodiversity.

7. The Ministry of Education and Training:

- Take the lead and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance, and localities in the Region to research and build appropriate mechanisms and policies to modernize facilities, develop teaching staff, and training programs to develop high-quality human resource training centers, meeting the needs of human resources for socio-economic development in the Central Highlands region; while also implementing the task of training scientific and technical cadres to assist Laos and Cambodia;

- Coordinate with the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs to develop a roadmap and solutions for investing in vocational training centers in the Region.

8. The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism: Take the lead and coordinate with related ministries, sectors, and localities to review, adjust, and supplement planning for cultural centers, sports centers, and regional-level cultural institutions; build regional-scale tourist areas, cooperation mechanisms between localities for tourism development, and establish the "Green Route of the Central Highlands" tourist route.

9. The Steering Committee for the Central Highlands: Direct inspections and urging of ministries, sectors, and localities in the Central Highlands region to implement the Master Plan; coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance, and related ministries, sectors, and localities to study and advise the Government and Prime Minister on mechanisms, policies, and solutions to implement the Master Plan.

10. Relevant ministries and sectors within the scope of their functions, tasks, and authorities shall be responsible for:

- Coordinating with the Ministry of Planning and Investment in the implementation and monitoring of the Master Plan; supervising the implementation of key investment programs and projects with regional scale and characteristics under their management in priority order to promote regional socio-economic development.

- Establishing new, adjusting, and submitting for approval sectoral and field plans and main products in the Region in accordance with the goals, tasks, and directions of development approved in Article 1 of this Decision.

Article 4. This Decision takes effect from the date of issuance.

Article 5. Chairmen of People's Committees of provinces in the Central Highlands region; Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, and Heads of government agencies are responsible for enforcing this Decision.