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New prospects for industrial development in Dien Bien
Workers and engineers are putting the final touches to the Dien Bien rotary kiln cement plant to make it operational in early May. With the operation of the plant, the province’s industrial sector is expected to get off to a flying start.
A head start
We arrived in Na Hai village in Sam Mun commune in the mountainous north-western province of Dien Bien on an early summer day. We dropped in on the construction site of the Dien Bien rotary kiln cement plant where hundreds of Vietnamese and Chinese workers, engineers and experts were racing against time to put the plant into operation in early May to mark the 55th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory.
Showing us around the plant, Nguyen Van Thinh, director and chairman of the management board of the Dien Bien Cement Joint Stock Company – the project investor – said that 98 percent of the work required has been completed.
“Many factories have been built with a total in investment capital of hundreds of billions of Vietnamese Dong. It’s a pity that they cannot operate as they lack a skilled workforce to run modern production chains,” said Thinh. “That’s why when the plant began to get off the ground in 2005, the company collaborated with the provincial vocational schools to recruit and train hundreds of workers.”
According to Thinh, the nearly VND650 billion invested in the plant was contributed by stakeholders, so investment and production plans have been designed to ensure that the plant will operate efficiently and that its products will be offered at the reasonable price.
Currently, there is only a small cement plant in Tuan Giao district, Dien Bien province, which is unable to meet consumer demand in Dien Bien and its neighbouring province of Lai Chau. Therefore, most cement for construction projects is transported from the lowlands and high transport costs have driven cement prices up to VND1.5 million/tonne. Once the Dien Bien cement plant is put into operation, it is expected to lower prices by 20-30 percent.
As scheduled, the plant will operate at 70 percent of its design capacity in May 2009 to churn out 288,000 tonnes of cement and at full capacity in 2010 to produce 360,000 tonnes per year.
The company has developed a network of distributors, with 60 percent of the output to be sold in Dien Bien province, 15 percent each in Son La and Lai Chau provinces, and the remaining 10 percent in Laos’ north-western provinces. It plans to subsidize transport costs for its products to be marketed in remote areas such as Muong Nhe, Muong Lay, Tua Chua and Tuan Giao districts.
“The operation of the plant is a good start for the industrial development of Dien Bien,” said Dinh Tien Dung, chairman of the provincial People’s Committee. “Besides the economic significance, the plant will generate jobs and help to improve the living conditions of hundreds of ethnic households in the north-western region. We hope that together with the incentives being introduced, Dien Bien will become an attractive investment destination.”
A rational decision
Starting from scratch 20 years ago, he has now built many cement plants including those in Kim Bang district (Ha Nam province), Tuan Giao district (Dien Bien province) and Thuy Nguyen district (Hai Phong City), with a total investment capital of hundreds of billions of Vietnamese Dong.
At the age of nearly 60, he surprised his relatives and friends by withdrawing capital from other projects to invest in a cement plant in the impoverished commune of Sam Mun in Dien Bien province.
According to Thinh, he owed a lot to Dien Bien. He recalled that in 2001 when he was marketing cement in the province, he chanced upon a makeshift bamboo classroom put up on Pha Din Pass. In the class, a Kinh ethnic girl was teaching nearly 10 ethnic students, sitting on tables and chairs of bamboo.
Returning to his home, he was obsessed with the image of the Kinh teacher and the makeshift class and he decided to invest in Dien Bien.
“As a business person, I am interested in making profit first,” said Thinh. “We all know that Dien Bien is rich in natural resources such as stone, clay and coal plus an abundant workforce while it is a relatively large market. This was one of the reasons that I decided to invest in the province.”
Having sympathy for local people’s hard lives, Thinh employed workers of different ethnic groups in the province who make up more than half of the company’s total workforce.
“At the beginning, it was hard to train the ethnic people to work for the company, since their only experience was with small family businesses,” Thinh recalled. “After training, they gradually familiarized themselves with modern working styles and their monthly salaries increased considerably, ranging between VND2 million-10 million/person.”
Thinh said he was proud that ethnic workers and engineers caught on to the work very quickly and many young ethnic engineers learned to control modern production lines. He said the company plans to continue to train and employ more ethnic people.
Director Thinh was honoured with the title of “The Outstanding Entrepreneur” last year by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in recognition of his significant contribution to community development.
VietNamNet, VOV
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