Kien Xuong: Maintaining growth momentum

In the first half of 2024, Kien Xuong achieved remarkable results, especially in economic development. This is the basis for the district to aim for higher growth in the last months of the year.

Son Ha Company Limited creates stable jobs for nearly 2,000 workers.

Agriculture - a prominent mark

Agricultural production continues to be a highlight of the district in recent times. Mr. Dinh Cong Man, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: In the first 6 months of the year, the agricultural sector grew by 2.35%. Achieving that result is a great effort of the whole sector because up to now, most communes have organized production linkages, contributing significantly to promoting added value for the agricultural sector. In the last spring crop, there were 22 cooperatives organizing concentrated production by region with product consumption linkages with a total area of nearly 1,300 hectares, an increase of 89 hectares, with 1,568 hectares of accumulation, an increase of nearly 300 hectares compared to the same period in 2023. Models of increasing production value continue to be maintained and expanded, giving positive results. Typically, the organic rice production model such as rice with earthworms and rice with crabs not only has a selling price increase of 10-15% compared to normal rice, increasing natural aquatic resources such as earthworms, crabs, and crabs in rice fields, but also helps reduce environmental pollution, increase soil porosity, and improve rice growing land. In addition, many agricultural models applying high technology in greenhouses and net houses continue to be maintained and expanded in many localities for high economic efficiency, contributing to creating high competitiveness in the market and increasing income for people.

Binh Thanh Commune Agricultural Service Production and Trading Cooperative displays and sells local agricultural products.

Mr. Dang Van Quang, Director of Binh Thanh Commune Agricultural Service Production and Trading Cooperative, said: The cooperative continues to maintain and expand the rice seed production area with ThaiBinh Seed Group Joint Stock Company and other companies with an area of over 125 hectares. Planning an organic rice production area combined with exploiting and developing natural aquatic resources of 12 hectares to produce rice under the Cho Goc rice brand and fish sauce under the Goc market fish sauce brand to supply to the market. As a result, the cooperative has linked production and consumed 625 tons of rice, earning over 7 billion VND for the people. In addition, the cooperative also consumed 20 tons of fresh rice sold at 9,500 VND/kg and over 4 tons of fish in the organic rice area, helping people achieve double profits in production. Currently, after milling and packaging with the Cho Goc rice brand, the cooperative is selling at 35,000 VND/kg, an increase of 15,000 VND/kg compared to regular rice, the added value is over 1.2 million VND/sao and the increased profit from harvesting clams in the organic rice area is about 2 million VND/sao. Thus, the added value of organic production in Binh Thanh reaches over 3.2 million VND/sao.

Industry maintains growth momentum

Despite many difficulties, in the first 6 months of this year, Kien Xuong's industrial production tended to develop better than the same period in 2023.

Mr. Pham Van Quang, Head of the District Economic - Infrastructure Department, said: Local enterprises have made efforts to promote production and business activities to meet the needs of the domestic and export markets. Some key industrial export products of the district are stable and growing compared to the same period last year. In particular, after many months of continuous difficulties, most enterprises in the garment and footwear industry have signed orders until the end of 2024, accounting for 40% of the district's industrial production structure. Some enterprises have returned to normal and stable operations after temporarily suspending production; many enterprises have continued to invest on a larger scale, especially investing in automatic systems in technical areas and have organized overtime. These are optimistic signals in production, creating momentum for stable and sustainable industrial development. Enterprises, cooperatives, production and business establishments in craft villages continue to maintain stable production, actively seek markets, and expand production scale.

Along with that, Kien Xuong focuses on developing industrial clusters (ICs), urging investors to speed up the implementation of infrastructure construction investment projects and attract secondary investors. Up to now, 19 secondary investors have leased land for production and business activities, of which 16 investors have been operating stably, creating jobs for nearly 10,000 workers with an average income of 7.5 million VND/person/month. The above results have contributed to boosting the industrial production value in the first 6 months of the year to nearly 2,000 billion VND, an increase of 7.02% over the same period in 2023.

Many difficulties ahead

Although the total production value in the first 6 months of Kien Xuong reached nearly 6,320 billion VND, an increase of 5.34% over the same period in 2023, there are still many limitations and difficulties that need to be overcome. Typically, in agricultural production, the district has many unique models, promoting local advantages, but up to now, there are still 23 communes that have not built large-scale concentrated production areas of 50 hectares or more. Regarding the semi-floating pond model, the models have been implemented very effectively, but only 3/10 communes have registered to implement them; the number of OCOP products is still small compared to the potential and strengths of the district. In addition, the dissemination and replication of models is still limited, and the implementation of mechanisms and policies to support land accumulation still faces many difficulties. The industrial sector increased compared to the same period but only reached 33.6% of the 2024 plan.

According to Mr. Pham Van Quang, the reason for the above difficulties is that the value of orders is not high, down 30 - 40% compared to 3 years ago. In addition, the industrial sector has not had a breakthrough because there are still many difficulties in attracting investment to the area, especially attracting investment in industrial parks. Typically, Binh Minh Industrial Park has been allocated land since the end of 2023, but so far the progress of infrastructure investment is still slow; Trung Ne Industrial Park, the district has resolutely cleared the land, handed over clean land to infrastructure investors, but so far has not attracted secondary investors. Thus, Kien Xuong has up to 7 industrial parks, but only 3 have secondary investors, 4 have not yet come into operation. Therefore, the added production value from the industrial parks has not met expectations.

To achieve the target of 10.5% economic growth rate by 2024, in addition to promoting the development of agricultural production models, implementing agglomeration and production linkage, Kien Xuong focuses on developing industrial clusters, especially speeding up the progress of projects in Trung Ne Industrial Cluster and Binh Minh Industrial Cluster; continuing to preserve and develop traditional craft villages such as linen weaving, silver carving, rattan and bamboo weaving; promoting the development of trade and service activities to promote economic growth.