Vietnamese outlet Tuoi Tre reported that on May 2 (local time), the People’s Committee of Lam Binh district in Tuyen Quang province announced the official launch of a pilot project to build a “digital content creation village” linked to tourism development. The committee said residents earned about 46 billion dong (about 2.5 billion won) from YouTube, Facebook and TikTok from January through April this year. Personal income tax paid through social media platforms accounted for more than 23% of the commune’s total budget.
One of Lam Binh’s best-known examples is a young Dao man, Trieu Man Duong, after photos of him buying a Mercedes-Maybach spread nationwide on Facebook and other platforms in 2023. Duong runs the YouTube channel “Ly Thi Ca.” As of May 3, it had 1.47 million subscribers worldwide.
The channel follows the daily life of a mountain girl, Ly Thi Ca, showing cooking, building a home, plowing fields, harvesting crops and selling produce at markets. The videos have attracted viewers beyond Vietnam, including in Russia, Spain, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. The channel has more than 700 videos with total views well above 700 million.
◆ From selling bamboo shoots at market to a village of millionaires
Truong Van Quang, chairman of the Lam Binh People’s Committee, said more than 70 high-earning digital content creators live in the commune, contributing more than 23% of the local budget through personal income tax.
“In the past, people had to dig for bamboo shoots, pick a handful of vegetables or weave cloth and carry it to market, and sales were limited to what we think of as ordinary retail,” Truong said. “Now the ‘digital economy’ is helping them sell their goods online.”
He said terms once considered unbelievable in the area — “millionaire” and “billionaire” — have become reality, with hundreds of households escaping poverty by creating content and building legal wealth through social media platforms.
“If people film themselves digging bamboo shoots, making sticky rice, weaving cloth or fishing and upload it to social media, hundreds of millions of people in other places, including overseas, watch,” Truong said. “They value the authenticity and honesty of mountain people and enjoy real, unproduced, simple videos.”
The committee estimated that income from digital content production last year would exceed 34.6 billion dong (about 2 billion won), with personal income tax contributions projected at more than 1.5 billion dong (about 85 million won).
Lam Binh officials said the gains remain scattered and lack a system, and links to tourism and specialty-product trade are still weak. The pilot project is built on three pillars: a rural digital economy; community tourism tied to smart agriculture and e-commerce; and preservation of ethnic minority cultural identity combined with environmental protection and community education.
Local authorities plan to upgrade internet infrastructure, provide equipment for livestream sales of farm products, and support smart-farm projects tied to production and consumption. Plans also include expanding 5G and 6G internet, offering free Wi-Fi in some areas, and creating “digital living spaces” where residents can study and share ideas.
Truong said the commune will form a “community core team” by inviting successful young residents to mentor beginners. Working with technical experts, the program will also teach use of basic AI applications on smartphones, video editing and automatic subtitle generation.
Lam Binh authorities also stressed that digital content creation requires responsibility, ethics and compliance with laws. They said they will monitor to prevent false information, fraud and content that harms the cultural value of local communities.
“We will follow the principle of doing small things firmly first, then expanding,” Truong said. “Only when we are confident it is generating income and building legal wealth will we expand it to the entire commune.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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