Vitality of plantation: Evergreen rubber seasons

On January 1, 1961, the Phu Quy Plantation, the Sen Bang Military Plantation, and the Thuan Duc Livestock Farm were merged, laying the foundation for the formation of Viet Trung State-Owned Plantation (now Viet Trung Quang Binh JSC). Over nearly 65 years of establishment and development, under various names, the company has overcome countless hardships and challenges, continuously growing and thriving.

Rising from the flames of war

The establishment of the Viet Trung State-Owned Plantation marked the growth of its staff, workers, and employees, while also opening up new development opportunities for the western area of Bo Trach district.

In the early years, the workforce of laborers and technical staff, who had been tempered during the war, continued to demonstrate their fine qualities, dynamism, and creativity, meeting the demands of economic development associated with ensuring national defense and security in line with the Party and State’s policies. At that time, the plantation served as a source of both material and spiritual support for the local people.

In the first decades, amid the flames of war, plantation workers remained steadfast, reclaiming land and turning barren hills into fertile fields where the first rubber forests could take root. The ruts carved by their footsteps, as they cleared brush and dug planting pits, gradually widened into roads that cut through the forests, reaching new lands far from the plantation's center.

In those years, each production team, such as Doc Lap, Xung Kich, Thong Nhat, Truyen Thong, Tien Phong, and Thang Loi, acted as a self-defense unit, while the entire plantation functioned as a self-defense battalion, simultaneously producing and militating. Those who voluntarily wore the worker's blue shirt were overjoyed to witness the first streams of white latex offered by the rubber trees. Yet they also felt the profound grief of bidding farewell to twelve comrades who had heroically fallen for the green of the rubber trees and for the very survival of the plantation.

After the country's reunification, the staff, workers, and employees of the Viet Trung State-Owned Plantation remained united, overcoming all difficulties to continue building a stronger plantation. Since 1986, in line with the State's renewal policy, the plantation has proactively promoted and expanded its production scale, becoming a key economic unit of the former Quang Binh province.

Expanding business, diversifying revenue sources

After more than a decade of operating under market mechanisms, the Viet Trung Plantation achieved breakthrough developments. This progress laid the foundation for the Quang Binh Provincial People’s Committee to establish Viet Trung Rubber Company in April 1998.

To meet the production and business demands of the new period, alongside newly planting and expanding its rubber area, the company focused on exploiting the existing area to maintain stable output while investing in the rational renovation of commercial rubber gardens. As a result, the unit's annual revenue steadily stabilized with significant growth, and the workers' lives improved both materially and spiritually.

By 2005, the company had identified rubber as its key strategic product for development while also investing in business expansion and product diversification through boldly investing in the Exported Wood Processing Plant and the Rubber Latex Processing Plant. Viet Trung Rubber Company has earned numerous honors and awards, including "Vietnamese Prestigious Quality Products and Services," the "Strong Brand and Sustainable Development" cup, and "Top 500 Leading Brands in Vietnam 2008."

Besides its growth in production and business, the company also built clean and spacious kindergartens and schools at the production teams, providing care and education for hundreds of children of workers and local residents.

At the same time, roads extending to the production teams and sites were upgraded with wide asphalt paving to accommodate all types of vehicles and serve local transportation, with a total investment of approximately VND 34 billion over the years.

From mid-2010, Viet Trung Rubber Company was renamed Viet Trung One-Member Co., Ltd. and began operating under the Law on Enterprises. During this period, the company faced many challenges due to a sharp decline in rubber prices and complicated weather conditions. Storms No. 10 and 11 in 2013 alone caused severe damage to over 2,000 hectares of rubber, reducing the company's production and business efficiency. To ensure optimal operational plans for the unit, in early 2017, the Provincial People’s Committee approved the plan to equitize Viet Trung Co., Ltd.

Overcoming storms

Since October 2017, Viet Trung Quang Binh JSC has officially been in operation. However, the hardships did not end, as Storm No. 10 in 2017 once again devastated the company's rubber gardens, causing severe damage.

Mr. Phan Van Thanh, Chairman of the Board of Directors, stated that amid these difficulties, the company's leadership streamlined and reallocated resources. While restoring rubber gardens, the company also researched and conducted trial planting of medicinal plants, food crops, and short-term crops. By 2018, the unit earned profits after many years of losses. In 2019, the company achieved revenue of over VND 62 billion, paid nearly VND 20 billion in various insurances, contributed VND 6.5 billion to the budget, and earned a net profit of VND 2.7 billion. This laid an important foundation for the company’s development over the next five years.

