On the afternoon of August 13, at the Provincial Convention Center, Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee coordinated with Xay Dung Newspaper to organize the Workshop "Linked infrastructure - Driving force to attract investment and develop tourism in the Central - Central Highlands region".
Removing bottlenecks connecting East - West
After the merger, the development space of the South Central Coast and Central Highlands regions is expanded, converging advantages in the sea, plateaus and borders. This is identified as a dynamic, sustainable, culturally rich development region and a strategic development space of the whole country.
Regional tourism is oriented to form products with identity, increasing attraction for marine, ecological and cultural tourism; at the same time, developing green and smart tourism infrastructure and ecosystems, strengthening intra-regional, inter-regional and international links.
At the workshop, Deputy Minister of Construction Le Anh Tuan said that the transport infrastructure in the Central - Central Highlands region has made important progress, gradually improving the connectivity between localities, economic centers, urban areas, industrial parks, seaports, airports, border gates and tourist attractions.
The expressway network is being prioritized for investment, the North-South axis has been formed and gradually invested in East-West connecting routes between the Central Highlands and the coastal area.
However, inter-regional transport infrastructure still has bottlenecks that need to be focused on solving. The East-West transport network is not synchronized; the connectivity from the Central Highlands to seaports, airports and logistics centers is still limited...
According to Deputy Minister Le Anh Tuan, linked infrastructure is the key for the South Central Coast - Central Highlands region to effectively exploit the potential and advantages of the sea - plateau - border, thereby creating new growth momentum.
The Ministry of Construction is committed to accompanying and closely coordinating with ministries, branches, and localities in the region to effectively implement the approved plans and plans; promptly remove obstacles, create the most favorable conditions for strategic transport infrastructure projects to be implemented and promote efficiency soon," the Deputy Minister said.
Proposal for "capital bait" for infrastructure
At the conference, Mr. Pham Anh Tuan - Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee - said that in the new development space, Gia Lai possesses a unique natural, economic and cultural structure, stretching from Quy Nhon sea to the great Central Highlands; from urban areas, plains, lagoons, bays to highlands, forests and borders. This is a special advantage of the province that few localities have.
Strategic transport projects have been and are creating important changes in the province's connectivity. The North-South Expressway in the east through the province is about 118km long; in particular, the Quy Nhon - Pleiku expressway, 125km long, is being implemented.
When completed, this expressway will shorten the distance between Quy Nhon and Pleiku, between the sea and the plateau; shorten the distance between investors and investment opportunities, businesses and markets, and tourists and destinations.
However, the Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee said that transport infrastructure is only a necessary condition. To make infrastructure truly a driving force for tourism development, it is necessary to solve the "tourism logistics" problem. Therefore, infrastructure linkage must be linked to product, market and policy linkages.
In the first 7 months of 2026, Gia Lai attracted about 200 projects, with a total expected investment capital in phase 1 of over 200,000 billion VND. However, in the project implementation process, investors are still cautious, waiting for the progress of important traffic infrastructure, airport and connectivity projects.
From this reality, the Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee proposed that the Ministry of Construction and central ministries and sectors pay attention to allocating "bait capital" to create motivation and encourage investors to boldly pour capital into the locality.
Planning must be clear; infrastructure must go first; institutions must be open; procedures must be convenient and the government must truly accompany businesses. But above all, the general spirit is still that the State invests, businesses accompany," Mr. Pham Anh Tuan emphasized.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Nga - Editor-in-Chief of Xay Dung Newspaper, the workshop is an opportunity for management agencies, localities, experts and the business community to assess the current situation of infrastructure, promote linkage potential and propose solutions to promote investment, improve mechanisms, and improve regional linkage efficiency.
The workshop focused on identifying infrastructure bottlenecks, opportunities for forming growth poles and solutions to promote tourism. In which, connecting highways, airports, seaports with inter-regional tourism corridors is considered a solution to improve destination competitiveness and attract investment.
