DECISION

APPROVING THE MASTER PLAN ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SOC TRANG PROVINCE TILL 2020

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government dated December 25, 2001

Pursuant to Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP of the Government concerning the formulation, approval and management of socio-economic development master plans, and Decree No. 04/2008/ND-CP dated January 11, 2008 of the Government amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 92/2006/ND-CP;

At the proposal of the People’s Committee of Soc Trang province,

DECIDES:

Article 1. To approve the master plan on socio-economic development of Soc Trang province till 2020 (below referred to as the master plan), with the following principal contents:

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1. This master plan must comply with the national strategy on socio-economic development and the master plan on socio­economic development in the Mekong River delta region and ensure the synchrony and consistency with sectoral master plans.

2. To promote internal resources in combination with making the best use of external resources for sustainable, balanced and harmonious intensive and extensive socio-economic development to create competitiveness in domestic and foreign markets; to help Soc Trang province keep pace with the national development level.

3. To exploit the maritime advantages for strongly developing coastal economy and marine economy as a motive force for economic restructuring; to renew management and administrative reform policies and synchronously develop infrastructure for attracting investment, especially in economic sectors with high added value.

4. To combine economic development with health, culture, education and training development, realize social progress and justice, protect the environment, improve the quality of people’s life and gradually reduce the poor household rate; focus on training high-quality human resources to meet market demands, and link human resource development with science and technology development and application.

5. To closely combine between the socio-economic development with the building of a strong political system, consolidating defense and security and maintaining social order and safety. To take the initiative in preventing the effects and impacts of climate change and sea level rise.

II. DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES

1. General objectives

To build Soc Trang into a province with a sustainable hi-tech agriculture in association with industrial and service development; a complete and modem infrastructure system; and constantly improving people’s material and spiritual lives, step by step advancing in pace with the national development process; firm defense-security and assured social order and safety. To turn Soc Trang into a province with relatively high income in the Mekong River delta by 2020.

1. Specific target

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- By 2015, the average economic growth rate shall reach 12.5-13%/year; per-capita average income shall be USD 1,800; the proportions of agriculture, industry-construction and service sectors in the GDP structure shall be 39,6% - 25,1% - 35,3% respectively; the structure of labor in the agriculture, industry and service sectors shall be 46%, 21.1% and 32.9% respectively; and export turnover shall reach USD 550 million.

- By 2020, the average economic growth rate shall reach 11.5-12%/year; per-capita average income shall be USD 3,300; the proportions of agriculture, industry-construction and services sectors in the GDP structure shall be 28%, 34.2% and 37.8% respectively; the structure of labor in the agriculture, industry and service sectors shall be 36%, 30.4% and 33.6% respectively; and export turnover shall reach USD 900 million. State budget revenues shall increase over 10% a year on average.

b/ Socially:

- By 2015, to reduce the annual birth rate to 1.3% so that the population shall be around 1.38- 1.39 million; to reduce the poverty rate to 10.5%. The rate of trained laborers shall reach 51 %, specifically the rate of vocationally trained laborers shall reach 45%; rural laborers shall account for 46% of the total labor force. To reduce the rate of malnutrition among under-5 children to 14.5%; 50% of schools at all levels shall satisfy national standards; 80% of children of preschool age, 99.5% of children of primary-school age, 95% of children of junior high school age and 65% of children of senior school age shall attend schools; and 100% of communes and wards shall satisfy national health standards.

- By 2020, to reduce the annual birth rate to 1,1% so that the population shall be around 1.45- 1.46 million; to reduce the poverty rate to 5%; the rate of trained laborers shall be 75%, specifically the rate of vocationally trained laborers shall reach 55%; rural laborers shall account for 36% of the total labor force. To reduce the rate of malnutrition among under-5 children to 10%; 75% of schools at all levels shall satisfy national standards; 97% of children of preschool age and 85% of children of high school age shall attend schools.

c/ Environmentally:

- By 2015, forest coverage shall reach 5%; 98% of households shall have access to clean water; 100% of hazardous waste and medical waste shall be collected and treated to ensure environmental sanitation; over 40% of solid waste shall be collected and treated.

