Developing a green economy from 3 pillars

During his visit and working session in Binh Thuan, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated: Binh Thuan is a locality with many distinct potentials, outstanding opportunities, and competitive advantages such as having all types of convenient transportation; great potential for developing the energy industry, especially wind power and solar power; favorable conditions for developing the marine economy; potential for tourism development; many minerals, especially large oil reserves...

The Prime Minister emphasized: "Binh Thuan must develop a green, fast and sustainable economy."

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh suggested that Binh Thuan province should effectively utilize land funds on both sides of the North-South Expressway to build economic zones and industrial parks. Photo: Dinh Hoa.

So what is a green economy? According to the World Bank (WB), a green economy is defined as “economic development that ensures efficient use of natural resources, minimizing pollution and environmental impacts, enhancing resilience to natural changes, and promoting the role of state management of the environment and natural resources in preventing natural disasters”.

In the world, most studies agree that the trend of green economic development will focus on three main pillars: Industry, Agriculture and Services. This is quite similar and reasonable with Binh Thuan, which is currently advocating economic development based on three pillars associated with high technology application, building a value chain: "Industry - Tourism - Agriculture".

Therefore, Binh Thuan's focus on developing a green economy in the three pillars of "Industry - Tourism - Agriculture" is in line with local reality and the trend of the times. Binh Thuan has the premise and good conditions to shift to developing a green economy with "heavenly time - favorable terrain - harmony of people". It can be affirmed that although the local economy has been greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, it has made many efforts to recover quite early on all three pillars: Industry, tourism and agriculture. The gross domestic product (GRDP) in 2022 increased by 7.56%, in 2023 increased by 8.1%, at a high level in the country.

In the industrial pillar, a fairly good growth rate was recorded, with the industrial production value in 2023 reaching VND 39,102 billion, an increase of 5.5% compared to 2022. The internal structure of the industrial sector continues to shift in a positive direction, attracting many large-scale industrial investment projects, especially energy projects. Notably, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has approved the investment policy of the Son My I LNG Thermal Power Plant and the Son My II LNG Thermal Power Plant project with a total capacity of 4,500 MW, a total investment of over 4 billion USD and the Provincial People's Committee has issued a Decision approving the investment policy of the LNG Port Warehouse Project with a total investment of about 1.3 billion USD deployed at Son My I Industrial Park, Ham Tan District. These are large-scale investment projects of great significance, promoting the development of the province's energy industry, all of which have been committed by investors to environmental protection (COP26 standards) in the direction of green economy. In particular, there are 2 offshore wind power projects that are being promoted for technical procedures (wind measurement), namely Thanglong Wind and La Gan, each of which has an investment capital of over 10 billion USD.

*Developing green tourism - a smokeless industry in Binh Thuan. Photo: Dinh Hoa*

In the tourism pillar, this is an economic sector with a fairly fast recovery rate. In 2023, the whole province welcomed more than 8.35 million visitors, an increase of 46% compared to 2022, of which international visitors reached 230,000 (up 46%), domestic visitors reached 8.12 million (up 44%); revenue from tourism activities reached 22,300 billion VND (up 62% compared to 2022). There are many investment projects to develop tourism along the coast of Phan Thiet city, La Gi town, and the districts of Tuy Phong, Bac Binh, Ham Thuan Nam, and Ham Tan. Among them, there are many large-scale projects, tourism - service complexes that contribute to exploiting potentials and advantages and are striving to achieve green economic criteria, such as: APEC Mandala Wyndham Mui Ne, Mui Ne Summerland, NovaWorld Phan Thiet project complex, Thanh Long Bay, Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne, Lagi New City... In addition, with the trend of being friendly with the natural environment, Binh Thuan is developing green tourism types such as: camping, boating, mountain climbing, waterfall crossing, fishing in Ham Thuan Bac, Tanh Linh, Phu Quy districts, Binh An farm eco-tourism.

In the agricultural pillar - high-tech application, Binh Thuan has currently formed specialized areas for growing high-quality dragon fruit in Ham Thuan Nam district of 7,624 hectares, Ham Thuan Bac district of 2,436 hectares. Formed high-quality rice growing areas of 24,413 hectares in Bac Binh, Ham Thuan Bac, Tanh Linh, Duc Linh districts. The whole province currently has 9,037 hectares of dragon fruit certified by VietGAP; 560 hectares of dragon fruit certified by GlobalGAP. There are many models using advanced technology such as automatic irrigation, greenhouses in the production of high-value crops such as vegetables, flowers, grapes, and melons. The whole province currently has 63 livestock facilities following the farm model, applying high technology, ensuring biosafety and disease prevention.

Green economy is an inevitable trend of Binh Thuan in socio-economic development. Therefore, the province needs to identify a focused plan, prioritize implementation in the National Green Growth Strategy for the period 2021 - 2030, vision to 2050 issued by the Government and the orientation of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh when visiting Binh Thuan.

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