Maximizing land resources for sustainable growth

With the largest land bank in the southern region and a strategic position for regional connectivity, Dong Nai City has a major opportunity to expand its urban, industrial, logistics, and high-tech agricultural sectors, thereby promoting sustainable development.

The development of a comprehensive transport infrastructure is a solution for Dong Nai to leverage its land resources effectively. Photo: Hoang Loc

To ensure this resource truly becomes a long-term driver of growth, the city is managing, allocating, and exploiting land efficiently, transparently, and economically.

Strategic resources for development

Dong Nai City features a large land bank. This advantage is further enhanced by its position as a gateway to the Southern key economic region, with direct connectivity to the Central Highlands, the South Central Coast, and major economic centres nationwide. In its long-term development orientations, Dong Nai City has identified the need to manage, allocate, and exploit land resources efficiently and transparently, while addressing fragmented and ineffective land use.

In the industrial sector, the locality is prioritising attracting strategic investors and developing high-tech industrial parks, green industries, supporting industries, and key sectors. At the same time, it is promoting foundational projects such as innovation centres, data centres, smart logistics, and telecommunications infrastructure, with the aim of forming technology and innovation cluster spaces.

In the service sector, the city aims to develop a comprehensive urban service area around Long Thanh International Airport, a free trade centre, and an ecosystem encompassing aviation, logistics, trade, and tourism. The initiative is expected to create an integrated value chain between production and services, thereby enhancing land use efficiency and promoting sustainable growth.

With more than 12,700 km² of natural land area, Dong Nai is currently the locality with the largest land bank in the southern region and the largest among the country’s seven cities in terms of area. This feature provides a strategic foundation for expanding development space.

The agricultural sector is gradually shifting toward high-tech, organic, and circular models. Concentrated production areas and high-tech agricultural zones are being developed to generate commercial products. Agricultural land is also being prioritised for preservation to ensure food security and establish a green belt for the city.

With the advantage of having the largest forestry area in the southern region, Dong Nai aims to organise development spaces for eco-tourism, timber products, and medicinal herbs in line with its natural advantages, including nature reserves, national parks, mountains, and lakes. The city’s view is to preserve forest areas, restore ecosystems, and conserve biodiversity to adapt to climate change, maintain its role as the “green lung” of the region, and pursue carbon credit exploitation.

In the trade, service, and tourism sectors, land allocation is being prioritised along regional connectivity corridors, particularly in areas surrounding Long Thanh International Airport and major transport hubs. Dong Nai aims to develop modern commercial centres and logistics hubs while effectively tapping the potential of eco- and community-based tourism associated with Tri An Lake and natural ecological areas.

Regarding urban development space, the city has set the goal of pursuing a green, smart, and sustainable development model. Priority is being given to transport infrastructure, public spaces, digital infrastructure, and projects aimed at adapting to climate change.

Efficient and economical use of resources

A large land bank is a major advantage; however, turning it into a driver of sustainable development requires efficient and economical management and utilisation. Nguyen Van Ut, Deputy Secretary of the Dong Nai City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee, said that the city will effectively tap land resources and implement models that generate added value from land to create resources for urban infrastructure development. At the same time, the city will establish a clean land bank to attract investment, with priority given to public utility projects and initiatives that deliver positive socio-economic and environmental impacts.

According to the city’s leadership, public land will be developed in association with strategic transport corridors, transit-oriented development (TOD) areas, and industrial-logistics zones in order to fully harness the added value of land resources in a coordinated manner. The locality will also strengthen the effectiveness of state management, strictly control land allocation, land leasing, and land-use conversion, while promoting administrative reform to unlock these resources.

Vo Tan Duc, Deputy Secretary of the Dong Nai City Party Committee, said that the effective management, allocation, and utilisation of land resources would help create new room for growth while limiting waste and the loss of public assets. Therefore, the Party Committee of the City People’s Committee must regularly direct reviews of delayed projects, abandoned land, and inefficiently used areas to adopt appropriate solutions and turn these resources into drivers of development.

Tran Cong Kha, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam Rubber Group Joint Stock Company, stated that in the coming period, the group will hand over thousands of hectares of land to Dong Nai for the implementation of transport projects, industrial parks, housing developments, and other works serving socio-economic development goals. This endeavour demonstrates the group’s support for the city's expansion of development space, while also contributing to the restructuring and more effective utilisation of land resources in line with green and sustainable development orientations.

In addition, the group will expand investment in three key areas: developing next-generation industrial parks, renewable energy on rubber plantation land, and high-tech agriculture, thereby helping create new growth drivers and effectively promote the use of land resources.

Duong Van Bac, General Director of Novaland Group, said that comprehensive planning, synchronised infrastructure, and the establishment of a transparent investment environment would help Dong Nai improve land-use efficiency and strengthen its appeal to high-quality capital flows into the trade and service sectors, thereby promoting green urban development and sustainable growth.

By Hoang Loc – Translated by Minh Hong, Minho