The government has approved a proposal by Dak Lak Province to hire foreign consultants who will help formulate its plan for socio-economic development for the next 15 years.

The plan will focus on developing Buon Ma Thuot, the province’s capital city, as a political, economic, cultural and scientific hub for the province and the highland region as a whole, establishing links with other provinces and cities.

Buon Ma Thuot, situated at a height of 536 meters above sea level 350 kilometers away from Ho Chi Minh City and 1,420 kilometers from Hanoi, covers an area of 370 square kilometers. It is considered the coffee capital of the country.

Authorities in south-central Ninh Thuan Province also got the nod from the government July for hiring foreign consultants for developing its development plan. The province became the first in Vietnam to hire a foreign firm – Monitor Group in Singapore – to map out its socio-economic development strategy until 2020 with a vision to 2030.

The province has earmarked a budget of US$2.3 million for coming up with the plan, which includes a detailed development blueprint for a 100 kilometer stretch of the coast, and establishing the Phan Rang-Thap Cham urban area.

Nguyen Chi Dung, chairman of Ninh Thuan People’s Committee, said hiring international experts to help the province was money well spent as they have experience that local institutes and businesses do not. It is either spend the money or waste time, he said at a property seminar held in HCMC last month.

Ninh Thuan has been selected as the site to build commercial nuclear power plants project with a capacity of 4,000 megawatts to meet the fast growing demand for electricity in the country.

VietNamNet/Thanh Nien