Ideal Destination to Invest in Central Highlands

 

 Since being separated, with the special attention of the provincial party committee, people’s council and people’s committee, as well as close coordination with relevant departments and agencies, Dak Lak’s promotion work of trade, investment and tourism has continually been strengthened, helping to attract more investment projects in the province in various fields. In 2007, the provincial people’s council approved a scheme to establish a centre for trade, investment and tourism promotion, which is in charge of consulting the provincial people’s committee about the work. In addition, the provincial people’s committee yearly ratifies and spends part of its budget for activities relating to trade, investment and tourism promotion. The centre has joined hands with local authorities as well as national promotion programmes to gain the best possible results.      

 

Regarding investment promotion, so far the whole province has attracted 361 projects with total registered capital of VND48 trillion. The projects mainly focus on hydropower, the agricultural processing industry, forestry, construction and business services. 90 of these projects, totaling VND11.5 trillion, have been licensed and 80 projects have become operational.

 

A lot of investors operating in the fields of trade and tourism are eyeing the central highlands province because Dak Lak is also a large, dynamic consumption market. By the end of 2009, the whole province had more than 4,500 firms operating in different sectors such as production, services, tourism, export and import. With its advantage as the centre of the central highlands region, home to famous landscapes, Dak Lak’s tourism sector has made great steps. The whole province has, to date, had 116 hotels and guest houses with over 2,376 rooms, many meeting one to three-star standards. The province’s tourism sector attracts some 250,000 visitors annually.

 

Over the past years, the Centre for Trade, Investment and Tourism Promotion has paid special attention on raising skills of market penetration for firms in the integration period. It also supports local enterprises to attend fairs, exhibitions and national and international events on trade promotion in order to advertise domestic products, survey and exploit new markets. Particularly, Dak Lak these years has focused on advertising coffee products – its main export item – via big festivals such as Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festivals in 2005 and 2008; coffee cultural weeks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2007. The province plans to hold Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival 2010 late this year in order to introduce the Buon Ma Thuot coffee brand name to domestic and international consumers.          

Dak Lak produces a large volume of agricultural and forest materials to serve the processing industry yearly. The province has been calling investment into instant coffee processing, animal feed, woodwork, fresh water aquaculture, infrastructure construction in industrial complexes, education, heath, ecological tourism and pharmaceutical production.   

Like other localities in the country, Dak Lak has attached special importance to the reform of administrative procedures by issuing guides on investment procedures, implementing ISO 9001-2000 process at departments and agencies; building one-door mechanism, receiving and returning documents transparently in accordance with regulations. With these efforts, although Dak Lak’s provincial competitiveness index (PCI) in 2009 fell compared to that of 2008, the province topped the central highlands region and stood at the 38th among 63 provinces and cities.   

 

Regarding differences, the provincial people’s committee arranges every Thursday to receive and work with business representatives and investors, and holds twice a year meetings with the community of enterprises and investors to collect opinions, based on which the province will adjust and supplement policies to facilitate businesses as well as investors. 

 

The province has issued preferential policies to encourage and support investors such as the construction of transport roads, electricity and water supply and training of local laborers.

Since the Laws on Investment and Enterprise took effect, many investors have felt more secure pouring their capital into projects here. A lot of huge projects have been built, many of which have become operational, such as Coop mart supermarket, Intimex supermarket, brewery, Rang Dong coach station and hydropower projects.   

 

Located right in the centre of central highlands with advantages of transport, natural resources, Dak Lak has so far attracted a large number of investors and obtained certain achievements.    

 

However, the province still faces difficulties and challenges, which must be soon overcome in order to facilitate enterprises. For example, the prices of materials often increase, causing difficulties for investors in planning the scale of their business. Many sectors and fields have not yet planned while infrastructure in industrial complexes has not always been invested and upgraded appropriately, making difficulties for investors in assessing project effectiveness. Another difficulty is the lack of capital to buy coffee for farmers. Coffee prices, which fell sharply over the last years, caused difficulties for both enterprises and growers in planting, harvesting, processing and exporting coffee.