More Investment Needed for Technical Material Facilities

Despite its key role in the Mekong Delta’s economy, the infrastructure of Can Tho City is poor, not matching the rapid growth of trade enterprises there. This is a massive drawback not only for local enterprises but also for external investors, causing high freight rates and cutting competitiveness in terms of product price. Other national infrastructure improvement projects, such as Highway 1 across Can Tho to the interchange near Can Tho Bridge in Ba Lang precinct, Cai Rang district and dozens of local projects, have been conducted inconsistently, with slow progress and rising costs.

 

Can Tho has two seaports, Can Tho and Cai Cui. The Can Tho port, a joint venture project with Sai Gon port, is being upgraded with a 5,000 tonne capacity container yard; however, because of its narrow passage, the port needs more time to be able to serve large ships over 10,000 tonnes. Also, the Cai Cui port has been opened while it is only in the first phase, so there have not been material facilities and transport available to compare with the container and logistics port with its huge capacity for import and export (around 10 million tonnes per year) of Can Tho and neighbouring provinces. At the moment, many agricultural and aquatic export products are still transported to Ho Chi Minh City with high transport charges; for example, moving one 20 foot container from Can Tho to Ho Chi Minh costs VND 4.5 million, equivalent to the charge from Ho Chi Minh City to Cao Hung.

 

In addition, by the end of 2008, the Can Tho airport is expected to be operating, which will bring more development opportunities for Can Tho and the Mekong Delta provinces. However, the 7-kilometer road from Mau Than centre to the airport has not been completed because of the slow process of clearance compensation and resettlement arrangement for households. Can Tho, therefore, is making great efforts to finish this road by the end of 2008.

 

Following this progress plan, by 2010, this key economic area of the South will have put 74 operating industrial and export processing zones. However, if these industrial zones are running at full capacity, the Dong Nai River will be under risk of serious pollution because of 1.54 million of cubic meters of industrial sewage daily. Furthermore, the complex system of rivers and waterways is vulnerable to pollution.

At the moment, in the Mekong Delta, the rate of skilled labour is about 17 percent; it is nearly 20 percent on average in the factories and industrial and export processing zones. The knowledge-based economy is a key factor for the growth of production, business and high-tech service of the Mekong Delta, therefore it is necessary to enhance knowledge for farmers here. Can Tho and other provinces in the Mekong Delta have a shortage of skilled technicians, failing to meet the human resource demands of production plants. Many programmes, such as 1000- Mekong or 100-150- project regarding training, have been proposed. To raise high-quality labour skills, regional provinces have formulated many ambitious projects, none of which have been feasible because of the lack of trainers qualified for language and academic standards.

Providing skilled workers has been the goal for human resource training improvement in the Mekong Delta. 17 percent of technically skilled labour in factories in the Mekong Delta is provided by vocational centres and technical colleges of Ho Chi Minh City, such as Cao Thang Technical Center, the Industrial Technical College, and Vin-Hem-Pich Job and Vocational Centre under the Defence Ministry. In contrast, because of the shortage of teaching equipment, the vocational centres in the provinces of the Mekong Delta cannot provide appropriate technically skilled or qualified labour meeting the practical requirements of factories

According to Ph.D Nguyen Van Ba of Can Tho University, it is essential for all levels of leadership to come up with new solution to increase knowledge among both blue and white-collar works in the Mekong Delta. At the moment, An Giang offers tax-exempt implementation for vocational schools, helping to generate income for re-investment and improvement of teaching equipment. The training course about “Skills of Seed Selection” of An Giang Agriculture and Rural Development Department has attracted many participating farmers, many of whom have become qualified seed selectors.

 

The target the government set for the Mekong Delta is that by the end of 2010, it will have fostered job training, spread and expanded such training to the farmers, increased enrolment numbers of vocational high schools and colleges to nearly 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively, and pushed the rate of trained workers up 25 percent. Accordingly, the government has approved the education and training improvement plan of the Mekong Delta by the year 2010, which is aimed at establishing and expanding the community college system in over 13 provinces in the region; besides, based on the figures of the Ministry of Education and Training, ethnic minority students will be chosen to take part in pre-university classes and after graduating for university and colleges they will become doctors, engineers, teachers and skilled workers. However, experience shows that good students from ethnic minorities, after graduating, choose Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho or other big provinces instead of their homeland for working. Hence, the Mekong Delta’s provinces should have policies encouraging students to work in their homelands.