Opening up marine space for a mountainous province is a breakthrough.

Referring to the construction of free trade zones, airports, and seaports in Da Nang or the story of building ports, solving the problem of Ho Chi Minh City's inner city, experts said that instead of struggling like in the past many years, cities will have a "wide road" to solve the problem, when the merger of provinces opens up new development space. In addition, according to experts, the merger of provinces and cities with a breakthrough in thinking will also open up new and balanced development space in the South Central region... Development space is also the most important criterion in the merger of provinces and cities this time.

Referring to the criteria for expanding the development space proposed by the Politburo in Conclusion 127 (on continuing to reorganize the apparatus of the political system), Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu, Deputy Director of the Academy of Public Administration and Management, said that the Politburo's emphasis on expanding the development space when merging provinces is a reasonable and very necessary approach. This reflects a deep understanding that merging provinces is not only a problem of population and area, but more importantly, it must create a new space for economic growth, infrastructure development and resource optimization.

According to Professor Suu, if the merger of provinces is based only on rigid administrative factors without paying attention to expanding development space, the desired results will not be achieved. "From my research experience at home and abroad, when expanding the development space of provinces and regions, there is a better opportunity to mobilize resources to improve infrastructure connectivity and optimize population distribution, creating developed economic clusters. Therefore, including this criterion in the arrangement of provinces is a very scientific step, ensuring strategy and long-term vision", Professor Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu emphasized.

Answering the question "what kind of development space do we need", Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu said that we need to have development spaces with high regional connectivity, taking advantage of comparative advantages and having the ability to attract investment to create new momentum for socio-economic growth and people's quality of life.

"In my opinion, a reasonable development space is not limited to the scope of a locality but must be designed on an inter-regional vision and it helps to form economic corridors, create supply chains and infrastructure networks to effectively connect the expansion of development space, ensuring the exploitation of the advantages of each region, instead of just mechanically expanding administrative boundaries. At the same time, the development space must be built to attract businesses, investors and high-quality human resources through completing infrastructure, improving the business environment and enhancing the quality of urban life", analyzed Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Suu.

To ensure this effectiveness, development space must be based on national scale and planning, regional planning as well as local practices, in which the national master plan is an important guiding framework to ensure development and consistency with a country's long-term strategy. Regional planning creates coordination between localities, optimizes resources and avoids duplication in economic and infrastructure development.

Finally, the expansion of development space must come from practical requirements and must be consistent with the economic, social, and geographical characteristics of each region. That is, we must find a common denominator of geo-economics, geo-culture, and geo-politics to create efficiency in the current provincial merger.

Discussing the concept of development space, delegate Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan - Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Binh Duong province said that it can be understood that the development space of the country is very wide, the connection covers not only the territorial space on land, underground space, airspace, sea and national sovereignty in cyberspace, covering the space for economic, cultural, social, environmental, defense, security development... for rapid and sustainable development.

National development space includes all of the above spaces, including regions and localities to ensure overall, synchronous and comprehensive connectivity in the development process.

Referring to the issue of development space, Doctor of Science, Architect Ngo Viet Nam Son cited the specific story of Da Nang, the city with the highest development density in the Central region but facing difficulties in land funds.

Dr. Son shared that he was once consulted by Da Nang leaders about the city's desire to build a free trade zone and the Central Government agreed, but could not find a large enough land fund to implement it. "In a difficult context, Da Nang proposed to fill in part of Da Nang Bay. If this happens, it would be very regrettable because Da Nang Bay will lose its beauty," Dr. Son expressed.

However, according to Dr. Son, if there is a plan to merge Da Nang with the neighboring province in the South, the land fund issue will be resolved and it is possible that the free trade zone will be located in the current neighboring province, where there is certainly land fund to do so.

The second story shared by Dr. Son is that Da Nang previously planned to expand Da Nang airport into a large-scale international airport . However, this expansion conflicted with urban development, because the airport is close to the center of Da Nang, so high-rise buildings could not be built.

If Da Nang is merged with the neighboring southern province, the new city will have two large airports. Chu Lai Airport has a much larger land fund than Da Nang Airport, and its scale could be almost equivalent to Long Thanh. Therefore, Da Nang Airport does not need to expand much more, but only needs to increase its quality value.

From now on, visitors to Hoi An or to the inner areas will go to Chu Lai airport. The pressure to develop Da Nang airport will be transferred to Chu Lai. Not to mention, it is very convenient to have an airport as a free trade zone.

