Research Strategy And Evaluation On Sustainable Development In The Mekong Delta Of Vietnam

Basically, industrial production is a process of converting material resources by human. That means natural resources exploited and manufactured to intermediate consumption products or industrial products, and other energy sources also exploited as a process of energy production. Therefore, the consumption of natural resources is a necessary condition for industrial production processes. Meanwhile, industrial production process creates waste and has an impact on the natural environment, so changes in the environment are inevitable consequences of industrial activities. Either the consumption of resources or environmental changes are also limited and particularly environmental devastating and pollution. The excessive consumption of resources not only makes industrial production not maintained, but also weakens the basic conditions for human existence. Therefore, it is necessary to change the development model, restructuring of the economy in which focusing on reducing consumption of natural resources, reducing emissions, improving socio-economic efficiency and environment protection. This is the path of sustainable development.The process of economic development in Vietnam in recent decades, especially after 20 years of reform and opening up, has achieved very encouraging results. Particular in the Mekong Delta, a key economic area in the South of Vietnam, there are many advantages in geographical position, favorable climate, mineral resources, diversity in forest resources, high quality and abundant human resources to develop a diversified economy towards industrialization and modernization. Although the industry of the Mekong Delta has developed rapidly, however it shows many drawbacks such as big capital investment, low quality of production and consumption of natural resources, and serious environmental pollution, that have been harmful to resources and environment. In addition, the urban domestic garbage and sewage treatment rates are still hovering at a low level, although carbon dioxide emissions have been at the forefront of the nation’s priorities. Therefore, in the face of limited natural resources and environment, the research strategy and measure of industry sustainable development in the Mekong Delta are very urgent.From the above fact, the thesis "Research strategy and evaluation on sustainable development in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam" has been carried out.Based on the theory of sustainable development research and methods of evaluation and analysis, the thesis is conducted to analyze and assess industry of the Mekong Delta. From the industrial economy in the Mekong Delta and existing problems, analytic hierarchy model, principal components analysis, and TOPSIS method with completely unknown weight information are used through the construction of elevating indicator system— "Economic – Social – Environmental" subsystem of the Mekong Delta—to analyze the current status of economic development in the Mekong Delta.Then, learning experiences of economic development from developing countries, and using SWOT analysis method to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and conduct the feasibility, development trends, and establishing framework for overall goals for the sustainable development of the Mekong Delta, from which propose strategies and main measures for sustainable development in the Mekong Delta. The conclusion section is to summarize important results of research, clarify the main new points of the thesis, uninvestigated weaknesses, and open future directions.The thesis is achieved the following major results: the economic development of the Mekong Delta has faced many deficiencies that is necessary to continue to address; the economic structure is irrational, unstable development and the regional disparity; the economic development is concentrated in the fertile natural resources sector; the Mekong delta in the period of industrialization, the energy savings, reduced emissions, improve and perfect the economic structure is the direction of future development in the Mekong delta. Developing a strategy of sustainable development in the Mekong Delta is the scientific basis for leadership to make decision to macroeconomic issues and also provide important data for the research of scientists to study socio-economic development in the Mekong Delta, and in particular the implementation process of industrialization and modernization of Vietnam.The main innovation points of thesis include of the following three aspects:(i) The thesis has built an indicator system for evaluating sustainable development based on the content of economic development and some basic principles that should be followed by the system, along with the current status of the economic development in the Mekong Delta. Indicators were designed from three subsystems of economy, environment, and society, 27 indicators in total. This indicator system is highly applicable in comprehensive evaluating on sustainable development of the Mekong Delta region.The Mekong Delta of Vietnam in industrialization actually has not an indicator system to evaluate on sustainable development. Therefore, the indicator system for evaluating on sustainable development of the Mekong Delta is very urgent.(ii) The thesis has provided an interesting case to study the outcomes for provinces and one city of the Mekong Delta that applied a customized indicator system to evaluate sustainable development by using a quantitative approach, the principal component analysis method and combination determining weights method for multiple criteria decision making based on maximizing deviation.(ii) The strategies promoting sustainable development of the Mekong Delta’s government are not perfect. The thesis proposes main measures and strategies to promote sustainable development in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam in particular are new and very important.