Nam Dinh Clearing Bottlenecks for Better Investment and Business Environment

9:23:06 AM | 15/7/2022

To achieve the breakthrough stage of accelerating administrative reforms and sharpening competitiveness as stated in the Resolution of the 20th Provincial Party Congress and Resolution 04-NQ/TU dated June 18, 2021 of the Provincial Party Committee, Nam Dinh province has drastically adopted many tasks and solutions to remove "bottlenecks" in improving the investment and business environment, said Mr. Pham Dinh Nghi, Chairman of Nam Dinh Provincial People's Committee.

In 2021, Nam Dinh achieved very impressive results of economic growth and investment attraction. How is the province spreading this outcome in 2022?

Despite facing numerous difficulties, thanks to the unified, drastic and flexible leadership of the Party and the government at all levels, especially the great effort of people and businesses, Nam Dinh farewelled 2021 with many very encouraging results. Its GRDP grew by 7.9% (Top 11 highest growth in the country); the industrial output value expanded by 14.0%; the export value rose 34.4% year on year to US$2,927 million; the State budget revenue climbed 29% to VND7,858 billion; and total social investment jumped 15.5% to VND87,450 billion. This performance is the foundation for the province to set goals in 2022: GRDP growth of 8.5%-9.5%, industrial growth of 14.0% or more, export value of US$3,000 million or more, investment growth of 16.5% or more, and budget revenue of over VND6,600 billion.

To successfully achieve these goals, the province is carrying out consistent tasks and solutions, including safe and flexible COVID-19 adaptation plans; improving planning quality; stepping up infrastructure investment; developing modern, high-tech commercial commodity agriculture; actively removing difficulties for enterprises; and creating conditions for early start of major projects. To continue its successful outcomes, in the first months of 2022, the province managed to maintain economic growth momentum, featured by the GRDP growth of 9.69%, agricultural growth of 3.13% and construction growth of 12.10%.

With a strong desire to grow higher and with its best effort, Nam Dinh is spreading positive factors, overcoming limitations in the way to realize its goals in 2022, and creating momentums for explosive growth.

In 2021, the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) climbed 16 places over 2020, one of the best results ever. This shows that Nam Dinh is effectively carrying out the breakthrough stage of "Speeding up administrative reforms and improving provincial competitiveness." Would you mind telling us more about this?

First of all, it must be affirmed that accelerating administrative reforms, sharpening competitiveness, and promoting and attracting investment is defined an important task and goal by the Party and government of Nam Dinh province. In the last two leadership terms, the Provincial Party Committee issued thematic resolutions to boost investment attraction and engaging the entire political system in action.

In the 2016-2020 period, this work was actively and strongly implemented and produced important results. The province licensed 461 new investment projects; witnessed a robust increase in corporate establishments; simplified 210 administrative procedures, all of which were public and transparent; and promoted e-Government construction, which was ranked one of seven best reformers of Level 4 administrative procedures nationwide by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

In the 2020 - 2025 term, the Provincial Party Committee determined that administrative reform, competitiveness improvement and investment promotion are regular and continuous tasks of the political system, catalysts for breakthrough development. Therefore, the province has set higher requirements and higher goals which demanded drastic action to achieve more substantive outcomes.

The committee also issued a separate resolution on stepping up administrative reforms, raising competitiveness, promoting and attracting investment in the 2021-2025 period (Resolution 04-NQ/TU dated June 18, 2021). On that basis, the Provincial People's Committee launched an action program on administrative reform, competitiveness improvement and investment promotion and attraction in 2021-2025 and an action plan for higher Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index) in 2021-2025. Relevant departments, branches and localities worked out specific plans, solutions and activities to build a professional, modern and effective public administration and create a favorable, equal and attractive business and investment environment.

