Phu Yen Boasts Positive FDI Outlook in 2011

It is clear that Phu Yen has significantly improved its rankings on the list of best FDI locations in recent years. Positive results have importantly enabled the province to find out its own ways, basing on local available resources. Phu Yen has spared no effort to improve investment climate by upgrading technical infrastructure, especially traffic infrastructure, building concentrated industrial zones, and reforming administrative procedures relating to investment activities. Hence, the number of licensed FDI projects and value has risen in Phu Yen in recent years. This outcome has helped Phu Yen confidently set an annual economic growth of 14-15 percent on average from now to 2020, and shift economic structure towards a higher proportion of industry and services. Per capita GDP is expected to reach US$3,000 at that time.

 

To achieve these goals, provincial leaders see FDI capital as an important driving factor to create breakthroughs in Phu Yen province in the coming years. According to the Department of Planning and Investment, Phu Yen province attracted VND758 billion of FDI capital from 2001 to 2005, accounting for just 7 percent of the total development investment capital but the amount soared to VND5,808 billion in the 2006 - 2010 period , accounting for 21 percent of the total development investment capital in the province. To create development momentums for the 2011 - 2020 period, the province expects to catch VND24.48 trillion of FDI capital in the 2011 - 2015 stage, accounting for 37.66 percent of the total local development investment capital and increasing 4.2 times from the 2006 - 2010 period.

 

Chairman of Phu Yen People’s Committee Pham Dinh Cu said FDI has made important contributions to economic restructuring and industrial production expansion. The FDI sector’s growth of industrial production value is higher than the overall growth of the province's industrial sector, thus playing significant roles in promoting economic restructuring towards the direction of industrialisation and modernisation. Moreover, FDI has improved the capacity of sugar, chemical, food and agricultural processing and tourism sectors. Effective performances of FDI companies can be translated from their augmentation of investment capital for production expansion, causing a ripple effect on other economic sectors. The presence of this sector also creates driving forces and competitive environment for businesses in the province to adapt with the globalisation trend.

Assessing FDI attraction outcomes and effects, Mr Cu said Phu Yen has a low economic starting point and locates far from economic centres in the country; thus, it drew only 36 FDI projects with a total registered investment capital of US$273 million from 2000 to 2005. But, with efforts to improve its investment environment in combination with the objective of turning Phu Yen province into the eastern gateway of the Central Highlands as approved by the Government, the FDI capital attracted has significantly improved since 2006 to date. As a result, many large-scale FDI projects have been licensed, including the infrastructure construction project in Hoa Tam Petrochemical Industrial Zone and the Naphtha Cracking Petrochemical Complex, the Phu Yen high-grade tourism complex. In particular, in 2010, 20 domestic and international investor delegations came to Phu Yen to explore investment opportunities. Many visitors were gigantic conglomerates like EAB New Energy (exploring wind power projects), U.S. Capital Group International, Canadian Cavina Import Export Limited, Japanese Rakiuchi Band Solution Co, Ltd, German corporations, and embassies of the United States, France, Hungary and the UAE. This proved that Phu Yen province is catching the fancy of investors, especially in tourism, mining and commercial forestation. 

 

Also last year, the Department of Planning and Investment advised the governing Provincial People's Committee to approve in principle 22 private projects with a total registered investment capital of VND439.2 billion, licensed seven projects with a total capital of VND1,594 billion, of which six were Vietnamese-invested projects worth VND1,394 billion and one FDI project worth VND200 billion. So far, the province is home to 35 operational FDI projects with a combined registered capital of US$8.057 billion. Phu Yen also pays attention to public administration reform to simplify procedures required for investors.

 

Remarking on FDI attraction in Phu Yen in 2011, Director of Planning and Investment Department Nguyen Chi Hien said the result in 2011 will be better. The province will celebrate its 400^th founding anniversary this year and will host the National Southern Central Coast Tourism Year. This is an opportunity to step up introduction and advertisement of local potential to domestic and foreign investors. At present, the province is reviewing and promoting the implementation of licensed FDI projects. In 2010, some very large investment projects like Phu Yen luxury tourism complex, Vung Ro oil refinery, Hon Nua ecotourism zone completed investment procedures for construction commencement. Some underway projects have registered for expansion like Hon Ngoc - Bai Tram ecological tourism site, Sao Viet ecological tourism site and Dong Xuan sugar mill. In 2011, the province expects to see US$170 million of FDI capital to be disbursed on investment projects, an increase of 143 percent from 2010. Aggregate revenues of FDI companies are forecast to reach US$135 million, up 187 percent.

 

Hien said Phu Yen province will focus on reforming administrative procedures to simplify and speed up the completion of required paperwork for investors in an effort to enhance the attractiveness of the local investment environment to FDI investors. In addition, the province will expand international relations, strive to improve provincial competitiveness index (PCI), promote potentials and advantages, use internal resources effectively, mobilise external resources to speed up economic growth and ensure sustainable development. Phu Yen will frequently check on licensed investment projects and quickly help investors to deal with difficulties arising from their projects.