Awaking potential of Binh Dinh - the land of martial arts

Binh Dinh province has been developing its resources, taking full advantage of domestic and foreign investment capital sources to build infrastructure and enhance socio-economic development, thanks to its potential and excellent geographical location.

With a natural area of 6,050km2, Binh Dinh is home to over 1.5 million people. The province has 11 district-level administrative units. The provincial capital is Quy Nhon city. As one of the five provinces in the Central Key Economic Region, with its advantage of sea - forest, Binh Dinh has a convenient transportation infrastructure system, including roads, railways, sea and air routes.

It also boasts Phu Cat airport and Quy Nhon international seaport. All of these play an important role in developing the region’s socio-economy. In addition, via Quy Nhon international seaport, Binh Dinh is the shortest and most favorable gateway to the East Sea for the Central Highlands, southern Laos, northeast Cambodia and Thailand.

Lots of room for development

Binh Dinh is accelerating investment in infrastructure to build Nhon Hoi Economic Zone into a dynamic economic area of the province as well as to help Quy Nhon city become a center for industry, trade services and international exchanges of Binh Dinh province, the Central Coast, and the Central Highlands.

Besides, the province focuses on large infrastructure construction projects connecting the neighboring areas, as well as production and service establishments of industrial centers and key economic sectors like tourism, seaport-logistics services, agro-forestry-fishery processing, high-tech agriculture, garment, mechanical engineering, electronics, and power production, to name but a few.

Mr. Nguyen Phi Long, Chairman of Binh Dinh Provincial People's Committee (second from right) and Mr. Nakai Akimoto, Head of Yoshino town, Nara province, Japan awarded a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation orientation. (Photo: H.L)
Mr. Nguyen Phi Long, Chairman of Binh Dinh Provincial People's Committee (second from right) and Mr. Nakai Akimoto, Head of Yoshino town, Nara province, Japan awarded a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation orientation. (Photo: H.L)

Binh Dinh now has seven industrial parks and 63 industrial clusters in operation, with Nhon Hoi Economic Zone, which covers 14,308 hectares, and is considered as the province’s locomotive for local socio-economic growth. The province is currently seeking more investment in Nhon Hoi Economic Zone, including Becamex Viet Nam - Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) in Binh Dinh (Becamex VSIP Binh Dinh in short) - the province’s first industrial, urban and service zone covering an area of 2,308 hectares, which is considered an ideal destination for investors to run their businesses.

Furthermore, Binh Dinh is one of Viet Nam’s top four provinces and cities regarding the strongly-developed wood processing sector. The province’s export wooden outdoor and indoor furniture and forestry products are among the country’s leading groups in terms of scale and market share.

Currently, over 240 businesses produce wood and forest goods, with an annual capacity of 350,000m3 of refined wood, nearly 1 million tons of dry wood chips, and 1 million tons of wood pellets, shipping to over 60 countries and territories, with the European Union (EU) being the major consumer market.

Textile, garments, and footwear are other strengths of the province. It has around 120 businesses with tens of thousands of employees, including 94 businesses that create garments, including sportswear, fashion clothing... The animal feed sector has been growing at an average rate of 22.4 per cent per year during the 2016-2020 period. Binh Dinh has 15 animal food factories with a combined capacity of around 3.3 million tons of products per year and annual revenue ranging from 13 to 15.5 trillion VND.

Agriculture, in general, remains an important economic sector that makes significant contributions to the province’s economic structure. Binh Dinh is restructuring its agricultural sector to increase added value and promote long-term development by establishing the value chain of production, processing, and consumption; reducing the size of land under rice cultivation while promoting aqua-farming; and encouraging the development of concentrated husbandry areas with the application of state-of-the-art technology, among others.

