Mr. Vo Quoc Thang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dong Tam Joint Stock Company: A businessman with a heart to serve the country

Continuing the career of building Dong Tam brand

Mr. Vo Thanh Lan comes from a farming family in Can Giuoc, Long An. When the war devastated the countryside, he brought his wife and children from the countryside to Phu Dinh, Saigon to take refuge and do business, find a way to make a living, learn the traditional brick making craft and founded the Dong Tam brand in June 1969.

Right from the beginning, Dong Tam bricks were trusted to be used in large projects such as Thanh Da Residence, Quang Dong Hospital (now Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital), Phuoc Kien Hospital (now Nguyen Trai Hospital), Cho Ray Hospital... Dong Tam also went through many ups and downs, at times having to merge with other brick factories, taking the name Dong Hiep Complex, operating for a while then stopping due to difficulties in raw materials.

In 1986, the 6th National Congress of the Party opened up opportunities for the private economy. After a period of interruption, Mr. Vo Quoc Thang (son of Mr. Vo Thanh Lan) and his brothers re-established the establishment and developed the Dong Tam brand, expanding production and business in the construction materials and interior and exterior decoration industry.

Since 1993, Mr. Thang came to Long An to find land to invest, expand, and build a factory, marking a major transformation of Dong Tam, from a production facility to a company producing traditional cement tiles, colored roof tiles, plywood, formica, galvanized iron and trading in construction materials.

Growing up in a family with a traditional profession of making cement tiles, from a young age, Mr. Thang (born in 1967) and his brothers both went to school and worked to help the family and absorbed the techniques of making cement tiles such as mixing colors, mixing cement and selling... Through the difficult period of his family's business, he accumulated a lot of experience in production and business.

Mr. Thang and his brothers took over their father's business during a period when business was not very favorable. At that time, he was a manager, a production worker, and a salesman. He personally cycled to places where there was a need to build houses, to learn about consumer tastes...

From only having traditional cement tile products, after nearly 56 years of establishment and development, Dong Tam has become a prestigious brand in the construction materials industry in Vietnam. Currently, Dong Tam has total assets of 8,454 billion VND, 3,000 officers and employees, 3 affiliated companies, 16 member companies, 2,500 agents, 32 showrooms and 7 factories across the country.

Up to this point, Mr. Thang’s family members are still shareholders of the Company. “We are very proud to have maintained and developed the career that my father left behind. I believe that in the future, Dong Tam will continue to grow strongly. We are determined to build Dong Tam into a proud brand of Vietnamese people in the domestic and international markets,” Mr. Thang shared.

In addition to the core business of manufacturing and trading in construction materials and interior and exterior decoration, Dong Tam has also expanded its investment in other areas such as industrial real estate since 2002, with an area of ​​over 300 hectares filled, creating jobs for over 50,000 workers; education; investment in seaport infrastructure exploitation; logistics services and other potential industries.

Build port for homeland

It can be seen that Mr. Thang plays many roles in the economic and social fields. This businessman was a member of the National Assembly (term XI) and is also very famous in the field of football, associated with the name "Mr. Thang". He was the pioneer in inviting coach Calisto to lead the national team and brought the Vietnamese team to win the AFF Cup 2008 for the first time.

These days, I am extremely moved and emotional as the whole country joyfully welcomes the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day (April 30, 1975 - April 30, 2025).

Entering the period of innovation, preparing for an era of strong growth, we are more confident and determined to do more to contribute to sustainable development, bringing Vietnam into a new era - rich, civilized and prosperous.

- Businessman Vo Quoc Thang

Not only running a famous business in the field of construction materials, interior and exterior decoration with the Dong Tam brand that is half a century old, doing banking or football..., he also stepped into the challenging field of seaport infrastructure and logistics.