- By 2020, forest coverage shall reach 5.5%; 100% of households shall have access to clean water; over 80% of solid waste shall be collected and treated; 100% of industrial parks shall have concentrated wastewater treatment systems.

III. SECTORAL DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATIONS

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To develop agricultural production toward producing high-quality commodities; to form and develop highly specialized and intensive production models; in the coming period, to give priority to developing specialty rice, vegetables and subsidiary crops, aquatic products (shrimp), etc. To strive for an average growth rate of over 4.2% in the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors.

- Agriculture: To study crop restructuring in areas with inefficient rice cultivation; to widely expand the cultivation of high-quality and specialty rice varieties. By 2020, the rice- growing area shall be 285,000 - 290,000 ha; to build a hi-tech agricultural zone and farms for planting vegetables, subsidiary crops, tubers and fruits; to develop consolidated fruit-tree zones and encourage the forms of contract farming of fruit products for farmers.

To develop husbandry farms, households and businesses meeting requirements on environmental sanitation and epidemic prevention; to form breeding centers, support farmers in restructuring livestock breeds, cattle herds and poultry flocks, rearing high-quality beef cows and rearing chicken for meat and eggs.

- Fisheries: To develop aquaculture in salty, brackish and freshwater areas; to facilitate aquaculture on industrial and semi-industrial scale; to build aquaculture zones with synchronous infrastructure and sustainable extensive aquaculture zones; to apply biotechnology and advanced technical processes to aquaculture; to expand the total aquaculture area to 80,000 ha (including around 49,000 ha for shrimp rearing) by 2015 and to 83,000-85,000 ha by 2020.

To encourage development of high-capacity offshore fishing fleet with a view to increasing fishing output and efficiency; to build fish ports and fishing logistic services areas as well as storm shelter areas for fishing vessels at river estuaries, aiming to form a fishing and fishing logistic service center in the coastal area of the Mekong River delta region.

- Forestry: To zone off areas for protection and stable development of coastal, river estuary mangrove forests and sand blocking forests. To plant more forests and expand consolidated forest areas to around 13,000 ha by 2015 and 14,000 ha by 2020.

2. Industrial development

- To develop industries through attracting investment in economic sectors with stable and sustainable development advantages; to attach importance to the application of advanced technologies to turn out high-quality products which are competitive in domestic and overseas markets. To strive for an average industrial growth rate of 18.5-19% a year.

- To focus on developing such key industries as processing of agricultural and aquatic products; production of consumer goods for export; mechanical engineering for manufacturing equipment and accessories, assembling agricultural machines and small processing machines, manufacturing motors of waterway transport crafts; and exploitation and production of building materials.

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3. Trade and services development

To strive for an average growth rate of 15.5- 16%/year; to give priority to developing service sectors with high added value and diversifying service sectors. To focus on developing spearhead service sectors like riverway and seaway transportation and warehousing, seaport and dry-dock services, logistics, telecommunications and information technology, finance-banking and tourism.

- To develop trade infrastructure through raising social resources and funds for investment; to complete the upgrading and building of central markets of districts and Soc Trang city; to build communal markets and wholesale agricultural and aquatic product markets for gradually improving distribution and retailing networks. To encourage organizations and individuals to build and advertise trademarks of typical products of the province; to attach special importance to establishing a market information system to serve producers.

- To exploit advantages for developing marine tourism and unique cultural tourism with the convergence of the three cultures of Viet (Kinh), Khmer and Hoa (Chinese origin) in order to make tourism a spearhead industry in international economic integration. To attract investment in building a number of coastal tourism zones with international-standard infrastructure facilities which are attractive to both domestic and foreign tourists.

4. Socio-cultural fields

a/ Education and training:

- To encourage development of both public and private preschool systems; to universalize education among 5-year children. To speed up solidification of classrooms, upgrade physical foundations and add teaching equipment for general education schools. To further develop boarding general schools in Khmer people-inhabited areas, teach ethnic minority languages for ethnic minority pupils in schools in ethnic minority areas; to improve the quality of comprehensive education.

