MÓNG CÁI: A GATE FOR SMUGGLING IN VIETNAM

Source: Google Images.

By Gundhramns Hammer
November 30, 2013

The war and the Agent Orange in Vietnam is just history. Vietnamese have simply turned the page on their book and carried on with their lives. 

Vietnam has become a booming economy in recent years. Its 90 million people are trying to make a living and carving a place of their own in the global market. 

There is room for everything, from exporting coffee internationally, for instance, or selling dog meat and trafficking with humans locally.

And Móng Cái stands out as a key place in the dealing and wheeling of Vietnamese. 

Móng Cái is a city of Quảng Ninh Province in northern Vietnam, on the border with Dongxing city of China's Guangxi Autonomous Region. It has a population of about 103,000. It is known as one of the wealthiest cities in Vietnam with the average income in some areas exceeding US$20,000 per family. One of these areas is the Tran Phu ward. [Wikipedia, 2013]

The volume of trade between Vietnam and China through the Móng Cái border gate reached US$2.4 billion and 4.1 billion in 2007, 2008 respectively, the highest among the Vietnam-China border gates. The cash flow via the banks located in Móng Cái was VND180,469 billion (US$11 billion). The volume trade is increasing significantly year by year. In particular, counting up to the end of March 2008, the volume trade had reached 720 Million which is equal to 182% in comparison to the same period of last year. The tax revenue of Móng Cái in 2008 was more than 1,700 billion VND (nearly US$100 million) equal to 150% to the year of 2007 result in the fact that Móng Cái is only district level area in northern Vietnam has tax revenue more than 1,000 billion and rank 3rd in whole nation. [Wikipedia, 2013]

This is is the official face. But Móng Cái has another face: A dark side, just like any city in the world. 

Móng Cái is a place where legal and illegal meet together. There is a lot of smuggling of wildlife, human and drug traficking in this city, according some authorities and NGOs (Video 1).

                                     Video 1. Smuggling in Mong Cai, Vietnam