With experience in developing industrial parks, for the past years, Ba Ria – Vung Tau is always among those attracting the highest foreign direct investment (FDI ) in the country. Mr Nguyen Anh Triet, Acting Director of the Provincial Industrial Park Management Board said: “The development of industrial parks makes an important contribution to the province’s GDP growth rate.” Kim Bang reports.
For over the past 20 years, Ba Ria – Vung Tau has made good progress in its modernisation process. This achievement is thanks to the contribution of local industrial parks. Can you tell about this for us?
There are 14 industrial parks with a total area of 8,401.58 hectares in Ba Ria – Vung Tau. In recent years, despite the economic situation riddled with difficulties, the provincial Industrial Park Management Board has been very active in its investment promotion activities, supporting and calling for investors both at home and abroad to come and invest in the province. With the slogan “All for the satisfaction of investors,” the Management Board always pays attention to serving investors well, being open and friendly to those just coming to learn about or investing in the area; thus, presenting a good image to new investors. In addition, the Management Board also actively changes the way of promoting investment. The Management Board also coordinates with the Provincial People’s Committee and other relevant departments to promote the province’s potential and good investment environment of industrial parks via overseas media, diplomatic missions, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and non-government organisations, to investors from Japan.
Thanks to these efforts, investment flows into the industrial parks in Ba Ria – Vung Tau are growing. Currently, the total registered investment capital in the industrial parks in Ba Ria – Vung Tau is US$12.53 billion, with FDI being US$8.2 billion, accounting for 66 percent of the total capital. Although in recent years, Vietnam’s economy has been badly affected by the global downturn, the FDI inflows of investment into the province’s industrial parks keeps expanding.
Before the establishment of industrial parks in the province, industrial production capacity in the province (excluding the oil and gas industry) was at small scale, mainly in projects in the fields of semi-processing of agro- forestry- fisheries, textile, footwear, and materials mining, which use simple production technology and much manual labour, and have low added value. The operation of industrial parks has contributed to forming the basis for industrial production with modern processes and low manufacturing cost. Therefore, the quality is good, with high competitiveness on the domestic and export markets.
Through the development of industrial parks, a new system of economic and technical infrastructure has been formed, which has transformed the face of the region, positively impacting the establishment and rapid development over urban areas the province. More importantly, the operation of industrial parks has contributed to the formation of a new class of workers who are creative, highly qualified and handle new technology well, which improves production efficiency and creates more wealth for society. Currently, the industrial parks in Ba Ria – Vung Tau have created 43,159 jobs. This workforce is directly contributing to the process of promoting local economic growth. Particularly, the development of industrial parks has contributed to improving the efficiency of land use, effectively activated the exploitation of available potential and positively impacted the process of the industrialisation and economic restructuring of the province economy.
It can be seen now that almost all provinces and cities in the country have industrial parks with their own competitive advantages. What are the competitive advantages of industrial parks in Ba Ria – Vung Tau and your plan for effectively exploiting these advantages?
The current success is mainly thanks to the fact that industrial parks of Ba Ria – Vung Tau have taken advantage of the utility and infrastructure from the deep water port system (port group number 5) to reduce production costs and improve competitiveness of goods, thus attracting so many projects of large scale and huge investment capital in the province. Also, the industrial parks in Ba Ria – Vung Tau make good use of natural advantages and experience drawn from other localities. Therefore, they always satisfy and impress investors. The province’s industrial parks were established later than those of other provinces and cities, but so far, considering the criteria of scale, area, attracted investment capital, budget contribution and job settlement for employees, Ba Ria – Vung Tau industrial parks are among the leaders in the country.
What penalties are imposed for violations in environmental issues?
All local industrial parks are planned with layout ensuring green space covering 10 percent of the total land area. Also, all industrial parks, when coming into operation, are required to develop a centralised wastewater treatment system. So far there have been 8 wastewater treatment plants in the industrial parks. On the issue of solid waste treatment, in addition to the investment projects on solid waste treatment in the Toc Tien area which cover 100 hectares, the industrial park is currently implementing the project on layout green materials dealing with steel slag waste. Basically the solid waste in the industrial park has been handled.
For violations in environment protection in industrial parks, if discovered, the Management Board will handle them as regulated or propose competent authorities handle as prescribed, in case the violation is beyond the jurisdiction of the Board.
Can you share more about the strategy for calling investment into industrial parks in the coming time?
The Management Board is currently focusing on, and has proposed to the Government, Ministry of Planning and Investment and relevant ministries, to gradually make Phu My III Industrial Park into a specialized industrial park to attract Japanese investors.
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