- To diversify forms of vocational training in association with post-training employment; to attach special importance to vocational training for rural labor and consolidate the network of vocational training schools; to provide vocational training for around 25,000 laborers a year by 2015 and 30,000-32,000 laborers by 2020. To encourage training institutions to align with universities for improving training quality. By 2015, to upgrade the Community College, the Medical Secondary School and the Culture- Arts Secondary School.

b/ Health and community health care:

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To consolidate commune and ward health stations and send more medical doctors to work on a regular basis at commune health stations. To strive for the targets that by 2015, 83% of commune health stations shall have medical doctors working on a regular basis; 100% of communes and wards shall satisfy medical national standards; by 2020,100% of commune health stations shall have medical doctors working on a permanent basis. To promote preventive medicine, take the initiative in epidemics prevention and control, environmental sanitation, and increase food quality, hygiene and safety administration.

c/ Labor, employment and social security

- To synchronously take measures to implement the employment program, striving to annually create around 22,000-23,000 jobs by 2015 and 26,000-28,000 jobs by 2020 on average.

- To synchronously, comprehensively and effectively implement hunger elimination and poverty reduction programs; to develop poverty reduction solutions and models and create conditions for the poor to develop production; to adopt policies to encourage communes and households to get rid of poverty and encourage businesses to train and employ the poor; to shift labor structure in agricultural sector to non-agricultural sectors in both rural and urban areas.

- To promote the prevention and combat of social evils, step up and raise the effectiveness of the campaign of building healthy and social evil-free communes/wards along with the campaign “All people unite to build a new cultured life”; to raise social resources and funds for and mobilize all the people to join gratitude activities; to take care of people with meritorious services to the country; to pay attention to training, vocational training and employment for children of family in preferential treatment policy.

d1 Science and technology

- To develop the science and technology research and application system, implement programs on transfer of technical advances to production and focus on dissemination and application of technical advances to agriculture and fishery. To strive for the targets that by 2020, 80% of plant and animal products shall be turned out by modern propagation and application of modern technical production processes. To develop a hi-tech agricultural zone and build biotechnology experimentation farms for assay and propagation of animal breeds and plant varieties.

- To provide technical assistance for businesses to innovate technologies and production processes, reduce consumption of raw materials and fuel and increase production effectiveness. To cooperate with research institutes and universities in training and developing human resources with scientific and technological qualifications meeting the society’s demands.

e/ Culture, physical training and sports

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- To raise social resources and funds for developing physical training and sports facilities in the province, communes and wards; to focus on building provincial-level competition halls and physical exercise centers; to promote the campaign “All people do exercise after the example of great Uncle Ho”; to adopt policies on preferential treatment for the province’s athlete group.

f/ Natural resources, environment and response to climate change

- To enhance management of the exploitation and use of land, water, forest, sea and mineral resources. To supplement and complete master plans and plans on exploitation and use of different resources; to coordinate with ministries and central sectors in investigating and assessing marine resources and environment and planning integrated management of the coastal zone.

- To synchronously build works for preventing and mitigating natural disasters and responding to climate change and sea level rise. To implement resettlement projects to stably arrange people in coastal and riverside areas severely affected by natural disasters and floods in association with planning the building of new-countryside communes.

- To disseminate information and provide technical assistance for businesses and production establishments to apply environmental standards ISO 1400. To closely supervise the production activities likely to cause pollution and resolutely handle seriously polluting facilities.

Infrastructure building

a/ Transport:

- Roads: To coordinate with the Ministry of Transport in studying the building of belt road II and national highway 1 A’s section bypassing Soc Trang city, provincial road 937 linking national highway 1A with Quan Lo-Phung Hiep national highway section and national highway 61 to meet development needs and based on available resources in each period. To consider upgrading national highway 60, provincial roads with high traffic density, district and inter- communal roads and rural roads. To synchronously develop urban roads and some river bridges like Maspero II, Chang Re, Cho

Kinh and Du Tho. To build coastal roads to facilitate marine economic development in combination with national defense and security maintenance, natural disaster prevention and control, salvage and rescue.

