Long An Blessed with Great Advantages to Attract Investment

9:25:57 AM | 16/11/2011

Compared to other Mekong Delta provinces, Long An is endowed with favourable conditions to attract domestic and foreign investment. The significant investment outcome is the clearest evidence for the attractiveness of the investment environment of Long An province. Vietnam Business Forum interviews Mr Phan Thanh Phi, Head of the Long An Industrial Zones Authority, on this issue. Ha Linh reports.
Could you talk about the investment attraction results in industrial parks in the province in the past time?
The Prime Minister recently approved Long An province’s request for transforming seven small-scale industrial complexes into centralised industrial parks (IPs) and adding them to the List of Industrial Parks prioritised for formation till 2015 and towards 2020. Thus, Long An province has to date had 30 industrial parks with a total area of 9,700 ha in the List of Industrial Parks prioritised for formation till 2015 and towards 2020. The Prime Minister’s decision has supported these IPs in attracting more domestic and international investors. The licensing enables these IPs to apply the eagerly awaited single-window mechanism. Previously, investors had to go to the Department of Construction to apply for construction permits or go to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to deal with environmental papers, but they now can do all these with the Long An Industrial Zones Authority.
 
Currently, the 30 IPs (a total area of 10,940 ha) have 54 infrastructure investment projects managed by 46 infrastructure investors. In the year to date, 43 investment projects rented 55 ha of land in IPs, including 25 foreign investment projects capitalised at US$43.4 million and 18 domestic projects worth VND580 billion (US$28 million). Eight operational foreign-led projects raised their investment capital by US$72.5 million and 6 domestic projects added VND546 billion to their registered investment capital.
 
The Long An Industrial Zones Authority said industrial parks in Long An province have housed 458 investment projects which rented 920 ha of land, including 167 foreign-invested projects worth US$1,376 million and 291 domestic investment projects worth US$18,600 billion (US$915 million).
 
How has Long An province changed to facilitate investors?
These results accrued from attractive tax incentives and easy administrative procedures (applied ISO 9001:2001 international quality standards). Besides, investors are supported to cope with all obstacles arising from the process of project implementation and production operation. The Long An province Industrial Zones Authority has directed its staff to support investors even in the lunch hour in an attempt to generate more time for investors during official business hours. To date, the authority has not received any complaints about administrative procedures. This is an award for the efforts of all our staff.
 
In addition to incentives and support for quickly completed procedures, what else does Long An province have to attract domestic and foreign investors?
The attractiveness of Long An’s investment environment is increasing along with infrastructure connections between Long An with Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces. Long An has a very convenient traffic position because it lies in the heart of the southern key economic zone. In the southern key economic zone development strategy, Long An province is considered a potential destination and it is thus designed to be a satellite urban zone for Ho Chi Minh City. Particularly, nine southeast districts and towns, namely Tan An, Duc Hoa, Ben Luc, Can Giuoc, Can Duoc, Tan Tru, Chau Thanh, Thu Thua, Duc Hue and Thanh Hoa, will be key urban areas with direct connection in socioeconomic activities with Ho Chi Minh City. They will be bridges for connecting industrial and service development of Ho Chi Minh City with Long An in particular and the Mekong Delta provinces in general.
 
Besides, Long An province is also completing the construction of infrastructure systems like transportation, electricity, water, post and telecommunications to provide the best services for all investors when they do business here. Moreover, human resources are another plus for the province. The province has a population of 1.5 million people, including 900,000 people of working age. Furthermore, Long An easily attracts labourers from neighbouring provinces.
 
Although investment attraction results are quite high in relation to other Mekong Delta provinces, these outcomes are still below the expectations of Long An. What measures will Long An province take to attract more investment capital?
First of all, Long An province’s infrastructure is less than perfect because it is in a low-lying area. This decreases the attractiveness of the province in relation to Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, where the terrain is more favourable. Additionally, the transport system in Long An is not as good as in Ho Chi Minh City. This also puts a brake on investment flows.
 
In 2009, Decree 69 provided that the support for residents resettled to spare land for industrial parks was to be raised from 1.5 fold to 5 fold. While investors wanted to apply the lowest compensation rate, affected people demanded the highest one. As the definitions and provisions are unclear and inconsistent, site clearance and land compensation are often sluggish, forcing many investors to abandon their effort and choose other localities. Worse, in 2011, Vietnam applied tightened credit policies on property development investment, and infrastructure development was considered a non-productive field and was subjected to credit crunch policy. This imperceptibly dragged on the construction of infrastructure in Long An. For any industrial park, infrastructure availability is the most important criterion.
 
The Long An Industrial Zones Authority will create the most favourable conditions for investors to do business in Long An. It is striving to increase the value of investment capital attracted by 10 percent from the previous year.