Ha Giang Province - Economy

Economy

Hà Giang is a highly mountainous region, and travel around the province can be difficult. Much of the province is too mountainous for agriculture, leaving much of the land covered by forests. Hà Giang's central plateau is good for growing plums, peaches, and persimmons, which the province exports. Tea is also grown there. Farming economy is also getting a boost with growing oranges and mandarin trees as its sustains many households with the income in the range of VND 150 to 200 million a year. Cultivated area of soybean cultivation (high yield type with yield of 750 kg per ha) has increased to 7,900 hectares (20,000 acres).

Hà Giang is one of the poorest provinces of Vietnam. Traditionally, the vast majority of its economic activity revolved around agriculture and forestry. However, in recent years, there have been attempts to establish a manufacturing industry. Infrastructure in Hà Giang has seen improvement, but remains poor and roads, schools, and health services are underdeveloped compared to many other parts of Vietnam.

Hà Giang province has particularly assisted locals in developing their tea industry with financial (soft loans) and technical support in operations (sowing, tending, gathering and processing). This resulted in increase in the yield from 9,625 tonnes (1995) to 20,394 tonnes (2002). Particular tea plantations of quality tea are the Shan Tuyet strain in Lũng Phìn (Đồng Văn District) and in Ngam La (Yên Minh District). Hà Giang tea is also popular in foreign markets.

The province is rich minerals; 149 mines with 28 categories of minerals are spread in all districts of the province. Mineral deposits explored in the province are: Antimony, iron ore, manganese, ferrite, zinc, tin, copper, bauxite, gold, gemstones, kaolin and mineral water. These are contributing to industrial development in the province. Plans have been put in place, with appropriate policies to attract direct foreign investments in the province; China, South Korea, Thailand and other countries have already chipped in with investments in the mining and processing industries. The Asian Development Bank provided loans of USD $3,000,000 to promote tea industry in the province.

As Hà Giang is a mountainous region, the population is not large, and the majority of inhabitants are ethnic Vietnamese. The remainder are H'Mông, Tày, Dao, Mán, Nùng, Giấy, Lô Lô and Thổ; the majority engage in ancestor and spirit worship.

Some of the economic indicators, according to the General Statistics Office of the Government of Vietnam are: The population of Yên Bái province as on 2008 was 705,100, with 89 persons per sqkm over a total land area of 7,945.8 square kilometres (3,067.9 sq mi) of the province. It is one of the least populated provinces in the Northern midlands and mountainous areas of Vietnam. The male population during this period was 346,900 with females accounting for 358200. The rural population was 625,500 against an urban population of 79,600 (about 7% of the rural population).

Of the national figure of 7,592 agriculture, forestry and fishery cooperatives, there are only 32 cooperatives in the province, of which 22 are agricultural and eight are fisheries. There are only 169 known farms in the province as against the national number of 120,699.

The Output value of agriculture produce at constant 1994 prices in the province was 838.4 Bhilldhongs against the national value of 156681.9 Bhilldongs. dongs. The province produced 280,300 tonnes of cereals as against the national production of 43.58 million tonnes.

The per capita production of cereals in the district was 397.5 kg as against the national figure of 501.8 kg. in 2007. In 2007, the industrial output of the province was 526.1 Bhilldongs against the national output of 1.47 million Bhilldongs. There is a recently established cement plant with 300,000 tonne annual capacity.