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- Ports: To study and build Tran De seaport at Hau river estuary into a key port for exporting and importing goods of the Mekong River delta; Dai Ngai seaport as a general port and some ports for accommodating ships of 300-500 DWT (Long Hung, Nga Nam and Cai Con ports and Soc Trang city port on Saintard canal).

b/ Irrigation:

- To study and step by step build seawater prevention works and key pump stations, dredge grade-I canals and intra-field key canals and embank irrigation and drainage canals. To consider upgrading irrigation systems-cum- rural roads in 4 districts in low areas, namely My Tu, Thanh Tri, Nga Nam and Chau Thanh; irrigation works for aquaculture in coastal areas of Long Phu and Cu Lao Dung districts and Vinh Chau town, and for shrimp rearing and rice growing in sub-zone 2 and 6 communes of My Xuyen district; to upgrade irrigation infrastructure of tra catfish rearing areas in Ke Sach, Cu Lao Dung and Long Phu districts.

- To consolidate and upgrade dikes and embankments and build protective dikes for 7 irrigation zones in the province; to upgrade Soc Trang sea dikes in Long Phu and Cu Lao Dung districts and Vinh Chau town; sea dikes from Kinh Ba ferry landing stage to South Hau River road in Trung Binh commune; to upgrade the river estuary dike in Vinh Chau town, and the river dike system in Cu Lao Dung district.

c/ Water supply and drainage and environmental sanitation:

To step by step build water supply systems to supply clean water for residential consumption and production in urban areas and surrounding areas; to study and upgrade water supply systems in Soc Trang city, Vinh Chau and Nga Nam towns and existing factories in townships and townlets. In rural areas, depending on their geographical locations, to apply the model of centralized water supply or household-based water supply as appropriate.

- To build water drainage and daily-life and production wastewater treatment systems in urban centers, industrial parks, factories, and production and services facilities to treat wastewater up to standards before discharge into the environment.

- To collect and treat daily-life, hospital and industrial hazardous wastes under regulations; to strive for the targets that by 2020, to build 1 landfill site for each township, and 2-3 zones for treatment of industrial and daily- life wastes in the whole province.

d/ Post, information and communications

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- To develop public telephone and Internet access points in urban and rural areas. To strive for the targets that by 2015, there shall be 30 telephone subscribers and 4-5 Internet subscribers per 100 persons; by 2020, these figures shall be 41-42 telephone subscribers and 15-16 Internet subscribers per 100 persons.

IV. DEVELOPMENT SPACE ORGANIZATION ORIENTATIONS

1. Development of urban centers and rural population quarters

a/ Urban development

- To develop urban centers in sub-zones with a view to bringing into play their core role in promoting industrial and service development. In the immediate future, to develop central urban centers in sub-zones, including Soc Trang city, Vinh Chau and Nga Nam towns. By 2020, the urbanization rate shall reach 28% and there shall be 1 city, 2 towns and 19 townships and townlets in the whole province.

b/ Building a new countryside and developing difficulty-stricken areas

- To raise social resources and funds for building rural infrastructure to boost the implementation of the program on building a new countryside, with at least 20% and 60% of communes to satisfy new countryside criteria by 2015 and 2020 respectively.

- To integrate the new countryside building program into target programs in order to focus on building essential infrastructure (electricity, transport, telecommunications, water supply, schools, health stations, marketplaces, culture- information institutions, etc.) for difficulty- stricken and ethnic minority communes. To properly implement preferential policies for attracting investment projects, and supporting training and technology transfer to develop production and accelerate sustainable poverty reduction and gradually improve the people’s life in deep-lying, remote and Khmer people- inhabited areas.

Development of economic zones

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To focus on building Hau river estuary Tran De port, Dai Ngai port and My Thanh river estuary port for forming industrial parks and general marine economic complexes to create a breakthrough in marine economic development. To give priority to developing seaway trade, import and export, maritime logistics and information services, and at-sea search, rescue and salvage services in coastal areas in the Mekong River delta region.

b/ Inland economic zone: This zone embraces Soc Trang city and Ke Sach, My Tu, My Xuyen, Chau Thanh, Thanh Tri and Nga Nam districts.