The third story is that Da Nang is an important urban area of the Central Coast and in the past, the city wanted to build Lien Chieu port into the largest port in the Central region. The current "context" has changed, in case Da Nang merges with a neighboring province, the city will have Ky Ha port, next to Chu Lai - a port located next to the airport, which is also a great strength. Therefore, there is no need to build a really large Lien Chieu port anymore, but the new layout will be a cluster of interconnected ports. Lien Chieu port and Ky Ha port will be linked to the northern port area of Thua Thien Hue and Dung Quat port of Quang Ngai in the south.

According to Dr. Son, the story of Ho Chi Minh City is somewhat similar to Da Nang. Previously, when designing Can Gio port, the city made it a transit port, meaning that international goods would be brought there to be shipped out, not brought in, and there would be little connection with the production area of Ho Chi Minh City, with the industrial park inside.

However, if there is a plan to merge Ho Chi Minh City with the neighboring province in the Southeast, Can Gio will no longer be a transit port but will become an international port. Can Gio will be an expanded component of Thi Vai Cai Mep port, forming a port cluster. The city will build an additional bridge from Thi Vai Cai Mep to Can Gio.

"Can Gio Port will become an international port because, at that time, Ho Chi Minh City will certainly need to build a strategic connection axis to this port cluster, connecting from industrial parks in Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and Thu Duc city, running down to Thi Vai Cai Mep port cluster. This connection axis will include national highways, expressways, railways, high-speed railways, and will connect to Long Thanh airport," Dr. Son analyzed.

Referring further to Ho Chi Minh City, this PhD and architect pointed out that when merging with neighboring provinces in the North and Southeast, the current inner city area will develop more in quality than quantity. Previously, due to lack of development space, everything prioritized construction area, leading to very little green space in the inner city, only 0.5 square meter per person.

After the merger, projects can be expanded towards the newly merged province and towards Can Gio. The inner city has the opportunity to increase green space 20 times, aiming to achieve the criterion of 10 m² per capita - this criterion has been proposed for decades, and can now be realized.

Also related to the expansion of development space, when mentioned about the possibility of merging a mountainous province with a coastal province in the Central region, Doctor of Science, Architect Ngo Viet Nam Son said that this option is… natural. According to Dr. Son, when participating in the planning of Khanh Hoa, he and his foreign colleagues all emphasized a strategic connection with the Central Highlands.

"Many people do not notice that the Central region is a narrow strip of land. Therefore, when going from Nha Trang to Da Lat - from Da Lat to Nha Trang takes several hours, which is unreasonable. If there is a connection between Khanh Hoa and the Central Highlands, it will create a very strong development momentum, including the transport infrastructure in this locality," Dr. Son analyzed.

Referring to the plan to merge a province of the Central Highlands with a province of the Central Coast, an expert from the Vietnam Urban Development Planning Association said that this is an innovative way of thinking, a breakthrough in the thinking of experts and those working in administration and administrative boundaries.

According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Chinh, former Deputy Minister of Construction, Chairman of the Vietnam Urban Planning and Development Association, a coastal province in the Central Highlands will... forever be coastal if we do not consider the option of merging a province in this region with a Central Coast province.

Such a merger formed a new province with hundreds of kilometers of coastline, plains, midlands, highlands, and international borders and gates. For the people, this also made them "happy" because in the past there was no coastline, now they are people of a coastal province.

"If the merger is like that, the economic space will also change, develop horizontally across the country, and transportation will also be more convenient. For example, Kon Tum with the coastal province below currently has to go through the very winding Violak pass and the East-West axis has only one such axis, but when the two provinces are merged together, other traffic routes must be built," Mr. Chinh analyzed.

Transportation must be developed to bring goods from the Central Highlands provinces to the sea and from the sea to the mountains closer and faster. A Central Highlands province combined with a coastal province is therefore seen as creating potential and room for development not only in terms of economy but also in terms of strengthening national security and defense capabilities.

Dr. Nguyen Van Dang, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, emphasized the optimization of advantages when merging two provinces in a socio-economic region, but this Dr. also recognized that the plan to merge a province in the Central Highlands with a coastal province in the Central region aims for balance and harmony. "The new province will have diversity, including agricultural, forestry and marine economy...", Dr. Dang analyzed.

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