산업구조를 뒤바꿔놓은 베트남의 10개년 계획
하노이/ 베트남/ 베트남뉴스=베트남이 10여년전 수립했던 국가전략의 성과를 내고 있다. 베트남은 3천여개의 섬들과 본토면적의 3배나 되는 영해에 접한 긴 해안지역으로 부자들을 유치하기 위해 10년전에 수립한 국가전략이 드디어 본 궤도에 올랐다.
10년전인 2007년, 제10차 베트남 공산당 중앙위원회는 베트남 2020 해양전략을 재가했다. 베트남 정부가 수립한 국가전략과 무수히 많은 지침과 정책들 그리고 이를 수반하는 후한 투자는 관광 ·어업, 석유&가스 그리고 바다에 의존하는 여러 부문들을 포함하는 베트남의 해안경제를 엄청난 속도로 견인하고 있다. 하지만, 광범위한 부문에 대해 혁신을 일으키려는 베트남 정부의 계획은 베트남 국내총생산 과 연안지역의 1인당 국민소득의 53~55퍼센트를 차지하는 해안에 기반한 경제를 2020년까지 전국평균의 2배 수준까지 성장시키겠다는 주요 목표를 달성하는데 걸림돌이 되었다.
베트남 관광청에 따르면, ( 베트남에서 )빠르게 성장하고 있는 관광산업의 기여도는 해안가에 면한 28개 도시들과 주에서 베트남 전체 수익의 70퍼센트에 육박하는 226억달러의 수익을 올림에 따라 상당히 고무적이다. 종종 베트남의 성장을 견인하는 핵심요인으로 비춰지는 관광산업은 다차원적이며, 물류 ·교통 · 무역 ·서비스 · 통신 그리고 금융 등을 비롯한 여러 경제부문들에 상당한 영향을 미치는 다부문활동(multi-sectoral activity)이라 할 수 있다.
10-year plan turbocharges Vietnam's coastline
▲ Fish is carried from boats at Ca Na Fishing Boat in Ninh Thuan provides, Vietnam / Vietnam news
Hanoi/ Vietnam ( Vietnam News /ANN )=Vietnam is reaping the benefits of a national strategy laid out a decade ago. Vietnam is reaping the benefits of a national strategy laid out 10 years ago to garner riches from the country's long coastline, over 3,000 islands and abundant water areas three times the size of its land mass.
In 2007, the 10th Party Central Committee ratified the Vietnam Maritime Strategy towards 2020. The Strategy, and the myriad guidelines, policies and generous investment that have followed it have turbo-charged Vietnam's coastal economy, which includes tourism, fisheries, oil and gas, and other sectors reliant on the sea.
However, a wide range of challenges stands in the way of the country reaching its primary targets: ensuring the sea-based economy accounts for 53~55 percent of the country's gross domestic product and per capita income in coastal areas doubles the average of the whole country by 2020.
According to the tourism department, the contributions of the booming tourism industry in Vietnam are "encouraging," with $22.6 billion in tourism revenues in 2017 - or 70 percent of the country's total - coming from 28 coastal cities and provinces. Often seen as a key factor in the growth of a developing country, tourism is a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral activity that greatly influences other economic secto rsm including logistics, transport, trade, services, communications and banking.
In vietnam, tourism is also considered a way to help alleviate poverty and drive economic restructuring - moving from small-holding agriculture in rural areas to a service-oriented economy.
The marine economy saw strong growth in the last decade with outputs across the fields of marine transport, port services and ship-building expanding by 22 percent each year during 2007~10 period and by 13 percent during 2011~15.
By the end of 2017, the total tonnage of Vietnam's fleet reached 7.8 million tonnes, earing the fourth place among the ASEAN countries and 30th in the world.
Ten years since the establishment of the marine strategy, logistics infrastructure and services have been enjoying the stable growth to process the steady annual increase of 10-20 percent in cargo load, with many ports now capable of handling 220,000 tons ships.
With the 500 processing centers qualified to export products to demanding markets like Japan, the EU and the US, the fisheries sector is one of the fastest-growing amongst all sea-based economic activities, with total output increasing by 50 percent over 10years, from 2.07 million tonnes in 2007 to 3.19 million tonnes in 2017.
In the past 10 years, the Vietnamese Government has introduced several policies to promote the sectors, including generous credit lines for fishermen to build ships capable of days-long offshore expenditures, making sure that all fishing vessels are equipped with information-communication devices to monitor their activities in an attempt to ward off illegal and unregulated fishing and building support infrastructure - including ports and shelters as well as financial support to compensate for post-harvest losses.
By the end of 2017, 17 coastal economic zones were established on a total area of 845,000 ha and with the investment capital reaching up to $78.6 bill ion, in addition to 58 centralized coastal industrial zones covering 13,600 hectares.
The coastal economic zones generated $ 14.3 billion in revenue in 2017, up considerably from the $8 billion they made in 2016, and bringing in $ 1.3 billi on in tax.
Along with the development of industrial zones in the coastal areas, new urban settlements have also been formed to provide housing and social services to cater to the large number of works. Modern resorts and residential areas have also been built to accommodate the professionals and managers of these economic clusters - all of which help drive the urbanization of the coastal area while creating at least 130,000 jobs.
Despite these promising statistics, there are worrying signs. The Vietnam Administration of Seas and Islands in collaboration with the General Statistics Of fice are still calculating GDP, GRDP and per capita income of the coastal areas, but industrial results have shown a worring downwary trend that says these locales have not lived up to expectations and are actually struggling hard to catch up with other regions in the country.
For example, sea-based economic activities contributed 48 percent to the national GDP in 2005, right before the marine strategy was introduced, but the sector's shares progressively scaled down to 40.73 percent in 2010 and then 30.19 percent in 2017.
The per capita income of people in 28 coastal localities expanded nearly five-fold in the 2006~16 period, but the values of $627 in 2006 and $3,035 in 20 16 still slightly below the national average of $637 and $3,049, respectively. The number of poor island and coastal communes more than doubled, from 157 in 2004 to 320 in 2014, failing to meet the target of the marine strategy.
The fisheries sector, despite significant growth is also seeing its contributions ot the national GDP slide in recent years, hovering below the 2 percent mark.
Similarily, the oil and gas sector, even with major co-operation programs with overseas investors and beefed up attempts to explore new oil sites, accoun ts only for 2.76 percent of the country's GDP in 2017, a significant decrease from the 10.83 percent figure in the 2007~10 period.
Professor Nguyen Chu Hoi of the Global Ocean Forum, former deputy head of the Vietnam Administration of seas and Islands, pointed out nine weakness in the implementation of the national marine strategy. These include insufficient awareness, small-scale sea-based economy, unsustainable exploitation of sea resources with outdated technology and a mindset of " take-it-all " and " kill-it-all," gravely declining marine ecology and bio-diversity, and limitati on in marine defense and security with ongoing issues in the East Sea ( internationally called South China Sea ) .
The coastal areas' low starting point compared to other areas in the country prior to the introduction of the marine strategy in 2006, combined with misguided investment from the state ( most of the funds went into infrastructure, at the expense of soclal welfare ) and limited capacity causes of the limitations, Prof Hoi said.