To exploit favorable conditions for economic, trading, scientific and technological and training exchange with Can Tho city and provinces and cities within the Mekong River delta region; to attract investment in developing important service sectors like road transportation, telecommunications, finance-banking, trade, and training, scientific-technological and health services in Soc Trang city. To develop industrial parks and complexes and form economic corridors along key roads while further bringing into play the role of a key agricultural production region in ensuring food security and supplying agricultural and aquatic products for the province’s processing and export activities.

V. LIST OF PROJECTS PRIORITIZED FOR INVESTMENT STUDY (See the attached Appendix)

VI. MAJOR SOLUTIONS FOR THE MASTER PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

1. Administrative and judicial reform

- To step up administrative reforms in all fields within the ambit of local state management with a view to creating a favorable environment for development investment and reducing troubles for people; to properly implement the principle of publicity and transparency in the operation of state management agencies at all levels and in all sectors; to widely disseminate and publicly post up regulations, processes and administrative procedures for handling matters at public offices; to review, modify or abolish administrative procedures which are no longer appropriate; to raise the effect and efficiency of operation of the state administrative apparatus.

- To build in the province a network of legal services easily accessible by organizations and individuals; to take measures to examine and supervise the compliance and implementation of state laws.

2. Raising investment capital

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- Drawing up and issuing a list of investment-calling programs and projects till 2020. On that basis, to step up investment advertising, introduction and promotion for attracting investment capital from different economic sectors, attaching special importance to ODA resources;

- Improving the investment environment and production and business environment, further reforming investment procedures to be simple, transparent and public; improving infrastructure readily to receive investment projects; issuing investment support mechanisms and policies on the basis of the province’s econo-geographical advantages and in conformity with regulations of law;

- Further raising social resources and funds for investment, especially in education, training, health care, culture, sports, broadcasting and television, science and technology, and environmental protection, etc. Increasing investment under BOT, BT, BTO, PPP contracts, etc., for facilitating development of capital markets; developing forms of investment joint venture and cooperation, and contribution of investment capital in assets;

- To consolidate the system of banks and credit funds with a view to enhancing capacity to raise capital inside and outside the province to meet demands for investment capital for the province’s socio-economic development.

3. Human resource training and development

- To increase investment in education and training; to encourage development of the network of vocational training institutions, models of job training in rural areas, training laborers under orders, training jobs to meet urgent local needs, and training human resources with high technical qualifications and skills. To study and develop models of education and vocational training with teaching curricula suitable to the characteristics of difficulty- stricken and ethnic minority areas in the province.

- To implement policies in support of training jobs for people of working age, especially young people and redundant rural labor; to train in farming and fishing trades for farmers and fishermen. To study and issue preferential policies to attract talents, high-ranking specialists and human resources with professional qualifications and skills to work in the province.

4. Science and technology

- To step up the movement of promoting technical innovations, patents and improvements in production and business and complying with regulations on industrial property rights; to encourage businesses to earmark funds for technology renewal and technical innovation to raise labor productivity; to closely cooperate with research institutes and universities in conducting research and applying research outcomes to production and daily life.

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5. Business development and integration competitiveness

- To develop medium- and small-sized enterprises, and encourage businesses to renew designs, patterns and technological processes and to raise productivity and product quality for increasing integration competitiveness.

- To implement the program on building and developing product trademarks of the province in combination with trade promotion to expand local product markets, supporting businesses in trade promotion, and seeking outlets for farmers’ products.

6. Environmental protection

- Based on this master plan, to formulate specific measures on environmental management and protection and sustainable development for each region in the province; to formulate and implement an environmental management program for supervising and warning environmental impacts of socio­economic activities and taking timely remedial measures.

- To step up information, communications and education activities for raising environmental protection awareness of organizations, individuals and the community, especially businesses. To issue regulations for the community to supervise environmental protection activities of investment projects in communes and wards in the province.

