The land of Dong Nai is a center of cultural and historical diversity, home to many ethnic groups. Integrating and promoting the strength of local cultural traditions and people in a synchronous, comprehensive, and profound manner into the country’s development process in the new era will not confine the scope to the local level but target a broader openness, contributing to spreading momentum and stimulating growth across the entire region.

A corner of the art space “A New Day on Bom Bo hamlet”, held in March 2025, showcased the unique cultural beauty of the S’tieng ethnic community in Dong Nai Province. Photo: Dang Tien Dung

Early planning for heritage region development

Contributing opinions to the Draft Documents for submission to the first Dong Nai provincial Party Congress for the 2025–2030 term, Associate Professor Dr. Huynh Van Toi, former member of the Provincial Standing Party Committee and former Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Nai Province, stated: Cultural development thinking must be tied to a regional vision, with the most important goal being to educate traditions, enhance cultural values, and promote the beautiful image of the country and homeland.

Proposing that the provincial Party Committee continue to direct early planning for heritage region development, Associate Professor Dr. Huynh Van Toi pointed out that in recent times, Dong Nai has studied individual heritage values separately without establishing cohesive regional linkages. Now is the time when conditions are sufficient to form linkages in infrastructure and festivals, creating a chain of heritage sites with spiritual tourism value for visitors. For example, in Bien Hoa alone, within a 3km stretch along the Dong Nai River, there are eight national relics of belief, architecture, and cultural history; the Cam My–Long Khanh relic region has two national treasures and the nationally significant Hang Gon Megalithic Tomb; the western part of the province has five nationally significant relics.

Expressing his dedication to the project of building a traditional house to preserve worker heritage and industrial culture at Bien Hoa 1 Industrial Park after its functional conversion, Chairman of the Dong Nai Association of Historical Sciences Tran Quang Toai welcomed the provincial leadership’s attention and direction to include it in the new period Provincial Planning. This, he said, would create a cultural “product” worthy of preserving the tradition of the “arduous yet heroic Southeast” for the whole region.

Cultural and human development as the foundation

The process of drafting and finalizing the documents this time shows that cultural content has become increasingly comprehensive and substantial in the later stages, based on seriously listening to, absorbing, and crystallizing the collective wisdom of various social strata. The Draft Political Report of the Provincial Party Executive Committee pointed out the current limitation that cultural development is not yet commensurate with or on par with economic development. From this, it emphasized the development perspective for the coming period: Developing culture and people as the foundation. People must be placed at the center, as subjects, resources, and goals of the development process. Cultural and traditional values must be preserved and promoted; the material and spiritual lives of the people must be improved. Building Dong Nai people to be comprehensively developed, friendly, and compassionate.

Being close to large-scale entertainment complexes and possessing many scenic spots gives Dong Nai the advantage of developing eco-tourism and leisure tourism, in combination with nature conservation, while upgrading the value chain of cultural and tourism services.

Dr.  Truong Minh Huy Vu , Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies

The Draft Political Report identifies one of the general objectives as developing the economy in parallel with cultural development, tied to the key task of building a healthy cultural environment, preserving and promoting cultural and historical values and traditions. To realize this objective, the draft sets out the main solution of developing culture, sports, and tourism on par with economic development. Accordingly, the Dong Nai people are built to be comprehensively developed, friendly, and compassionate. It’s necessary to effectively implement the National Target Program on Cultural Development for the 2025–2035 period. Building a grassroots system of cultural and sports facilities up to standard is required. There’s a need to prevent and reverse the decline of social ethics. Along with that is promoting the talents of artists, artisans, and the people. The solution is also about developing cultural and sports products and services. Tourism should be developed into an important economic sector.

The ultimate goal is to build Dong Nai people who are civilized, compassionate, dynamic, creative, and integrated, imbued with patriotic and humanistic traditions, strongly inspired by the love for family, homeland, and the nation, while raising the will for self-reliance, resilience, and the aspiration for a prosperous, democratic, civilized, and happy homeland and country.

The public and intellectuals expect that the sound, fresh, and multidimensional ideas and proposals for development, elevating the cultural stature of the “arduous yet heroic Southeast land” in the new era, will be seriously and responsibly integrated into the congress’s resolution. More importantly, they must be turned into practical actions to promptly remove “bottlenecks” in administrative management in this field (if any), making culture truly a resource for socio-economic development in the Southeast region, enabling Dong Nai province to develop in a green, prosperous, civilized and morden way, striving to meet the basic standards of a centrally-run city by 2030.

By: Thanh Hai - Translated by: Quynh Nhu - Thu Ha