He recalled that when he was in his twenties, when he returned from military service, he himself did not have many options in Phu Quoc. At that time, the economy of the island was mainly marine, farming and live stock breeding. Men often choose a marine career because of the health requirements. Just like that, Mr. Ke's career in the sea seemed to be attached to his whole life.
The turning point to Phu Quoc and also to Mr. Ke started nearly 10 years ago, when "pearl island" was strongly invested in infrastructure. Accordingly, some big investors started pouring money to develop tourism, resort and real estate projects worth trillions of billions here. After less than 10 years, Phu Quoc has attracted a huge capital of nearly 17 billion USD, and is the most inhabited island in Vietnam with nearly 200,000 people.
Because of that, many people in Phu Quoc have the same opportunity to change their lives as Mr. Ke. Mr. Ke sold the ship, using that money to buy 2 plots of land. Land prices increased rapidly according to the development, he sold them to buy cars for travel service. Tourism is also a development orientation of Phu Quoc with the goal of becoming a world-class destination.
Phu Quoc has just been approved by the National Assembly Standing Committee to become the first island city of Vietnam. The administrative unit upgrade helps Phu Quoc have more opportunities and room for further development, make full use of its potential and strengths, rise on the world tourist map.
PEARL ISLAND
"Pearl Island" is a noun that many people use to refer to Phu Quoc, starting from the fact that this place has a famous pearl product. For a long time, not only pearls, Phu Quoc is also famous for its fish sauce, beautiful beaches, and warm climate all year round.
Phu Quoc is considered by many as an unexploited "gem" with rare potentials in nature, climate, and geographical location.
The area of the island is nearly 600 km2 with 150 km of coastline. There are 22 large and small islands around Phu Quoc waters, own many beautiful beaches such as Bai Truong, Bai Khem, Ganh Dau, Bai Sao, Cua Can, Ham Ninh ... On the island, there are 7,000 hectares of forest, in which the most of area is primary forest.
In 2006, the Kien Giang coastal and sea-island Biosphere Reserve was recognized by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve, of which most of the area is located in Phu Quoc and the surrounding areas.
In terms of climate, Phu Quoc is warm all year round, the rainy season does not last long. In particular, this sea area rarely happens storms, favorable for tourism development. Phu Quoc is located in one of the largest fishing grounds in Vietnam, the Gulf of Thailand, favorable for the development of fishing, processing and seafood.
In terms of location, Phu Quoc is almost located in the center of Southeast Asia, with the distance to major centers such as Singapore, Bangkok, Manila, Hanoi, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Jarkata only about 1-3 hours flight time.
Phu Quoc has been exploited since the Nguyen Lords, so there are still ancient historical and cultural relics. There is also Phu Quoc prison built by the French. This is one of the important historical sites in the country.
CNN once voted Phu Quoc as one of the 19 best destinations in Asia in 2019. This site also voted this place as 1 of 5 destinations worth to visit once in a lifetime in Asia Pacific during the autumn season. The list includes Chengdu (China), Fukuoka (Japan), Jeju Island (Korea), Phu Quoc (Vietnam) and Perth (Australia).
The British Telegraph once had an article detailing 10 reasons to "captivate" tourists when coming to Phu Quoc. This page describes Phu Quoc as "paradise island" with a population of 28 large and small islands, diverse ecosystems, sunny blue beaches, attractive sea food, friendly people ... unique and rarely.
However, by the early 2010s, the beauty of Phu Quoc only stopped at its potential when the infrastructure was almost undeveloped. To get to Phu Quoc there are 2 ways: by water and by air. By air, only small aircraft can land to the old Phu Quoc airport located in Duong Dong town.
By sea, if you want to go to Phu Quoc, you have to take a boat from Rach Gia, Kien Giang, it takes 4-5 hours. Even if the weather is bad, access to the mainland is more difficult and takes longer.
Meanwhile, Phu Quoc does not have the current grid electricity. To supply electricity, power companies must use diesel-powered units. However, the oil price was high, the power supply was limited, the repair and maintenance cost was high, so the selling price was over 5,000 VND / kWh for domestic electricity and 8,000 VND / kWh for service electricity. Meanwhile, the line is often overloaded, power outages occur continuously.
Difficulty in electrical infrastructure almost inhibits the development of the locality, economic sectors, especially travel services, face many difficulties to develop.
Transport infrastructure and seaports are also almost undeveloped in Phu Quoc. On the island there are only a few main arterial roads that are 2 lanes wide.
Chairman of the People's Council of Kien Giang province, former Secretary of Phu Quoc, Mai Van Huynh recalled the scene where many tourists to Phu Quoc in the 2000s still had to go through dirt roads, even there is no way to get to some beaches which is located far away. Small seaports can only accommodate passenger ships and low tonnage ships.
Difficulty in infrastructure and connection makes tourism service prices in Phu Quoc very expensive, not suitable for the majority of people. Meanwhile, difficult in travel also makes the island, despite its great potential and rare beauty, unable to exploit tourism.
The economic structure of Phu Quoc in the early 2000s mainly depended on fishing, cultivation and forestry. Average income per capita is about 30 million VND / year. Like Mr. Ke, thousands of people in Phu Quoc depend on the sea to live.
