Buon Ma Thuot City: Glamour of a Young Urban Zone

At its liberation in 1975, Buon Ma Thuot city was a small town with some 30,000 residents and infrastructure was very poor. Thirty-four years of construction and development, Buon Ma Thuot has reached the second-grade urban zone with more than 330,000 dwellers and the infrastructure has been upgraded day after day. With a natural area of 37,718 square kilometres, the city is divided by 13 wards and eight communes resided by 31 peoples. The natural population density is 852 people per square kilometre but the distribution is quite uneven, with more in urban zones. Buon Ma Thuot is a young, dynamic and fast-growing city. In 1995, it was a third-grade city but turned the second-grade in 2005. At present, the city has many criteria meeting the first-grade urban zone such as the total budget collection, per capita income, economic growth and percentage of poor households.

Speaking about the change of Buon Ma Thuot city, Mr Le Nhu Hien, a resident of Tu An Ward, said: “The city had no more than 30 streets in 1976 but now has 125 in total. Currently, all roads are asphalted and named streets have traffic lamp systems. The presence of supermarkets and high-grade houses has given a facelift to the city’s urban look. This is an urban upgrade of the city in the past time.”

 

Known as the capital of the Central Highlands, in addition to big investments from the State, Buon Ma Thuot is an attractive destination for domestic and foreign investors. More and more supermarkets, high-rise office blocks, apartment buildings, commercial centres and hotels are being built.

 

Mr Do Thai Co, General Director of Hoang Anh Dak Lak Joint Stock Company - the investor of the first high-grade apartment complex in Buon Ma Thuot city, expressed his belief that “From the policy of parent company, Hoang Anh Dak Lak has invested in this project. At present, the market demand is still low but I think our complex will be fully occupied in a couple of years. Apart from this project, we will invest around VND200 billion to build the second apartment complex in the same locality. We expect to kick off this project in early 2010.”

 

More than 30 commercial and service projects worth nearly VND2,400 billion are being carried out in Buon Ma Thuot city, the capital of Dak Lak province. Large-scaled projects include Hoang Anh Gia Lai high-grade apartment and office project, Saigon - Ban Me hotel project, Swiss- Bel hotel Daruco project, Buon Ma Thuot central market centre, Phu Xuan commercial centre project, Buon Ma Thuot Co-op Mart project and Intimex – Fuso media mart project.

 

Many investors highly believed in the potentiality and prospect of Buon Ma Thuot city. Mr Michael Bischof, Vice President of Swiss Bel Hotel, an international hotel group, which is cooperating with Dak Lak Rubber Company to build a first four-star hotel in Buon Ma Thuot city, said: “In fact, the presence of an international hotel in Buon Ma Thuot has helped the city become a place of more interest for tourists in Vietnam and in the world. The Central Highlands has famous for its tourist attractiveness but is still closed to foreign tourists. Therefore, the new hotel will be a channel to bring the city to the broader world.”

 

Co-op Mart – Buon Ma Thuot made a record in Saigon Co-op system when it served more than 20,000 visitors on its opening day and sold over VND2.3 billion of goods. This reflected the increasing demand for shopping in the city. Mr Nguyen Anh Tien, Deputy Director of Saigon - Buon Ma Thuot Services Co. Ltd, asserted: “Achievements of our unit met the expectations of Saigon Co-op. the Buon Ma Thuot as well as Dak Lak markets are considered having the higher purchasing power than other Central Highland provinces. Of course, investors must have the faith of success before doing business here. Until now, we can assert again and again that our investment decision is right.”

 

Under a planning approved by the Government, Buon Ma Thuot city will be a nucleus urban zone in the Central Highlands. It will functions as leverage for the Central Highland socioeconomic development and a regional traffic clue. The trust of investors will add the fuel to the bound of Buon Ma Thuot city.