Endowed with huge potential and advantages though, Vinh Long province has so far attracted only modest investment, and this affected the province’s social and economic development. Mr Le Quang Trung, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Vinh Long province, said: “To address this reality, Vinh Long is applying comprehensively consistent solutions to improve the local business and investment environment to attract domestic and foreign investors". Duc Binh reports.
Apart from a favourable geographical location, what other advantages does Vinh Long have to attract investment?
Vinh Long has a special geographical location. It is located downstream the Mekong River Basin between the Tien River and the Hau River, which are connected by the Mang Thit River in the north-south direction. The thickly and evenly interlaced river system makes Vinh Long province a transport hub for the Mekong Delta region and the world. Major ports are Tieu, Dai, Ham Luong , Co Chien and Dinh An.
Apart from its location advantage, Vinh Long also has other advantages like rice cultivation and fruit production. Famous specialty fruits are Nam Roi pomelo, sweet orange, longan and rambutan. Every year, the province picks over 535,000 tonnes.
Fishery economy plays a groundbreaking role in developing and restructuring the province’s agro-fishery economy. Aquatic production (primarily catfish and red tilapia) is about 150,000 tonnes a year. The province also raises livestock and poultry, with 5.7 million heads of chickens, cows and pigs.
Besides, Vinh Long has a huge reserve of clay, estimated at 100 million cubic metres. This is the key material for brick, tile, ceramic and handicraft production. Clay-fired products have been exported worldwide, even demanding markets.
By promoting the advantages of the Mekong River, Vinh Long province creates homestay tourism - a combination of water world and garden discovery. In addition, the province is particularly interested in bettering the investment environment; vividly evidenced by boldly innovative administrative reform, which centres on raising the transparency of government, strengthen the confidence of businesses in rules of law, improving the efficiency of contract dispute settlement.
Vinh Long perhaps does not have as rich natural resources as other provinces in the region but it can still achieve good economic development and high provincial competitiveness index (PCI). According to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), PCI of Vinh Long province rose from the 54th position in 2011 to the fifth position nationwide and the third in the Mekong Delta region in 2012.
Vinh Long province has introduced many policies to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). But, the number of FDI projects in the province is very modest. How will the province improve this situation?
We will focus on perfecting policies and regimes for a better business environment. Apart from changing the way of thinking and awareness of the political system and the people towards investment attraction, the province also steps up administrative procedure reform towards a single-window or one-stop shop mechanism to ease paperwork for enterprises.
In planning, the province has approved the socioeconomic development master plans of six out of eight districts, towns and cities and nine industry development plans, which are introduced to domestic and foreign investors. The province improves the quality of planning and investment project list to ensure transparency, stability and predictability and facilitates investors to seek investment opportunities. Apart from building and developing investor support service system, the province also focuses on building effective investment promotion programmes. If investors are confronting difficulties with their projects, provincial authorities will arrange direct meetings with investors and local governments to seek solutions to press on their projects.
To improve the quality of human resources, the province has implemented human resource planning project for the 2011-2015 phase, with the orientation to 2020. Accordingly, the province has focused on high-quality human resource training and encouraging businesses and training units to provide best human resources for the market.
The above measures are carried out synchronously. The harmonious combination of investment elements is one of top-priority efforts to create an attractive business environment, encourage, facilitate and reassure enterprises, especially foreigners, to do business in the province.
To effectively tap local potential and advantages, how has Vinh Long province mobilised investment capital sources for infrastructure system development, especially technical and traffic infrastructure for investors?
Being aware of the importance of improving infrastructure systems for social and economic development and raising living standards of local people, Vinh Long province has given priority to mobilising and allocating capital sources for infrastructure development.
As regards traffic development, the province now has five national roads and 10 provincial roads. District and commune road systems basically meet freight transportation and passenger travelling demands.
Regarding power grid development, the province has invested in many electrification programmes and projects to bring electricity to far-lying areas. The province is managing 1,954 km of medium-voltage lines, 2,903 km of low-voltage lines and 4,225 transformer stations with a total capacity of 289.5 MVA. Up to now, 98.9 percent of households have access to electricity.
Concerning water supply system development, at present, the province has eight urban water systems with 10 plants, serving 86 percent of urban dwellers. It also runs 106 rural water supply stations, of which 28 stations are located in new countryside communes and 24 stations are situated in flood-sheltering areas.
The information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and information technology (IT) equipment basically meet the demand of investors.
The province has invested to build infrastructure for industrial zones to attract investors. Presently, Vinh Long province has two industrial parks and Co Chien industrial line. It plans to build three more centralised industrial parks, namely Binh Tan, Dong Binh and An Dinh, to meet the needs of domestic and foreign companies.
Resolute measure to under-qualified investors and delaying projects is a vital factor to enhance investment attraction efficiency. So, what has Vinh Long province done about this?
Indeed, Vinh Long province has not attracted many big investors with supporting industries, advanced technologies and high value-added products. Most companies are of small and medium scales. Investment progress is quite slow.
To address these weaknesses, the province has examined projects, specially food-dragging ones. The Provincial People’s Committee assigned the Department of Planning and Investment to inspect, grasp project progress, and learn about difficulties against investors to advise the provincial government to make a change. Besides, incapable investors will have their projects revoked. To date, the province rescinded investment licences for 30 projects with a total registered capital of VND4,849.9 billion. In the coming time, the province will continue to inspect and review licensed projects to rule out infeasible projects.
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