Dong Nai City: Innovating the growth model to achieve breakthroughs.

As the central urban hub of the Southeast region, Dong Nai City is being oriented towards innovating its growth model and improving the quality of development to create new momentum for the economy in the coming period.

Dong Nai City will develop the Long Thanh airport city. Photo: Van Dung

According to the development plan, Dong Nai City will play a strategic connecting role between Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces in the Southern key economic region; and will also be a hub for linking the maritime economy, logistics, and inter-regional supply chains. The goal is to achieve rapid and sustainable development, aiming to become an important growth pole for the Southern region and the whole country.

However, in the new context, the growth model based primarily on processing, labor-intensive production, and extensive investment attraction has revealed many limitations. Issues related to planning, human resource quality, investment attraction, and urban infrastructure are posing new demands on localities.

According to the socio-economic development plan for the period 2026-2030, Dong Nai province has identified the reform of its growth model as one of its key tasks. This is considered a crucial solution to improve productivity, competitiveness, and the quality of economic growth.

For many years, Dong Nai has been considered the "industrial hub" of the country, attracting significant foreign direct investment (FDI). Currently, the province has approximately 2,300 FDI projects with a total registered capital of nearly US$45 billion. However, the majority of these projects still focus on labor-intensive processing and manufacturing, while the localization rate and linkages between FDI enterprises and domestic businesses remain low.

Dong Nai aims to become a modern seaport center.

Furthermore, pressure on social infrastructure, housing for workers, education , healthcare, and urban infrastructure is increasing at the same pace as industrial development. The quality of human resources, especially in high-tech, logistics, and innovation fields, is assessed as not meeting the development requirements of the new era.

According to the leaders of Dong Nai City, the locality is facing many great opportunities to create breakthroughs thanks to its advantageous geographical location, land resources, population, and a transportation infrastructure system that is being heavily invested in. The implementation of key projects such as Long Thanh International Airport, inter-regional expressways, and the logistics system is expected to open up new development opportunities for the city.

General Secretary and President To Lam requested Dong Nai City to create a new growth model. Photo: Cong Nghia

During a working session between the Central Government delegation and the Standing Committee of the Dong Nai City Party Committee on May 18th, General Secretary and President To Lam requested Dong Nai City to create a new growth model, moving the city beyond the limits of a traditional industrial center. This new status demands that Dong Nai develop based on productivity, technology, knowledge content, innovation capacity, and the ripple effect on domestic businesses, rather than relying heavily on industrial land, the number of projects, and cheap labor.

Attracting investment requires higher selection standards, prioritizing projects that bring technology, management expertise, supply chains, training capabilities, and the ability to connect with domestic businesses. At the same time, projects that use excessive land, employ low technology, make limited contributions, and place significant pressure on infrastructure, the environment, and social welfare should be reviewed and adjusted.

In particular, General Secretary and President To Lam emphasized that Dong Nai City must use Long Thanh Airport as the nucleus for restructuring its development space. From Long Thanh, an urban ecosystem encompassing airport services, aviation, commerce, finance, conferences, exhibitions, education, healthcare, tourism, and other high-quality services must be formed. The city needs to quickly develop a comprehensive plan for the development of the Long Thanh, Nhon Trach, and surrounding airport urban areas.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/tp-dong-nai-doi-moi-mo-hinh-tang-truong-de-but-pha-10418023.html