Thesis: CENTRAL CITIES WITH THE SOCIO - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN RED RIVER DELTA

Major: Geography (Socio – economic geography) Code: 62.31.05.01

Ph.D candidate: Pham Ngoc Tru

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Le Thong

Training institution: Development Strategy Institute (Ministry of Planning and Investment).

1. The academic and theoretical contributions

The thesis points out the scientific nature of central cities' role towards the socio - economic development of the region (particularly points out the role of increasing economic scale, improving the level of development and dragging the overall development of the region). Besides, the thesis confirms 4 factors affecting the development of central cities (the political will of management board, development needs of major economic zones, the scalability of the central cities as well as the influence from outside or abroad regions) and proposes the system of 7 indicators for the role of the central cities towards the development of major economic zones in Vietnamese circumstances.

2. The findings, new proposals drawn from the results of the thesis's studies and surveys

The thesis has confirmed that, in the period of 2001-2012, the growth of central cities contributed to the decision to modernize the region through the development of new industries, high-tech agricultural products and services; contributed to the improvement of services to meet the basic needs of the people in the areas on healthcare, education and so on. In addition, the rapid growth of central cities led to the lack of the Red River Delta infrastructure (especially transport), housing makes housing market fraught with uncertainty, emergence of migration and labor from rural to central cities (leading to the shortage of young labor in rural areas ...). The primary cause of the weakness is that the effective and efficient management of the state is exposing many shortcomings. From these above-mentioned things, this thesis proposes the development orientation of central cities and three solutions of strengthening their role towards the development of the Red River Delta until 2030 effectively and sustainably.

The thesis proposes that the state should quickly promulgate the legislative framework of central cities' development, which should renew the concept of city and city - one administrative unit. Simultaneously, it is necessary to implement development planning of central cities system for long-term period of 50 - 70 years as the basis for the conduct of local development planning.

            Supervisor                                                                                 Ph.D candidate

        Prof. Dr. Le Thong                                                                       Pham Ngoc Tru