Proposal for recognition of Dong Hoi city as a second-grade urban area directly governed by the provincial government

Being a coastal city in the Central region with a coastal line of 116km, Dong Hoi is an administrative, political, economic, socio-cultural, scientific and technical center of Quang Binh province. It has a convenient geographic position with the crossroad of many important routes such as Ho Chi Minh road, National Highway No.1, Nhat Le port, Dong Hoi seaport and North-South railway.

Located at 50km from Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park - a world’s natural heritage site, nearly 50km from Bang mineral water spring, 60km from Hon La seaport and nearly 180km from Cha Lo International Border Gate, Dong Hoi city has favorable conditions to promote its socio-economic development and trading with localities across the country.

Besides, Dong Hoi has many beautiful beaches and primeval forests which are very convenient for developing forms of tourism, especially sea tourism, ecotourism, resorts and recreation.

After 10 years being recognized as a third-grade urban area directly governed by the provincial government, Dong Hoi city has gained achievements in socio-economic development, improvement of the people’s life, infrastructure development and urban embellishment. These are the basic criteria, creating the premise to upgrade Dong Hoi city to a second-grade urban area in the 2010-2015 period.

So far, Dong Hoi city has reached six basic criteria of a second-grade urban area as stipulated in Circular No.34/2009/TT-BXD dated September 30 th, 2009 of the Ministry of Construction, including urban function; population size, population density, deagricultural labors, urban infrastructure systems and urban architecture with an average score of 87.84/100 points.

At present, Dong Hoi city has 16 administrative units (including 10 wards and 6 communes) with a total natural area of 155.71 km2, accounting for about 19.2%, total population was 160,000 people in 2003, rate of urbanization reaches 75%. Average income per capita in 2003 reached USD2,871.3, increased 1.46 times compared to average income per capita of the country; rate of poor households is only 1.72%; rate of urban residents using fresh water reaches 97.36%...

With the objectives to develop tourism to become a key economic sector of the city, bring Dong Hoi city to become the most attractive destination in the Heritage Road in the Middle Area, Dong Hoi has focused on investment in restaurants and hotels with more than 140 establishments, developed tourism towards coastal routes.

Dong Hoi city strives to reach one million tourists by 2015, of which 95,000 international tourists and two million tourists by 2020 with about 280,000 international tourists.

The proposal for recognition of Dong Hoi city as a second-grade urban area has an important significance to socio-economic development of Quang Binh province, helping the city uphold its potentials and advantages, creating driving force to attract external resources and improve investment environment, gradually building and developing the city to become a civilized, modern and sustainable urban.

Reported by Minh Huyen
(www.quangbinh.gov.vn)