Creating new development space for Dong Nai city

The establishment of Dong Nai City, the seventh city in Vietnam, carries the significance of elevating the locality’s status, creating a new institutional foundation for the locality to maximize its potential and advantages, improve governance capacity, attract high-quality resources, and promote rapid and sustainable development. This is also an event that opens up an entirely new development space for Dong Nai.

The Dong Nai River corridor area is being oriented by the city toward the development of ecological urban areas, aiming for green and sustainable development.

Therefore, one of the city’s key tasks at present is to quickly complete planning schemes in order to seize new development opportunities.

Transforming growth model

Since April 30, 2026, Dong Nai has officially become a city, marking the beginning of a new development phase with greater vision, scale, and requirements. Dong Nai City, with its strategic geographical location and population size, land area, and economic scale ranking among the country’s leading localities, now has more favorable conditions to organize development in a more modern, synchronized, and efficient model.

According to Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut, Dong Nai is one of the localities with a large economic scale and a high level of industrialization in the country, with industry, construction, and services accounting for more than 80% of its economic structure. At the same time, it serves as an integrated development space with extensive regional connectivity and a fully synchronized five-mode transport infrastructure system, connecting inland waterways, maritime routes, railways, roads, and aviation. This demonstrates that Dong Nai City has reached the scale and stature of a national economic center with strong spillover effects across the Southern region and the whole country.

With its new position, Dong Nai City will have a stronger foundation to transform its growth model from an industrial urban area into a national and regional center for high-tech industry, logistics, aviation economy, and high-quality services with international competitiveness. Accordingly, the city aims to become a modern urban center with balanced development between economic growth and quality of life.

In Dong Nai City’s future development orientation, Long Thanh International Airport and the Dong Nai River corridor area are among the most important growth-driving zones.

Master of Urban Management Phan Thi An, Deputy Director of the Center for Architecture and Rural Planning under the National Institute of Architecture, Ministry of Construction, assessed that the Long Thanh Airport City model is expected to become a major “boost” for Dong Nai City’s development. As the area surrounding Long Thanh Airport develops, it will lead to mechanical population shifts, helping increase urban population density. At the same time, the infrastructure system invested synchronously from the outset will raise the proportion of high-end services and completely transform the labor structure.

Meanwhile, the Dong Nai River corridor area and lakes across the locality will create significant room for Dong Nai City to develop urban areas, services, and tourism.

The development goal in the coming period is to build Dong Nai City into a strategic gateway city, a multifunctional growth pole, and a connectivity hub for Southern economic regions in aviation, high-tech industry, logistics, border trade, high-tech agriculture, and innovation. In particular, Long Thanh Airport City will serve as the defining characteristic and strategic leverage, enabling global connectivity and development on par with major airport cities in the region and internationally.

Accelerating planning completion to  attract investment

One of the priority tasks being implemented by Dong Nai City is the early completion of planning schemes in accordance with the Urban Planning Law.
According to Chairman of the City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Ut, Dong Nai is currently proposing special mechanisms to accelerate the completion of the master plan for Dong Nai City based on the integration of the Dong Nai Provincial Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision toward 2050, and the general urban planning scheme for Dong Nai City.

Having identified Long Thanh Airport City area and the Dong Nai River corridor as new growth-driving areas, Dong Nai City is accelerating the completion of related planning schemes to guide the development of these strategic zones.

Accordingly, the City People’s Committee has proposed that the Standing Board of the City Party Committee direct the replanning of areas along rivers and lakes throughout the locality toward the development of ecological urban areas, aiming to transform Dong Nai into a nationally significant urban center.

Meanwhile, for key urban areas such as Bien Hoa, Long Thanh, and Nhon Trach, following review, Dong Nai will adjust planning schemes to align with the new development context. Accordingly, Dong Nai City will not accept small-scale, scattered urban residential projects, except for projects located within existing urban areas. Dong Nai City will also not approve production and business projects outside industrial parks and industrial clusters in order to control environmental pollution.

By Pham Tung - Translated by Diec Quyen,  Thu Ha