Chu Lai to become high-quality agro-forestry processing hub: PM

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (middle) at the event

He expects Chu Lai would help turn Vietnam into one of the world’s wooden interior production centres, while addressing a groundbreaking ceremony for Chu Lai agro-forestry industrial park at the Chu Lai Open Economic Zone in the central province of Quang Nam on March 24.

The leader suggested Chu Lai (Quang Nam) team up with Dung Quat (Quang Ngai) and Da Nang city to form growth poles and required close coordination in policymaking and pooling resources for development.

He urged provinces to submit breakthrough mechanisms and policies to the Party Central Committee to improve competitiveness of key economic area in the central and Central Highlands, including Da Nang, Quang Nam and Dung Quat – Quang Ngai.

The 450ha agro-forestry industrial park will develop a materials farming area for the central, Central Highlands and neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. It will be built from 2019 to 2022 at a total cost of over 8.1 trillion VND (352 million USD).

It will also double as a research centre for seedlings, agricultural materials, biotechnology, harvest, preservation and processing. Model farms will grow grapefruit, mango, jackfruit and forestry trees using modern technology.

Once operational, it is expected to attract domestic and foreign investors to create a value production chain, add more revenue to the local State budget and generate jobs to 20,000 workers.

On the occasion, automaker Thaco Truong Hai began construction of an expanded automotive mechanical industrial zone on a total area of 115ha. Costing over 1.6 trillion VND, the work is expected to increase locally-made items for automobiles to more than 40 percent, thus meeting demand for export to ASEAN member states by 2020.

The management board of Chu Lai Open Economic Zone also granted an investment license to Thadi industrial, agricultural, forestry park. Thaco Truong Hai also signed strategic contracts with domestic and foreign firms to supply clean farm produce.

Build in 2003, the Chu Lai Open Economic Zone is the first coastal economic zone in Vietnam. It is strategically located midway between Vietnam’s northern and southern regions, and connected to National Highway 1A, national coastal routes, the trans-national railway, Ky Ha seaport, Chu Lai airport, and the Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway.

In the morning the same day, the PM laid wreaths at the monument dedicated to heroic Vietnamese mothers and martyrs’ cemetery in Quang Nam on the occasion of its 44th anniversary of liberation.