VCCI President Vu Tien Loc speaks at the event (Photo: VNA) Can Tho (VNA) – The annual Mekong Delta EconomicReport, the first of its kind, was announced during a ceremony in the MekongDelta city of Can Tho on December 14.
It has been so far the most comprehensive report jointly made bythe Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the Fulbright School ofPublic Policy and Management.
Speaking at the event, VCCI President, Vice Chairman of the Administrative Reform Council of the Prime Minister and headof the Steering Committee for Mekong Delta Economic Report Vu Tien Loc saidVietnam is the hardest hit by climate change and rising sea level, with theMekong Delta suffering the most severe impacts nationwide and globally.
The Government issued a number of resolutions and policies to sustainablydevelop the Mekong Delta adaptive to climate change. However, theimplementation remains limited due to the lack of orientations to regionaldevelopment and a coordination mechanism to ensure joint work among regionallocalities.
With five chapters, the report focuses on an overview of theVietnamese economy, 10-year development of the Mekong Delta economy, regionalcompetitiveness based on analysis of natural conditions, infrastructure, humanresources, local competitiveness, sectors of strength and regional potential in agriculture, processing industry, energy and logistics. It alsomentions shortcomings and challenges to regional development, thereby issuingpolicy recommendations for the near future.
According to the report, the Mekong Delta’s contributions to thegross domestic product have fallen strongly over the past three decades becauseit only focuses on agriculture and rice production to ensure national foodsecurity instead of switching to sectors with higher productivity.
The region’s migration to Ho Chi Minh City and the southeast hasalso been alarming. Its immigration was the lowest nationwide with 4.9 percentduring the 2009-2019 period while migration highest at 44.8 percent.
Its labour productivity remains low due to the shortage offoreign direct investment. Meanwhile, its urbanisation only rose slightly from22.8 percent to 25.1 percent in a decade compared to the country’s rise to 34.4percent from 29.6 percent.
The report also suggested replacing intensive farming systems witheffective and eco-friendly farming models and changing the priority order offarming structure to seafood-fruit-rice from rice-seafood-fruit./.
