Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Centralprovinces must adjust their socio-economic development goals and strategies tominimise the adverse effects brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and naturaldisasters in 2020, officials have said.

Nguyen Tan Tuan, Chairman of the PeopleCommittee of Khanh Hoa province, said while the province's tourism industry washit especially hard, growth in the industrial sector managed tostay positive. 

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, wehave made it our highest priority to keep the virus in check. Our efforthas allowed us to attract a number of foreign investors as they moved fromregions hard-hit by COVID-19," Tuan said. 

He said the province has been making use ofthe downtime to upgrade and invest in its tourism infrastructure, waiting forinternational tourists to return. In the meantime, Khanh Hoa has startedseveral promotion campaigns to attract domestic travellers. 

Meanwhile, Quang Nam made significant gainsin developing modern agriculture in 2020 despite being one of the centralprovinces severely hit by natural disasters last year. 

"Agriculture has always been a keypriority in our province's development scheme. During the pandemic, it hasbecome Quang Nam's economic driver," said Le Van Dung, Deputy Secretary ofthe provincial Party Committee. 

Dung said with tourism and commerce disruptedbecause of the pandemic and natural disasters Quang Nam chose tomake large investments in industrial projects to mitigate the economicdamage to the province in the long run. 

Quang Ngai, a traditionally strong economic performerin the region thanks to being home to the country's largest oil complex theDung Quat Refinery, has been looking for ways to become less reliant on the oilindustry. 

Dang Van Minh, Chairman of the provincialPeople’s Committee, said the province has been working with its partners to setup numerous large-scale industrial parks.

"We want to become one of the country'sbest destinations for investments and industrial development. The province aimsto build a transparent and healthy business environment to win over potentialinvestors," said Minh.

Meanwhile, Da Nang, the central region's maineconomic hub and the city most affected by the pandemic with nearly 200,000jobs lost during 2020, said it has set a new course to push for greaterdigitalisation of commerce, smart city technologies and star ups culture. 

"The city aims to diversify its economy.While we still identify tourism and services as major industries we want to seestrong development on the fronts of information technology and digitalisationin the near future," said Nguyen Dinh Vinh, head of the municiapal PartyCommittee’s Board for Information and Education./.