These changes are translated into the PCI Index in 2021, which rose by 1.89 points to climb 16 places over 2020. Compared with previous years, some important subindices went up in ranking. For instance, time cost climbed by 45 places, access to land by 33 places, informal charge by 31 places, and legal and security institutions by 16 places. Moreover, investment attraction in 2021 expanded in investment projects and value. A group of gigantic projects invested by Xuan Thien Group cost up to nearly VND99,000 billion and My Thuan Industrial Park was registered with VND1,621 billion of investment capital.

An important factor for Nam Dinh to be recognized by businesses is good development of many important transport projects. Besides, the province is investing to build infrastructure systems for industrial zones to provide an abundant land fund for secondary investors to invest in production and business projects.

The governmental proactivity index continued to gain in score, reaching 6.73 points, an increase of 0.81 points over 2020. Many businesses said that the provincial government has a positive attitude for supporting enterprises to boost up business performance, especially solutions for the private sector to deal with difficulties amid negative impacts caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

To further improve the business investment environment and raise the PCI Index, what solutions will Nam Dinh province implement in the coming time?

Although Nam Dinh province's PCI 2021 climbed strongly, it is now staying in the group of good performers in the country and facing many existing limitations due to unsatisfactory public administration reform to people and businesses; loose coordination among stakeholders in supporting settlement of investment procedures; insufficient land fund; slow process of investment procedures for construction of technical infrastructure in industrial zones; and inadequate and unbalanced planning and implementation.


Nam Dinh provincial leaders witness the provincial Department of Planning and Investment and the Foreign Investment Agency (Ministry of Planning and Investment) sign a commitment to support investment attraction in My Thuan Industrial Park, November 25, 2021

To remove these "bottlenecks" to further improve the investment and business environment, Nam Dinh province will continue to take consistent tasks and solutions. First of all, the province will constantly foster leadership, direction and administration of authorities at all levels and branches; actively inform, raise awareness, responsibility and quality of public employees; strengthen public service discipline, raise the role, responsibility and accountability of agency leaders; strictly handle acts of harassment and trouble; step up construction of e-government; accelerate construction and development of smart cities, industrial and service centers; enhance operational quality and efficiency of the Center for Public Administration Service and Business Support by boosting publicity, transparency and modernity.

The province will also speed up construction of coastal roads and coordinate with the Ministry of Transport to implement the Day - Ninh Co Connection Project. Specially, on April 25, the province started construction of the second phase of a backbone traffic route linking its marine economic region with Cau Gie-Ninh Binh Highway, including Dong Cao Bridge across the Dao River that connects Y Yen and Nghia Hung districts. Other key traffic projects such as Ninh Binh - Nam Dinh - Thai Binh - Hai Phong Expressway (Nam Dinh was assigned to establish the investment project by the Government), and Nam Dinh - Lac Quan-Coastal Road are also being vigorously deployed.

In order to create an available land fund, the province started infrastructure construction in 159-ha My Thuan Industrial Park (My Loc district), 50-ha Thanh Coi Industrial Park (Vu Ban district), 50-ha Yen Bang Industrial Park (Y Yen district); carried out construction processes and procedures for many industrial zones in the province. In order to direct, inspect, urge investors and promptly remove their difficulties and obstacles in site clearance in important but complicated projects, on February 11, 2022, Nam Dinh Provincial Party Committee established a steering committee for this affair, installed with key leaders of the province and project-impacted localities.

Furthermore, the province launched key investment promotion events and initially obtained positive results. Right in Nam Dinh, the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee hosted meetings with FPT Corporation to discuss cooperation in digital transformation and human resource training; with leaders of Hanoi-based Vietnam National University on cooperation and support for the province in development science and technology, building a training facility of the university in the province; with leaders of the Ministry of Health and pharmaceutical enterprises on investment promotion in locally strong fields; with Vietnamese ambassadors to Japan and Singapore and with Vietnamese Consulate General in Hong Kong; and with embassies, organizations and business associations of Singapore and South Korea in Vietnam to introduce and promote investment opportunities in the province and attract investment flows into the locality.

Thank you very much!

Source: Vietnam Business Forum

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