VII. ORGANIZATION AND SUPERVISION OF THE MASTER PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

1. Publicization and dissemination of the master plan

- To publicize and disseminate the master plan to Party organizations and administrations at all levels, sectors, mass organizations, businesses and people in the province right after it is signed by the Prime Minister. Based on the master plan, to formulate specific action programs for effective implementation of the master plan.

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2. Formulation of action programs

- To concretize the master plan into 5-year and annual plans for implementation and evaluation. On the basis of evaluation results, to review the master plan and submit it to a competent authority for timely adjustment and supplementation to suit local socio-economic development tasks in each period.

- All levels, sectors, socio-political organiza­tions and people in the province shall examine and supervise the master plan implementation.

Article 2. This master plan serves as a basis for formulation, approval and implementation of sectoral master plans (construction master plans and plans, land use master plans and plans and other relevant master plans) and investment projects in Soc Trang province.

Article 3. Based on the approved master plan, the People’s Committee of Soc Trang province shall:

1. Direct the formulation, approval and implementation of district-level master plans on socio-economic development: construction master plans; land use master plans; and sectoral development master plans in the province in line with socio-economic development tasks and in association with security and national defense maintenance.

2. Formulate long-, medium- and short-term plans in association with particular projects for a plan for investment capital allocation as appropriate.

3. Study to build and issue or submit to the competent authority for issuance ( in case of beyond competence) of a number of mechanisms and policies in accordance with the social and economic development of the province.

Article 4. Within the ambit of their functions, tasks and powers, the ministries and sectors concerned shall:

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2. Coordinate with Soc Trang province in reviewing, adjusting and supplementing sectoral master plans to be synchronous and consistent with the master plan; consider and assist the province in raising domestic and foreign investment capital sources for the master plan implementation.

Article 5. This Decision takes effect on the date of its signing.

Article 6. The chairperson of the People’s Committee of Soc Trang province, ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies and heads of government-run agencies shall implement this Decision.

PRIME MINISTER




Nguyen Tan Dung

APPENDIX

LIST OF PROJECTS PRIORITIZED FOR INVESTMENT STUDY IN SOC TRANG PROVINCE TILL 2020
(To the Prime Minister's Decision No. 423/QD-TTg dated April 11, 2012)

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NAME OF PROJECT

I

Projects to be centrally invested in the province

Upgrading national highway 60 Soc Trang seaport

National highway lA-bypassing road running across Soc Trang city Dai Ngai bridge

II

Projects to be invested by the province

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Upgrading irrigation and rural road systems in 4 districts in low areas, namely My Tu, Thanh Tri. Nga Nam and Chau Thanh Irrigation for aquaculture in coastal areas Irrigation in Ke Sach-Chau Thanh area

Irrigation works for shrimp and rice farming in sub-zone 2 in 6 communes of My Xuyen district

Upgrading Soc Trang sea dike system

Upgrading and renovating the sea dike section from Kinh Ba ferry landing at South Hau River road

Upgrading Soc Trang province’s river estuary dike River dike system for islets of Cu Lao Dung Upgrading infrastructure of tra catfish rearing areas Anti-landslide embankment in important areas

2

Transport

Upgrading and renovating rural road 31 in Vinh Chau

Provincial road 937 (connecting national highway 1A with Quan Lo-Phung Hiep)

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Upgrading provincial roads 932, 933B. 936B and 939

Building belt road II, Soc Trang city

Mac Dinh Chi (Sung Dinh) road to Tran De fish port

Building Chang Re, Cho Kinh. Du Tho and Maspero II bridges

Building new Dai Ngai port

Building Soc Trang city river port

3

Urban development, public, education and training sectors

Tran De coastal economic zone (phase 1)

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Vinh Chau industrial park

Long Hung industrial park

My Thanh industrial park

Community college

Student dormitories

Provincial stadium

Swimming pool for competition

General competition hall

Provincial administrative zone

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Notes: The locations, sizes, land areas and total investment amounts for the above works and projects shall be calculated, selected and specified in each stage of formulation and approval of investment projects, depending on the demand for and capacity of balancing and raising investment capital in each period.-