An overview of Ca Mau province

Geographical location: Ca Mau is a southernmost coastal province of Vietnam, located in the Mekong Delta region and completely located on Ca Mau peninsula, the north borders Kien Giang province, the east borders Bac Lieu province and the East Sea , bordering on the East Sea to the south and Thailand on the west Ca Mau Province has a coastline of 254 km and belongs to the Eastern coastal economic corridor of the Southwest Sea (from Bac Lieu - Ganh Hao - Ca Mau - Nam Can), located at the center of the coastal area. Southeast Asian countries, especially in the Gulf of Thailand, are areas with large oil and gas reserves, with potential for ecotourism and island tourism.
Area: 5,329 km², equal to 13.13% of the total area of ​​the Mekong Delta (Mekong Delta) and equal to 1.58% of the country
Terrain: In general, the terrain is relatively flat and low, there are no rocky mountains in the mainland (in the sea, there are only some island groups near the shore), common height from 0.5 to 1m compared to the sea surface, areas of mixed river or river - sea sediments with higher terrain; marine sediment areas - swamps or marshes with lower terrain (medium and low-lying) accounted for 89%.

Climate: The climate of Ca Mau Province is a tropical equatorial monsoon climate with high temperature (average temperature of 26.5 ° C, the highest average temperature of the year in April is about 27.6 ° The lowest average temperature in January is about 25 ° C). Characteristics are distinct climatic seasons, the rainy season from May to November, the dry season from December to April next year. The average humidity is 85.6%, but in the dry season the humidity is lower, in March the humidity is only about 80%. Basically, the climate is mild, less harsh than other regions.
Population: as of 2013 is 1.22 million. Similar to the whole country and the whole region, Ca Mau province has a multi-ethnic structure, in the province there are 20 different ethnic groups, the majority of the Kinh people, the Khmer accounting for nearly 3% of the Chinese people accounting for 0.95%.
Population density: 226.5 people / km²
Labor force: 643,815 people, accounting for 57.5% of the population

NATURAL RESOURCES
Land resources:
Soil in Ca Mau Province is formed on young, holocene aged sediments, of which: 34% of the province's natural area is made up of mixed river or sea sediments, 12% is river-marshy sediments. , 13% of marine - marshy sediments, 36% of marine sediments and 2% of marshy sediments, so over 50% of the province's soil is acid sulphate soils. In general, the land of the province is young, newly reclaimed land, with average fertility, high organic matter content but due to salinity intrusion, so for agricultural production, most of the land in Ca Mau is classified as "limited land" with different degrees.
Water Resources:
- Surface water sources: Surface water sources of Ca Mau province are mainly rainwater and water brought from the sea, contained in natural river systems, irrigation canals, in mangroves, melaleuca forests and farming fields. Seafood.
- Groundwater source: groundwater in Ca Mau province has large reserves, quality guaranteed for living and industrial production.

Forest resources
According to the Decision approving the planning of 3 types of forests, Ca Mau province by 2010 has a forestry land area of ​​108,025 ha, of which: special-use forest land is 17,830.7 ha, accounting for 16.51% of forestry land; protective forest land is 26,132.6 ha, accounting for 24.19% of forestry land; 64,061.7 ha of production forest land, accounting for 59.30% of forestry land.
Forests in Ca Mau province include coastal mangroves (concentrated in Ngoc Hien, Nam Can, Dam Doi and Phu Tan districts) and alum mangrove forests (concentrated in U Minh, Tran Van Thoi and Thoi Binh districts). ).
These are two specific forest ecosystems in the Mekong Delta, with high biodiversity, especially coastal mangrove forests and lower U Minh cajuput forest, which play a role in balancing coastal ecology, regulating climate and coastal protection. In addition, there are 583 ha of precious wood forest on Hon Khoai and Hon Chuoi island clusters.
However, the net economic value of Ca Mau forest is not high, especially Melaleuca forests due to low reserves, difficult to consume Melaleuca wood products, and a high risk of forest fires. The total reserve of Ca Mau forest is about 2.2 million m³; in which, Melaleuca reserve is about 1.44 million m³ and mangrove reserve is about 770,000m³ (average forest reserve is only about 22 m³ / ha, average mangrove forest is only 12 m³ / ha).

