Seaside Can Gio to become HCMC resort town

The only seaside district of HCMC, Can Gio will be shaped into a national key tourist area, with the service sector making up 75% of its total production value by 2030, according to the decision on the development direction of Can Gio issued recently by the city’s Party Committee.

International tourist routes will be connected to Can Gio via the waterway system between HCMC and its neighbor beach town Vung Tau in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

HCMC will also implement a project to expand the Can Gio beach encroachment tourist urban area and develop a traffic system connecting Rung Sac Road, the main route running through Can Gio District, with Ben Luc – Long Thanh Expressway, which is under construction to become to longest expressway in southern Vietnam.

Logistics infrastructure in the district will be invested to serve the plan, including construction of ports to boost connection between Can Gio with Vung Tau and Dong Nai Province, an industrial hub bordering HCMC, as well as Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta.

Aside from tourism, Can Gio will also focus on developing its maritime economy, including the farming, exploiting and processing high-quality seafood, from now until 2030.

Lying 50 kilometers from downtown HCMC, Can Gio is home to a mangrove forest recognized as the first Mangrove Biosphere Reserve in Vietnam in 2000 by UNESCO.

The district spreads across 705 square kilometers, or one-third of HCMC’s total area, and has a population of 80,000.

Luu The Anh, head of the Central Institute for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies under the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, told VnExpress last year that along with the port and airport systems nearby, including Cat Lai Port in District 2, Hiep Phuoc Port in Nha Be District, Long An Port in nearby Long An Province, and Long Thanh airport, which will be built in Dong Nai Province, another locality bordering HCMC, Can Gio Bay will be a driving force for HCMC’s economic development.

This bay area has all the potential and advantages to form a “urban sea chain” when it is connected with Vung Tau, and Go Cong Town in Long An Province, another HCMC neighbor, Anh said.

Home to Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve and having a beach-front area stretching 42,000 square kilometers, Can Gio Bay has all the conditions to become a modern marine urban center and an eco-tourism area of regional and international scale, he said.

“However, the problem of analyzing costs, benefits and economic efficiency should be considered carefully from different angles to ensure the highest efficiency when HCMC takes advantage of the bay for economic development,” he said.