Along with reforming administrative procedures, improving the investment environment, offering tax and customs incentives and raising the competitiveness index, Yen Bai has strived to attract potential, prestigious investors. 

The province has to date granted approval decisions and licenses to hundreds of investment projects with registered capital amounting to tens of trillions of Vietnam dong. Nearly 80 percent of the projects are in the industrial sector, and the remainder are in agriculture, forestry, fishery, trade and services. 

Some noteworthy projects include a 4.98 trillion VND (over 215 million USD) culture, sports and tourism park at the Thac Ba Lake by Thac Ba Lake Urban and Travel, Sports, Culture Park Investment JSC; a 2.7 trillion VND eco-tourism and resort complex by Van Hoi International Resort and Tourism Development JSC; a white limestone production and processing factory valued at 2.24 trillion VND by Vu Gia Yen Bai Mineral Processing and Exploitation JSC; and a concentrated forestry production and processing zone worth 1.41 trillion VND by Cuong Thinh Thi Group. 

Yen Bai aims to make tourism an important economic sector by 2020, and an economic spearhead by 2025. To that end, the locality is optimising its tourism potential, with attention paid to professionalism, modernity and sustainable development. 

In 2018, Yen Bai welcomed 560,000 tourists, including more than 25,700 foreigners, earning over 333 trillion VND from the sector. Last year, the number increased to more than 700,000. 

During the 2019 National Day celebration in Mu Cang Chai, the first of its kind in the locality, 35,000 people flocked to Yen Bai, helping to raise its tourism revenue to over 400 billion VND. 

Yen Bai has enjoyed the best ever development now, said Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong at the launching ceremony of the 2019 New Year tree-planting festival. 

The province has got a facelift, with more modern, comprehensive infrastructure and the spiritual and material life of local ethnic people has been improved. In 2019, an additional 23 communes in Yen Bai were recognised as new-style rural areas, raising the total number of communes winning the status in the province to 69, 2.7 times higher than the target set by the provincial Party Committee. 

Concentrated farming areas have been formed in the mountainous province, including 7,800 ha of tea, 76,000 ha of cinnamon, 12,000 ha of cassava and 4,000 ha of bamboo. Many local agricultural products have been sold domestically and exported to foreign markets like Japan, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and China. 

Party General Secretary and President Trong attributed such achievements to the unity of the province’s Party organisation, authorities and ethnic groups, which, he said creates a firm foundation for Yen Bai to move forward on the path of national industrialisation and modernisation in 2020 and the years to come.