With a coastline of 134km, the province’s blue economy is well-developed, with offshore fishing grounds stretching from Viet Nam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) to Truong Sa (Spratly) islands. It is currently concentrating on upgrading the fisheries sector, especially offshore fishing, tuna fishing in focus, with modern technology and increasing product value while continuing to invest in a fishery logistics center and an ocean tuna port according to international standards.

Binh Dinh has many beautiful landscapes, pools, bays, and beaches, as well as a rich and diverse aquatic system. They create favorable conditions for the development of the tourism industry and real estate projects, which have impressed many domestic and international businesses so far.

It is also home to a number of well-known historical and cultural relics, such as the thousand-year-old Cham tower system, Quang Trung Museum, Bai Choi singing (a traditional game combining folklore singing and lottery picks), Boi singing (classical drama), traditional martial arts etc., contributing to further attracting tourists, especially international ones. In addition, the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education in the province annually attracts thousands of international tourists and well-known scientists to attend conferences and seminars.

Improving local external affairs’ efficiency

The global and regional situation has experienced sophisticated, complicated and unexpected developments since the 19th External Affairs Conference. However, under the direction of the central to local levels, external affairs activities have been carried out synchronously throughout the country, and in Binh Dinh province in particular, contributing to the maintenance of a peaceful and stable environment, ensuring independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and creating favorable conditions for the whole country and localities to further gain impressive achievements in social and economic development.

Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of Binh Dinh People’s Committee Ho Quoc Dung met with Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Viet Nam Park Noh-wan. (Photo: Ly Da)
Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of Binh Dinh People’s Committee Ho Quoc Dung met with Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Viet Nam Park Noh-wan. (Photo: Ly Da)

With the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Binh Dinh’s foreign affairs have yielded a lot of excellent achievements, with a focus on investment, trade, and tourism development both at home and abroad. In addition, the province hosted several investment, trade, and tourism promotion delegations from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States, and is actively expanding cooperation with new partners and luring a large number of potential investors.

In order to attract investment and develop local infrastructure, Binh Dinh established cooperation relations with five foreign localities (four southern provinces of Laos and Izumisano city, Japan); coordinated with PNE Group and LEONHARD KURZ Group (Germany); and two French organizations - SFL and SEAFF.

Investors from 22 countries and territories have filed 87 foreign direct investments (FDI) totalling more than 1 billion USD in the province. Most of these enterprises are effectively doing their business, making great contributions to the province’s socio-economic development.

Annually, the provincial leaders welcome many diplomatic and international delegations as well as thousands of foreigners to attend conferences and seminars, as well as to invest in and sponsor various projects.

Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Binh Dinh worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, relevant ministries and sectors, and Vietnamese embassies in a number of countries to effectively disseminate and introduce the province’s potential, strengths, socio-economic achievements, investment plan, and a number of key projects to international friends.

The Central region economic development conference, held in August 2019, in accordance with investment promotion, the construction of the Becamex VSIP Binh Dinh, and a huge investment for infrastructure in Quy Nhon city and neighboring districts, in line with a string of existing trade and service centers in the province, have contributed to the attraction of more investors to Binh Dinh.

Recently, the province attracted FDI capital to a number of large projects, such as offshore wind power investment project in Phu Cat and Phu My districts with 154-166 wind turbines, a capacity of about 2000MW, and a total investment of about 4.8 billion USD by PNE Group (Germany); German Kurz Group’s high-tech emulsion and thin-film factory project in the Becamex VSIP Binh Dinh with a total capital of 40 million USD and a capacity of 15 million m2/year; a high-end fashion products factory project with an investment of 15 million USD by YING HAN INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (British Virgin Islands); Singaporean LANKING NANO PTE. LTD.’s Hai Long Binh Dinh Animal Feed Factory project in Hoa Hoi Industrial Park (Cat Hanh commune, Phu Cat district) with a total capital of 15 million USD; and Chinese Hong Kong’s B&D Lingerie Vietnam Garment Factory at the Industrial Park No.A in the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone with an investment of 10.34 million USD.

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Nguyen Phi Long