THE LANDMARK PROJECTS
Realizing that Phu Quoc's bottleneck is infrastructure, the Government has launched a series of landmark projects for the island.
The first is the new construction project of Phu Quoc International Airport which was started in 2008 and inaugurated in 2012 with a total investment of 3,000 billion VND. To improve air transport capacity, Phu Quoc did not renovate the old airport in Duong Dong but built a completely new one in the center of the island.
The new airport has a 3,000 m long, 75 m wide runway that can accommodate Boeing 747 or equivalent aircraft. Other important items such as air traffic control radio, passenger terminal, waiting room ... are modernly designed according to international standards.
With the new airport, Phu Quoc can welcome flights with large frequencies, even international flights. Many direct flights from Asian and European countries have taken tourists to Phu Quoc directly without having to transit in any other airport.
The second turning point is the project to supply electricity to Phu Quoc by the 110 kV underground cable through Ha Tien - Phu Quoc sea. The work is invested 2,300 billion and is the longest trans-sea submarine cable project in Southeast Asia, 57 km in length.
Electricity is the first step to help Phu Quoc develop both economically and socially, and is the foundation to attract large investment projects.
After the airport and electricity, Phu Quoc is also "molting" by projects on island roads and international passenger ships. The road is invested by Phu Quoc in both vertical and horizontal axis.
On the vertical axis, a road is invested to upgrade and build from Duong Dong town to Ganh Dau connecting with the north of the island. From Phu Quoc International Airport, a 6-lane road will also be built along Bai Truong linking to An Thoi Town. In addition, provincial roads 46, 47 and 48 have also been upgraded to suit development needs.
On the horizontal axis, Duong Dong - Bai Sao road, the road connecting Duong Dong with Bai Vong port is also invested in construction. These routes connect all landmarks of Phu Quoc together, facilitating economic development.
An international passenger port Phu Quoc is also built with the purpose of receiving international passenger ships of up to 225,000GT, carrying capacity of 5,000-6,000 passengers. The jetty is 400 meters long, of which the main bridge is 240 meters long and 19 meters wide allowing ships to dock on both sides. A 1,020 m long bridge was built from shore to the jetty to bring passengers to the island.
The project was invested 1,600 billion VND with the expectation to help Phu Quoc be able to welcome the world's top cruise ship, no less famous than other tourist destinations.
AWAKEN BY TRILLION PROJECTS
The developed infrastructure helps Phu Quoc attract large projects to awaken potentials. Up to now, there are more than 300 investment projects licensed, with land area of 10,585 ha. The total investment capital poured into Phu Quoc has reached nearly 400,000 billion VND. Particularly for foreign direct investment (FDI), Phu Quoc also attracts more than 30 projects with a capital of over 300 million USD.
In Phu Quoc, there are large enterprises such as Vingroup, Sun Group, BIM Group, CEO Group, MIK ... The beautiful beaches of Phu Quoc now have many world-class tourism brands such as Marriott, Intercontinental. , Hayatt, Movenpick, Novotel ... The number of hotel rooms in Phu Quoc has reached 22,000 rooms.
According to the General Department of Tourism, visitors to Phu Quoc have continuously increased 20-30% per year in recent years. In 2019, Phu Quoc welcomed nearly 6 million visitors, including nearly 1 million international visitors.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Ke, like thousands of others, changed jobs, instead of having only a few options as before. Someone worked as an accountant, someone as an employee at the resorts, someone was a tour guide, driver, someone was a zoo staff ... "The jobs that we never thought of when we was still working as marine worker" Mr. Ke shared.
Recently, the National Assembly Standing Committee issued a resolution to establish Phu Quoc city in Kien Giang province. Many people rated "pearl island" is preparing to wear a new shirt, worthy of Vietnam's leading tourist center.
Two wards in Phu Quoc city were established: Duong Dong and An Thoi. Thus, Phu Quoc has 9 communal-level administrative units, including 2 wards An Thoi, Duong Dong and 7 communes: Bai Thom, Cua Can, Cua Duong, Duong To, Ganh Dau, Ham Ninh, Tho Chau.
Speaking to Zing, Phu Quoc City Chairman Huynh Quang Hung said the upgrade from district to urban city will be important in the development of tourism and urban Phu Quoc in the coming time. However, he said that there are many challenges to Phu Quoc, including environmental issues, order and security, planning management, land, human resources ... In which, he emphasized that the environmental issue must be really guaranteed, especially in the treatment of waste and wastewater.
Chairman of Phu Quoc City also said that construction density in Phu Quoc will be very low. Accordingly, the highest density in the planned and functional areas is only 20-22%, the rest is arranged with trees, landscape and public land.
He emphasized that the sea, the sea corridor is a public place for tourists and all citizens to enjoy. Beach for everyone. That is also the Phu Quoc development point of view, must be green - clean - beautiful and safe, and concreting is minimized.
"I want the cooperation and conscience of investors, the people and the government to build an island city that is both developing but keep the green, clean and beautifull. I hope Phu Quoc will have peer competitiveness with tourist destinations in this region, contributing to the overall development of the country ", Mr. Hung shared.