Through tireless efforts and dedication, Viet Trung Quang Binh JSC now boasts a large and highly skilled workforce, with over 500 staff and workers across its affiliated units. Among those, 150 technical personnel hold qualifications of level 6 or higher, which is a key intellectual resource for the company in its new phase of development.

Entering a new phase from 2020 to 2025, the company has accelerated the application of science and technology in production and business, enhancing its market access and expansion capabilities. The unit actively invested in transforming production models and crop structure by combining long-term industrial crops with high-value short-term crops and actively sought investment opportunities, joint ventures, and partnerships.

The company proactively invested in expanding production with a total capital of over VND 105 billion over five years. The investments primarily focused on new planting and replanting of certain rubber and acacia areas, upgrading machinery and equipment at two factories, and renovating office buildings, work facilities, roads, and bridges to support production.

Mr. Duong Chi Binh, Director of the Company, stated that during the 2020–2025 period, the company harvested and processed over 5,655 tons of dry rubber, averaging 1,130 tons/year. Raw wood production reached nearly 7,000 m³ (averaging 1,400 m³/year), while processed wood production exceeded 2,650 m³ (averaging 530 m³/year). Total revenue amounted to VND 418 billion (an average of VND 83.6 billion/year), with a profit of nearly VND 34 billion, averaging almost VND 7 billion/year.

The past five years marked a new phase in the company's development journey, rising from a period of business losses to covering deficits and achieving notable success by contributing VND 30.8 billion to the State budget, exceeding the planned VND 23.7 billion and reaching 130% of the target, with an average annual contribution of over VND 6 billion.

Each production team is like a town

Overcoming challenges, the company is taking steady steps for the coming years. Regarding future orientation, Mr. Phan Van Thanh, Chairman of the Board of Directors, stated that in the 2025–2030 period, the company's core production activities will continue to focus on harvesting and processing rubber latex, aiming for an annual output of 1,800–2,000 tons of dry rubber, reaching 2,200 tons or more by the end of the term. "Each year, we aim to replant 80–100 hectares of rubber, maintaining a stable area of 1,600–1,700 hectares," Mr. Thanh said.

According to Mr. Thanh, the company will continue to invest or seek joint ventures and partnerships to expand the wood processing sector, ensuring a closed production chain, from planting raw materials to processing wood, chips, and pellets and producing by-products for other industries. The enterprise will also call for investment and partnerships to develop additional sectors in which the company currently has strengths, particularly in areas that have been re-zoned, such as trade and service zones, logistics, and pig farming.

Recently, the company invested over VND 30 billion to build a modern rubber latex drying system with high technology. Mr. Nguyen Dang Thien, Director of Viet Trung Rubber Processing Plant (under Viet Trung Quang Binh JSC), stated, "After the new technological line came into operation, processing capacity has increased to 15–20 tons/hour. Consequently, our plant's processing capacity now reaches 1,700 tons of dry latex/year, meeting the entire company's total harvesting output in this new period."

Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong, Head of the Quyet Thang Team, said the team currently has 140 workers contracted to protect and harvest over 350 hectares of rubber. Last year, his team exceeded the assigned target, harvesting 5,000 tons of latex, and this year's plan is set at 7,000 tons. In recent years, workers have consistently met and surpassed their quotas, leading to rising incomes, stable livelihoods, and significantly improved living conditions compared to the past.

According to Mr. Cuong, many worker households in the Quyet Thang team have combined rubber tapping with gardening, pepper planting, and livestock production, achieving high latex quotas and thus higher incomes. For example, the household of worker Do Thi Suong harvested 5.75 tons of dry latex, earning nearly VND 84 million from rubber tapping over 10 months (with one month off for leaf replacement and one month off due to rain). In addition, Mrs. Suong's family has a pepper plantation, yielding about 1 ton of pepper/year, equivalent to VND 170 million.

Along the roads cutting through the vast green rubber forests toward the production teams, intersections are now bustling with traffic. Each production team of the company has become lively, like a town. More and more high-rise houses are built, life is changing everyday, and the roads continue to stretch longer and wider beneath the lush green canopy of rubber forests.