Natural resources
- Oil and gas: on the southwest continental shelf (especially in the Gulf of Thailand) has great potential for oil and gas, there are many sedimentary basins with petroleum prospects, most importantly the Malay - Tho Chu basin, including many Lot of oil and gas exploration and exploration lots (from Lot 36 to Lot 51, lots A, Lot B, area of ​​trade agreement between Vietnam and Malaysia PM-3CAA and the new delimitation zone between Vietnam and Thailand), this is those lots with significant reserves and potential for natural gas. The oil and gas potential of the Malay - Tho Chu basin is about 380 million m³ of oil equivalent (according to PetroVietnam's assessment), the discovered reserve is about 230 million m³, the discovered gas reserve is about 212 billion m³, the exploited output over 10 billion m³ / year of waterfall. This is a precious resource of the country, a condition for industrial development in the Mekong Delta in general and Ca Mau province in particular (Ca Mau Fertilizer Gas Power Project Cluster, Khanh An Industrial Park ...).

- Coastal sand: from Bo De to Ca Mau Cape is 36 km long (Ngoc Hien district) with a sand beach adjacent to the coast with a width of about 1 km. This is a sandy beach with small reserves, fine sand and a lot of humus, not meant to exploit large industries, the main purpose is to develop tourism of coastal sandy beaches (Khai Long beach).
- Peat: U Minh Ha peat area of ​​Ca Mau province is one of the largest peat-bearing areas in Vietnam, concentrated mainly in the area of ​​U Minh Ha National Park (including Vo Doi special-use forest), U Minh Ha Forestry Company). The total remaining peat-containing area (after major fires in 1982 and 2002) was 5,640 ha. This is a large coal lagoon, quite uniform in formation conditions as well as in coal formation, so the quality of U Minh peat is stable, can be used to produce fuels, organic fertilizer and Humic acid, coal. active. Due to repeated fires, peat reserves have decreased significantly, currently about 14.1 million tons (down nearly 12 times compared to 1976), of which exploration volume is 4.8 million tons. This resource needs to be studied, exploited and used appropriately and effectively.

Marine resources
Ca Mau is one of 28 coastal provinces of the country and is the province with 3 sides adjacent to the sea. There are 6/9 city districts (except Ca Mau city, Thoi Binh district, Cai Nuoc district) and 10/231 communes, wards and towns of the province adjacent to the sea; 59.8% of the provincial population is living in coastal districts, particularly in coastal communes and towns accounting for 25% of the provincial population. The sea has and will create a development position for Ca Mau province through the fields of fishing, tourism, mechanical engineering and seafood processing, shipping and especially the task of national defense and security. waters. Many socio-economic activities of the province are and will have a close relationship with the exploitation and protection of marine resources.

Ca Mau province has a coastline of 254km (excluding 3 island clusters), equal to 34.46% of the coastline of the entire Southwest Sea and equal to 7.8% of the country's coastline. Ca Mau is a shallow sea and is an accretion area, hydro-meteorological conditions are usually more stable than other seas, favorable for marine economic activities. Along the coast, there are many large estuaries pouring into the sea (including: Huong Mai, Khanh Hoi, Da Bac, Da Doc, Cai Doi Vam, Bay Hap, Ong Trang, Rach Tau, Bo De, Rach Goc and Ho) Goi, Ganh Hao ...) have formed a number of coastal economic clusters, the fishing villages are quite populated.

In the waters of Ca Mau province, there are 3 groups of islands near the shore: Hon Khoai island group (area of 577 ha, highest peak of 318 m), cluster of Hon Chuoi island (area of 14.5 ha, highest peak of 165 m) and Hon Da Bac island cluster (area of 6.3 ha, highest peak 24 m). Especially Hon Khoai island cluster is capable of developing tourism, marine economic services and plays an important position in defense and security protection due to its location at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, located in the middle of the East Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. In Hon Khoai island cluster, there is Hon Da Island (coordinates 8022’8’’N, 104052’4’’E) which is one of the benchmarks for calculating our country's maritime baselines (Point A2).

- Diversity of ecosystems: The South West region in general and Ca Mau sea area in particular are areas with rich and diverse resources and ecosystems. Significant marine and coastal ecosystems, such as climate regulation, are habitats, habitats, and nurseries for many aquatic species, and high biological productivity systems such as coastal mangroves, coastal alluvial areas, estuarine areas, etc. Coastal areas of Ca Mau province are rich in conservation potentials such as mudflats, special-use forests and Mui Ca Mau National Park.
In the coastal ecosystem of Ca Mau Province, there is Mui Ca Mau National Park (located in Ngoc Hien and Nam Can districts) with an area of ​​41,861 ha, this is a natural mangrove ecosystem (ecosystem) estuaries, coastal areas) of very high value for biodiversity, natural landscapes and environment. This is one of the important sites of Vietnam's national program on biodiversity conservation. Mui Ca Mau National Park has the value of preserving precious and rare genetic resources (22 species of mangrove plants, 13 species of mammals, 74 species of birds, 17 species of reptiles and 133 species of plankton).

