A ceremony was held in Thai Nguyen on October 17 to announce the decision and to mark the 80^th anniversary of its establishment, in the presence of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

For nearly five decades, Thai Nguyen’s Party Committee, administration and people have spared no effort to turn Thai Nguyen into a cultural and modern city, adding fresh impetus to the province’s socio-economic development.

Over the past few years, Thai Nguyen city has maintained an annual economic growth rate of 14.6 percent, with a rapidly increasing proportion of industry and services proportion in its economic restructuring.

So far, the city has built 100 km of roads, planted 20 percent more trees and has been selected as one of the 10 cleanest cities in the country.

In his speech, PM Dung praised the province’s efforts to turn Thai Nguyen into a first-tier city which will help it to speed up its socio-economic development and fulfill its targets set by the provincial Party Committee for 2010-2015 tenure. This will help Thai Nguyen to become a modern and industrial city by 2020 as well as an economic, cultural and health centre in the north-central region.

Mr Dung asked Thai Nguyen to focus on developing its human resources, transport systems, industry, agriculture and services with a high technological content while fully taping into potential.

It is essential to combine socio-economic development with the development of urban infrastructure to deal with social issues and environmental protection, improve people’s education and ensure national defense while creating a transparent and powerful political system.

The Party and State have built industrial parks and transport facilities in Thai Nguyen to help it serve as a driving force behind the development of the north central region, Mr Dung noted.