Office of Intergovernmental Relations
600 Fourth Avenue, 5th Floor
P.O. Box 94746
Seattle, WA   98124-4746
(206) 684-8055

Seattle International Sister City:
Haiphong, Vietnam
(Sister City established in 1996)

Haiphong, the capital of Vietnam's Haiphong Province, is the third largest city in the country. It is situated along the banks of the Cam River, an important waterway that has transported goods to the north for many centuries. Haiphong’s city economy is affected by inner city sites and port or manufacturing sites. The manufacturing and container packing and unpacking facilities are in rural regions and industrialized towns and villages. This suggests Haiphong will become increasingly specialized in the provision of services to the Red River Delta and the corridor to Hanoi.

Services ranging from legal to repair and maintenance will make the city a logistics and management center, initiating and mediating the relationships between distant suppliers and buyers of manufactured goods and of traded services between foreign and domestic markets. Principal exports include rice, maize, tin and other ores, cement and timber; the chief imports are machinery, petroleum products, preserved goods and wines and spirits.

The area of Haiphong City is 1,507.6 km2; of which the urban land occupies more than 1.7% that is located inside wide outskirts adjoining a sea area with numerous islands and groups of offshore rocks. The area’s population is 1,677,465 people, of which more than 600,000 live in the urban area. and a work force of about 936,000. This is a young and literate workforce. Among them, more than 40,000 are university and college graduates, and 120,000 are skilled technical workers. The people in Haiphong are creative and industrious, and industrially disciplined.

Haiphong has prosperous economic potentials especially industry, fishery, trade, agriculture and tourism ones. Haiphong main industries are ship building and repair, construction materials producing, steel refining laminating, machinery manufacturing, chemical and plastic, sea product processing, leather shoes and garment,... Agriculture includes cultivating paddy, subsidized crops, and some kinds of industrial crops, breeding cattle and aqua-culture. Haiphong has one of the highest potential in Vietnamese because of its famous landscapes, various cultural and revolutionary historical heritages, architectural works and unique traditional festivals,...especially Do Son resort and Cat Ba national park.

Some related links:

City of Haiphong

Seattle offers technical help to Vietnam port city

Link to the Greater Seattle Vietnam Association

E-Mail Contact: info@seattlevietnam.org

Sister City Association Contact Info:
Richard Hunter, Co-President
827 Lake Street S., #105
Kirkland, WA 98033
(206) 605-6655
fax (206) 827-7572
res032rn@gte.net

Son Michael Pham, Co-President
P. O. Box 24
Bellevue, WA 98009
(206) 484-4830
fax (206) 374-2944
smp@usasiagateway.com

Content contact: Kristine Kertson

Page last updated: September 21, 2005