- Aquatic resources: Ca Mau is one of the four key fishing grounds of the country, with a large and diverse species fisheries reserve, many species of high economic value such as sea shrimp and squid. , some valuable fish species such as mackerel, grouper, pompano ... In addition to exploiting seafood, the advantage of the sea has created Ca Mau province which has an area of ​​brackish water and saltwater aquaculture. biggest country; The water surface of coastal tidal and coastal areas is also a great potential for developing aquaculture. Ca Mau sea area can create jobs for tens of thousands of laborers working in the fishing industry, which is the basis for the development of shipbuilding mechanical engineering, ship repair industry, export processing industry, services to exploit aquatic resources ...
Travel resources:

- Eco-tourism: with a large area of mangroves and cajuput forest, there is Ca Mau Cape Biosphere Reserve, 02 national parks (Mui Ca Mau and U Minh Ha), there are natural bird parks which are conditions for Ca Mau province to develop eco-tourism. Currently, Ca Mau mangrove tourism is being invested under the national thematic tourism project. As a result, ecotourism products in Ca Mau Province are less likely to overlap with other provinces in the Mekong Delta (mainly horticulture ecology).
- Sea tourism: with a coastline of 254 km, there are a number of coastal sandy beaches (Gia Lai Lantern, Khai Long), dunes of alluvial estuaries, island groups near Hon Khoai, Hon Chuoi and Hon Da Bac islands. is the potential to exploit island tourism.

- Historical and humanistic tourism: in Ca Mau province, there are a number of historical relics such as Hong Anh shop, Tan Hung communal house, Lung La base base, Xeo Duoc base, and evidence area of the American puppet crimes. Hai Yen - Binh Hung. These are cultural and tourist works, being invested and embellished. The folk arts of amateur music, folklore, Nghinh Ong festival, activities of selling and buying floating markets on the river ... are factors that can be exploited in tourism activities.
However, the province's tourism resources are currently still in potential form, so that the effective exploitation will require accelerating investment in infrastructure, especially road transport. New ideas on tourism products, tourism business model ...

INFRASTRUCTURE
Electricity:
The grid system, especially the rural grid, is rapidly developing: the transmission grid, in 7 years from 2001 to 2007, has invested in developing 650 km of medium voltage electricity grids, including the 110KV Vi Thanh - Ca Mau line and Ca Mau - Cai Nuoc (179 km long); Medium voltage grid has created a number of circuits in the center of Ca Mau city and neighboring districts. The total capacity of the stations on the transmission grid is 483 MVA (including Ca Mau 220KV station, Cai Nuoc 110KV station, An Xuyen 110KV station). The capacity of 110 - 220KV source stations is large enough to meet the current needs and for the next few years of the province, so the power supply is stable and the voltage quality is better. Regarding the distribution grid, 3,400 km of low voltage grid has been built, bringing the total length of the existing distribution network to the end of 2007 to 4,973 km, the total capacity of low voltage stations is 138,740 KVA. The rate of power loss has decreased to about 12%. The rate of households using electricity by the end of 2009 reached 91.5%.

Traffic
At present, there are 2 National highways managed by the Central Government (National Road 1A and National Highway 63) with a total length running through the province of 108km, of which National Highway 63 has been completely upgraded in 2005, National Highway 1A is at the beginning. Investment to Nam Can (phase I), in addition to the route of the Southern Coastal Corridor, connecting Kien Giang province to Ca Mau, is under preparation for investment. The province manages 22 road routes from the province to the centers of districts and some economic clusters with a total length of 525 km (has invested in upgrading more than 230 km of roads to the district centers, meeting the standards for grade roads. V plain).
The waterway system has 11 routes under central management with a total length of 251 km, meeting grade-III river standards and 13 provincial-managed routes with a total length of 358 km, meeting grade-IV river standards. There are also thousands of kilometers of waterways combined with irrigation canals.

Ca Mau airport terminal has been upgraded and put into use, currently operating the Ca Mau - Ho Chi Minh City route with ATR72 aircraft (once a day).
Regarding the system of wharves and yards: in Ca Mau city, there are 2 bus stations, 2 ship wharves and 1 cargo handling station with a total using area of nearly 35,000m2; In the district centers, there are wharves, some districts formed car terminals. Port system to serve transportation, industrial production and fishery logistics such as Nam Can port, Ca Mau fishing port, Song Doc fishing port and port of nitrogenous gas project cluster (at Vam Cai Tau) is being construction investment.

Post and Telecommunication:
Ca Mau has a microwave switchboard, a large capacity and a digital switchboard in districts, ensuring domestic and world communications, averaging 4.5 phones / 100 people.