A road to the west of Buon Ma Thuot  to ease traffic pressure to the city's centre (Photo: Pham Cuong/VNA)

Dak Lak (VNA) – Buon Ma Thuot city, capital of Dak Lak province, is set to become the central city of the Central Highlands region by 2030.

The Standing Board of the Dak Lak provincial Party Committee and the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission co-organised a conference on March 28 to review the realisation of Conclusion 60-KL/TW dated November 27, 2009 of the Politburo on the building and development of Buon Ma Thuot city.

The city holds an important strategic position in terms of politics, defence and security in the Central Highlands region, as well as in the cause of national construction and defence.

In addition, Buon Ma Thuot is also a transport hub of the whole region, with huge potential for developing processing industry and industrial plants with high economic value. With its good infrastructure and technical facilities, the city gathers enough conditions to develop new urban areas and ecological tourist areas.

With these advantages, Buon Ma Thuot is defined as the regional-level central city in terms of industry, science-technology, education-training and education, as well as a centre for socio-economic exchanges between the Central Highlands and the southeastern and central coastal regions.

After ten years of implementing the Conclusion, Buon Ma Thuot has recorded significant progresses, with an average regional gross domestic product (RGDP) of 13.9 percent per year. The industry-construction and trade-service sectors have been holding a key role in economic development. Major works and projects as well aa urban transport infrastructure have been invested.

The socio-cultural field has seen advances, with social policies well implemented, social security ensured and people’s material and spiritual lives improved.  The city’s defence and security potential has been strengthened, resulting in stable politics-security and social order and safety.

Buon Ma Thuot focuses on developing high-tech agriculture for sustainable development (Photo: Pham Cuong/VNA).

However, the city still showed several limitations and shortcomings during the implementation of Conclusion 60.

Some development orientations have not yet been carried out while the city has been slow in tapping its advantages and potential as a centre of the Central Highlands region. It also failed to make itself the leader among cities in the region in the fields of culture, science-technology, and transport.  The administrative reforms have not been implemented drastically, with a lack of breakthroughs.

Buon Ma Thuot has still seen an unsustainable economic structure, with its industrial development mainly focusing on outsourcing and pre-processing with low added value. Although the city boasts many conditions for developing support industries, it has seen the absence of high-tech industrial facilities for key products.

In addition, incomplete infrastructure at industrial clusters and zones has resulted in ineffective operations, together with limitations in construction planning and investment, failing to catch up with development demand.

Human resources quality has not yet met development needs of the city while the leadership capacity and combat strဣength of some Party organisations and authorities rema💎ined weak./.