VietNamNet Bridge – In the northern province of Hoa Binh, visitors can drop by Chi Ne Town in Lac Thuy District to take a look at the first money factory of Vietnam.

A mannequin was set up to reproduce a scene of workers counting paper money in the past

The factory is inside a 7,300-hectare plantation which was donated to the State by Vietnamese patriotic capitalist Do Dinh Thien shortly after Vietnam proclaimed its independence on September 2, 1945.

Thien reportedly spent 2,000 taels of gold buying the plantation from a French landlord. A tael equals to 1.2 troy ounces.

Most steps in the money printing process there were manually done. Despite their low quality and aesthetic value, the Vietnamese banknotes produced at the time marked a historic milestone in the country when they were officially used on February 3, 1946, replacing the French Indochinese piaster.

After the French military bombed the area in 1947 during the First Indochina War (1946–1954), the money printing factory was moved to Viet Bac base in northern Vietnam.

Later, the factory was restored and developed into a historical site covering an area of 15.5 hectares.

A mannequin is placed by a money printing machine to reproduce the process of making Vietnam’s first banknotes       An old stamping-machine, which was used for creating banknote serial numbers – Photos: Yen Thao

SGT