Industrial development is considered the shortest way to help the new land of Hau Giang grow out of its pure agricultural status. Therefore, planning concentrated industrial zones and clusters is the solution preferred by provincial leaders, focusing on accelerating economic restructuring, poverty alleviation and employment generation for rural workers.
Sharing on industrial development advantages of Hau Giang, Vo Van Thang, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Trade said that Hau Giang had the advantages of agricultural and fisheries raw materials and was located in the centre area connecting the west of Hau River and Ca Mau Peninsula and the bridge between Can Tho and Kien Giang - Bac Lieu - Soc Trang. This is a solid foundation for Hau Giang to develop industry. Besides, thanks to the advantage of being adjacent to Can Tho, investors in Hau Giang can take advantage of the infrastructure system of warehouses, ports, banking, finance, postage, telecommunications and airline services of the city.
On the basis of considering industrial development the shortest way for Hau Giang to get rid of its pure agricultural status, since the splitting of the province, Hau Giang’s leaders have always created the best conditions for investment and development. Provincial leaders and the localities have been flexible in investment attraction, calling for investment on the basis of selecting projects to match the orientation of each locality. In addition, provincial leaders and related departments coordinate closely to have clean ground to hand-over to investors as soon as possible. It can be seen when many projects have completed land clearance in a very short time and quickly began to operate efficiently, such as VDA Hau Giang distribution warehouse and Minh Phu - Hau Giang food processing complex. Particularly, a province has been newly formed, thus besides centre preferential investment policies, Hau Giang also issued many preferential investment policies to develop and promote investment in building socio-economic infrastructure, especially transportation infrastructure to create favourable conditions for enterprises to achieve operation efficiency.
Up to now, the province has established two industrial zones, four concentrated industrial clusters and 4 industrial – handicraft clusters; attracted 63 investment projects, including 32 projects in operation. The value of industrial production increased from VND2,421 billion (2004) to VND6,084 billion (2013) and is estimated at over VND2,861 billion in the first 6 months of 2014. The number of businesses and industrial manufacturing based cottages rose from 2,500 (in 2004) to 4,322 enterprises engaged in industrial production and handicraft. Many large scale domestic and foreign projects have been implemented in the province such as Minh Phu - Hau Giang food processing complex, VDA Hau Giang general distribution warehouse, the Hau River Power Centre; Lee & Man pulp and paper production factory (Hong Kong).
However, looking at the overall level, the industrial development potential of Hau Giang province have not been fully exploited due to some remaining obstacles. For example, the global economic crisis has affected the progress of investment projects in concentrated industrial zones and clusters; investment attraction policies have not truly been complete, especially in reimbursement and clearance; most manufacturing businesses in the area are small or medium sized, and are passive and management remains poor; machinery and technology applications in manufacturing are obsolete with little innovation, which limits their competitiveness in the market,
To overcome this obstacle, in the upcoming time, the trade and industry sector of Hau Giang will focus on completing guidelines and policies to attract investment in industrial sector; call and encourage all domestic and foreign economic sectors to invest in industrial development in the area. Also it will use capital to complete construction of technical infrastructure of industrial zones and clusters and transportation lines directly affecting production and business activities. At the same time it encourages and supports enterprises to invest in technological innovation, promotes industries with competitive advantage, manufactures exports goods, attracts workers, strengthens the state management apparatus, removes promptly difficulties for enterprises in business activities. Besides, the whole sector will speed up industrial operation promotion and management and effectively use central and local budget. Mr Thang emphasized, "This is an effective measure to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises in the province during the integration process."
Thanh Tam
Vietnamese
