Investment attraction in Quang Ngai province has been prospering over the past time, gaining a top position in FDI attraction. Along with that, its Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) has improved significantly, from near the bottom of the group of provinces with low competitiveness to near the top of the provinces with high competitiveness. To learn more about these results, Vietnam Business Forum has an interview with Director Tran Van Nhan of Quang Ngai’s Department of Planning and Investment. Trung Kien reports.
Could you point out some impressive features about investment attraction recently in the province, especially in FDI attraction?
Up to now, Quang Ngai province has attracted 283 investment projects, including 261 domestic ones with total registered capital of VND105,500 billion and 24 FDI projects with total registered capital of US$6133.7 million.
In general, the investment situation in Quang Ngai province in recent years has quite improved. Particularly in the field of FDI, although the economic situation in the world as well as in the country is very difficult, in the first 4 months of 2012, Quang Ngai province attracted four FDI projects with total registered capital of US$2552 million. This is an encouraging result and a sign proving that investment capacity of Quang Ngai is quite attractive.
Thus, compared with some provinces and cities in the country, the number of FDI projects of Quang Ngai province in recent years is not high but the total registered investment capital is very high, so Quang Ngai is always in the top provinces in attracting FDI. There are some large-scale projects such as Guanlian steel projects (China), Dung Quat Thermal Power Project (Singapore), project of Heavy Industry Doosan Co., and projects of Industrial zone-Urban-Service of VSIP.
The resolute measures for unqualified investors and delayed projects are important factors to increase the investment efficiency. How does Quang Ngai approach these?
Investment attraction activities of the province are on the rise. However, the status of implementation of investment projects is relatively slow, mainly due to financial difficulties. A recent review showed that over 50 percent of projects have delayed implementation due to lack of funds.
Under these circumstances, the provincial People's Committee has directed the investment management agencies in the area to review specific projects which have been slowly implemented in order to support removing obstacles for those projects. For projects with difficulties that cannot be removed or the investor is not qualified to continue the project, the province is determined to reclaim to create opportunities for other investors. With the direction of the provincial people’s committee, after reviewing and determining the reason for delay, the departments, together with agencies and investors, will focus on solving problems to accelerate progress, withdraw some projects and make the province's investment environment healthier.
Currently, investors implementing investment projects often encounter many difficulties; especially, cumbersome administrative procedures make many investors frustrated and some even give up. Could you tell us about what Quang Ngai has done to actively overcome difficulties, retain existing investors and attract new ones?
To retain existing investors, the province directed the departments and agencies to strengthen management, monitoring after granting licenses, reporting to the provincial People's Committee for directions, and timely supporting investors. In addition to the role of law enforcement, the province reviews all investment procedures and directed the Department of Planning and Investment to build a detailed province's investment process, and the mechanism of coordination between departments to support investors to complete the procedure quickly.
Besides, to attract new investors, the province directed the departments to urgently revise, supplement and complete the planning and approval thereby supporting investors to complete the investment procedure quickly. On policies, the Department of Planning and Investment is assigned to build new more open, more attractive policies, but does not violate the general provisions of the Government. The province is also building a mechanism to create clean land area meeting the requirements of investors looking to deploy a project.
In addition, we also focus on improving the quality of human resource, investing and improving infrastructure system to meet the requirements of investors coming to Quang Ngai.
What are Quang Ngai’s key markets to attract investment from in 2012, both domestic and international? To be able to successfully conquer these markets, what are the province’s strategies as well as specific measures?
According to the world survey results in investment, in 2012, Vietnam is still among the top places in the ASEAN region with a high level of FDI attraction, especially from Japan and the emerging economies of Asia.
From that orientation, Quang Ngai has continued to focus on promoting partners from East Asia such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan and India. Also, to effectively attract investment, the province will have incentives as well as dominant resources to support investors to complete investment procedures, and assist in site clearance compensation to hand over area to the investors. Besides, the province strengthens management and monitors progress after granting license to promote the implementation and disbursement of investment capital.
For the domestic market, the province will call the investors having capacity and experience in the field of auxiliary industries, agro-processing industry, forestry and fisheries, and infrastructure development, and pay special attention to investors from Quang Ngai province.
Quang Ngai aims to become an industrial province by 2020. What is the province’s orientation to attract investment toward this goal? And in your opinion, what catalysts does the province need to put in place to increase investment attraction efficiency?
To achieve the goal of becoming an industrial province by 2020, the province enacted its Resolution of industrial development, which provides direction to attract investment in this industry. The province focuses on attracting investment on heavy industry, petrochemical industry and supporting industries to serve the increasing refinery capacity that is up to 10 million tonnes / year. Besides, the province also attracts investment projects in other areas as mentioned above. Quang Ngai will endeavour to reform administrative procedures and, for large projects, the province will establish joint working group to monitor and assist, support and advise the province to promptly remove difficulties and obstacles to their implementation. Besides, the province also has special mechanisms and policies to help investors solve initial difficulties in implementing the project.
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