For more than 22 years of construction and development (1997-2019), industrial parks and economic zones (IP, EZ) in Long An province have been a driving force to promote local economic development with the growth of industry – construction sector estimated at 14.8%.
Promoting the advantage
Compared to the long-term development in Binh Duong and Dong Nai, Long An province has just started to emerge as a new investment destination; however, the results of investment attraction as well as the recent development of enterprises have partly reflected the strong investment attraction in this locality.
Thanks to the strength of ready-built factories, in recent years, its IPs have attracted a large number of investors and manufacturers in supporting industry from various countries such as Japan and South Korea, which have advanced production. This is a potential and a basis for large-scale businesses to come to Long An to invest in making use of the diverse support products manufactured in this area.
According to the data of Long An Economic Zone Authority, up to now, Long An province has formed 31 IPs with a total area of 11,391.07 ha, of which there are 2 IPs invested by enterprises having foreign capital, 24 IPs have been granted investment certificates with an area of 8,450.34 ha, a total investment of US$13 million and VND 42,356.99 billion. The province also has 1 Long An Border Gate Economic Zone with a total natural area of 13,080 ha gradually invested in development; Binh Hiep Border Gate Industrial Park already has investors in production and business activities, has now filled 13% of industrial land and is a potential new investment destination that is interested by many domestic and foreign investors.
As of December 2019, the IPs in the province attracted 1,548 projects, including 755 foreign-invested projects (FDI) with a total investment capital of US$ 4,213.42 million and 793 domestic investment projects with a total investment capital of VND 86,705.81 billion. Also in 2019, the production and business situation in Long An Industrial Parks achieved encouraging results: Export turnover of FDI and domestic enterprises reached US$ 1,458 million, up 11.72% over the same period; in which the FDI sector reached US$ 1,267 million, up 16.96% over the same period in 2018 and contributed 86.91% to the total export turnover of both the FDI and domestic sectors. The revenue in 2019 of the FDI sector reached US$ 1,872 million, up 3.63% over the same period in 2018; the domestic sector’s revenue reached VND 24,050 billion, an increase of 1.78% compared to the same period in 2018; and payments to State budget included US$ 53.15 million of the FDI sector and VND 1,011 billion of the domestic sector.
According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thanh, Director of Long An Economic Zone Authority, the planning and investment for development of IPs and EZs in the province plays an important role in speeding up industrial development in particular and the province's overall economic growth in general, thereby shifting the economic structure towards increasing industrial density, contributing to the province's industrialization and modernization. IPs and EZs have created land funds with synchronous technical infrastructure such as transportation, electricity, water supply and drainage, and environmental treatment, helping businesses to proactively arrange factories and workshops according to the development plan and environment protection, overcoming the situation of small and scattered development and difficulties in technical infrastructure.
The establishment and development of IPs and EZs will create more new jobs for local people, create a large number of jobs for the labor force and support the settlement of socio-economic issues in the province.
Ready to accompany investors
With the main responsibility in managing EZs and IPs, the Authority thoroughly understands and implements the guideline of willingness to serve, always accompanying enterprises; always respecting, ready to listen to the opinions of businesses.
Accordingly, the Authority regularly and actively cooperates with departments, sectors and localities in timely solving difficulties and problems for enterprises, helping enterprises feel secure in production and business activities. It has strengthened investment promotion on the spot with specific actions such as: Creating all favorable conditions for enterprises to implement administrative procedures; solving procedures on investment and construction correctly, quickly, earlier than the prescribed time to save time and costs for businesses.
In order to create favorable conditions for enterprises to access details of projects and investment environment of the province, the Economic Zone Authority has built a Portal to promote investment in IPs and EZs on website http://ipinvietnam.vn with 5 languages English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese added in 2019. The website has always attracted the attention of users on many countries in the world to access and search information.
Besides, through the form of dialogue with businesses, the Authority wants to convey the friendly, close image and the enthusiasm of the province to investors, helping businesses recognize the provincial leaders’ interest on the business community that has been investing in Long An.
According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thanh, the province advocates continuing to reduce the time to implement administrative procedures on investment, environment, construction and labor compared to the time prescribed by law. Especially, for the procedure of granting Investment Registration Certificate, the reduction of implementation time for administrative procedure is considered as a key and regular task in the state management activities of the unit with the desire to create favorable conditions for enterprises to implement the project, contributing to the overall development of the province.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
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