With the aspiration to comprehensively and strongly develop the connections of the Mekong Delta, as a son of this region (he is currently the Chairman of the Mekong Delta Business Association), Mr. Thang has strived to promote the development of investment projects to exploit seaport infrastructure and a comprehensive logistics service ecosystem, industrial parks, and industrial service areas, helping to optimize logistics costs for businesses in the region. And Long An International Port has been taking shape day by day after such concerns and efforts.

The Long An International Port project cluster invested by Dong Tam covers an area of ​​1,935 hectares on the bank of Soai Rap River, Tan Tap Commune, Can Giuoc District, Long An Province. With a total investment of thousands of billions of VND, the project has been under construction since 2015, including a port area, an industrial park, an industrial service area and an urban area.

“Returning to my hometown Can Giuoc, listening to my uncles and aunts talk about the revolutionary tradition here, remembering my miserable childhood, looking at a wild, saline swamp, I kept wondering what I should do to contribute and build my hometown,” he recalled with emotion.

In 2017, Long An International Port officially welcomed its first ships. At that time, Mr. Thang shared that he felt like he was reliving the feeling of the first time he touched a hot brick coming out of the kiln in 1995 after 2 years of building the first factory in Long An. In fact, the construction of wharf No. 1 was very difficult, and it was only when wharfs No. 2 and No. 3 were completed smoothly.

With the goal of becoming a center connecting the Mekong Delta with other regions in the country and internationally, Long An International Port officially inaugurated phase I in 2020, consolidating 7 wharves with a continuous wharf length of 1,670 m. In the next development phase, the Port will carry out expansion procedures to 9 wharves, increasing the continuous wharf length to 2,368 m, receiving ships with a capacity of 100,000 DWT, a handling capacity of 3 million TEUs and 10 million tons of general cargo.

It is known that Long An International Port was planned for many years, but no investor did it. Then, Dong Tam decided to invest in this project. “I think, building a port is a long-term investment, if you only think about profit, you cannot do it, but you have to think about something bigger, which is the change of an entire land,” he said.

Long An International Port has come into operation, bringing many strong development opportunities for Long An province in particular and the Mekong Delta region in general, attracting investment, creating more jobs, and significantly improving the lives of people in the region.

Now looking back at his hometown Can Giuoc, which is changing and developing every day, he is even more passionate about this job. For him, working is passion and happiness. Currently, he is confident that he has a thorough understanding of port construction and operation after many years of traveling to large-scale seaports around the world to explore, explore, and learn.

Mr. Thang believes that the success of a business is determined by the spirit of solidarity, consensus from the collective, will, self-reliance, creativity, exploration, learning, and absorbing good things and new knowledge in production and business. Thanks to the solidarity, responsible working spirit, and enthusiasm of the entire collective, the Long An International Port Project has achieved the results and progress as it is today.

“My father often told us that: whatever you do, you must have determination and passion. If you want to be good, you must study. When he founded the company, he chose the name 'Dong Tam', which means unity - because he believed that unity would create strength and that was the most sustainable strength. He also taught us to live confidently, to live optimistically and to think of others, because only when we live for others, will others be willing to come to us,” Mr. Thang said.

After nearly 40 years as a businessman, Mr. Thang still has not stopped wanting to contribute a small part with generations of Dong Tam cadres and employees to build the country. “With a sense of responsibility to the Fatherland, to society, to colleagues, to family and finally to myself, I will do whatever I can,” he confided.

Chairman Dong Tam shared many times that our country has a history of heroic struggle, but also full of loss. To gain independence, unity, and peaceful days of doing business, the blood and bones of countless ancestors were shed, countless heroes and martyrs sacrificed. Today, the responsibility of the next generation is to “remember the person who planted the tree when eating the fruit”, to repay the kindness of our ancestors who poured their efforts, sweat and blood to leave us this beautiful country.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/ong-vo-quoc-thang-chu-cich-hdqt-cong-ty-co-phan-dong-tam-doanh-nhan-mang-trai-tim-phung-su-dat-nuoc-d274860.html