Can Tho (VNA) – The Mekong Delta city of Can Tho haslaunched a project to boost the development of its night-time economy as partof the efforts to attract more tourists.

According to Nguyen Minh Tuan, Vice Director of the municipalDepartment of Culture, Sports and Tourism, this kind of the economy is seen asthe future locomotive of the city which is regarded as the centre of the region.

However, he pointed out that night-timeservices in Vietnam in general and Can Tho in particular are currently small in scale and facing safety and security challenges.

The city approved a project to pilot night-time services in NinhKieu district on April 22, under which tourism and entertainment services willbe available from 6pm to 6am in a number of local tourismattractions. The area will house as pedestrian streets, nightmarkets, tours, and entertainment-trade centres.

Currently, shopping and entertainment services are only allowedto operate from 6pm to 10pm at night markets in Ninh Kieu district.

After a two-year pilot programme, Can Tho will implementnight-time services across many parts of the city in an effort to bolster itstourism sector and boost socio-economic development.

At a workshop to launch the project, participants stressed theneed to continue evaluating the potentials, opportunities and challenges ofnight-time economic development and factors affecting the work, thus sketchingout development orientations suitable to Can Tho’s future development.

They underscored that in order to boost the development ofnight-time economy, Can Tho should make adequate investment and designcomprehensive mechanisms and policies to create a smooth and coherent legalcorridor to guide activities.

At the same time, localities and businesses should work to associateactivities at night with the development of local culture to attract more visitors,they said.

Director Tuan said that through the project, the city hopes to create morejobs and increase income for locals, and effectively optimise the  municipal natural andcultural advantages.

The project will be initially implemented in Ninh Kieu districtin the 2022-2024 period.

At the same time, Can Tho is also calling for investment inother promising destinations. From 2025, the model is expected to be expanded tothe remaining districts in the city.

Can Tho, with an estimated population of 1.61 million, is one ofVietnam's five centrally-managed cities, alongside Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, HaiPhong and Da Nang.

In July 2020, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved a masterplan for night-time economy development in the country, allowing major citieslike Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang as well as other tourist destinations like Hoi An,Hue, Da Lat and Phu Quoc to pilot night-time services from 6pm to 6am./.