Patrol along the Vietnam-Cambodia shared border. (Photo: VNA)Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung had a working session with the Steering Committee for the Southwest Region in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on September 7 to review the region’s socio-economic situation in the first eight months of 2015.
At the session, the steering committee reported that the Southwest region produced 5.5 tonnes of rice with an average yield of 5.5-5.6 tonnes per hectare during the period.
The entire region exported 7.76 billion USD worth of commodities, down 3.89 percent from the same period last year, while its imports were pegged at 3.87 billion USD, up 9.64 percent year on year, it revealed.
Regional security was ensured, especially during the Party’s Congresses at local levels, it noted.
Cooperation between localities along the Vietnam-Cambodia shared border has been further expanded, greatly contributing to border peace, socio-economic development and border marking between the two countries, the committee added.
Discussing Phu Quoc Island of Kien Giang province, the committee said the island’s economy in the first half of this year grew by 35 percent year on year thanks to 406,000 tourist arrivals, an annual jump of 52 percent.
The island granted investment licenses to 164 projects worth approximately 169 trillion VND (7.52 billion USD), including a project to build a main road connecting the southern and northern parts of the island which is nearly completed, and another ring road project that is about 62 percent completed.
For his part, Deputy Foreign Minister Trung said that the Southwest region has a huge opportunity to attract more investment once free trade agreements are concluded.
The committee should work with the authorities of southwest provinces and cities to provide necessary support for investors and to strictly comply with border regulations, he recommended.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate with the Steering Committee for the Southwest Region to organise a conference to promote tourism investment in Phu Quoc island at the end of 2015, the National Tourism Year 2016 in Kien Giang province and the Mekong Delta Economic Cooperation Forum (MDEC) 2016 in Hau Giang province.-VNA
