By tapping particular potential and strengths and well carrying out investment attraction orientations and policies, Tien Giang province has attracted a lot of investment projects, especially foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, which has helped speed up positive local economic restructuring. Vietnam Business Forum has an interview with Mr Nguyen Dinh Thong, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Tien Giang province. Thanh Tam reports.
Tien Giang is behind only Long An and Kien Giang provinces in the Mekong Delta in the value of FDI attracted. What solutions has the province taken to accelerate the deployment progress of FDI projects?
Tien Giang province had 79 operational FDI projects with total registered capital of US$1,536 million as of end-July 2014. This was the result the province had achieved since 1991 when it renovated regimes and policies and improved the investment environment to unlock local potential.
FDI value rose 29.9 percent annually from 2005 to 2013. The FDI sector contributed 2.2 percent of GDP in 2005 and 10 percent in 2013, showing its increasingly important contribution to local socioeconomic development. The industrial sector drew 73 FDI projects while the trade - service sector lured only six projects. To date, 16 countries and territories have investment projects in Tien Giang, led by South Korea with 22 projects (US$416 million). Hong Kong is the second biggest foreign investor with four projects (US$365 million), followed by China with 19 projects (US$297 million), Malaysia with four projects (US$155 million) and Taiwan with six projects (US$125 million).
Most FDI projects are quickly carried out and completed within two years of licensing. To further quicken the deployment of FDI projects, the province always focuses on public administration reform to reduce the time required for administrative procedures regarding investment, land rent and construction of investors, and plans the construction of industrial zones to create land funds and build infrastructure for new investment projects.
However, it is said that FDI attraction results are incommensurate with the province’s potential and advantages. How do you think about this?
In the past years, Tien Giang province has focused on analysing and reviewing the opinions of businesses, voters and deputies of the Provincial People’s Council on investment environment and investment attraction policies. Most agreed that investment results, though positive, are incommensurate with local potential and advantages and that the province should tap its advantages of favourable geographical position and infrastructure systems like HCM City - Trung Luong Highway, National Road 1 and National Road 60. In the past time, we did not have really effective measures to deploy and carry out Dong Nam Industrial Park (Tan Phuoc district), Go Cong Economic Zone and various industrial, residential, commercial and service zones.
The settlement of administrative procedures, especially those relating to land reclamation, is time-consuming because of disputes in land compensation, and resettlement support. Investment promotion, investor guide and support needs to be more active. Land planning fails to meet socioeconomic development demands. Many investment projects have to wait for final planning before they are officially licensed. Investment incentive and promotion policies are not timely updated to make the province more attractive to investors.
Currently, poor infrastructure and low labour quality are two weaknesses of Tien Giang province. We have focused on overcoming these two weaknesses, but the progress remains slow. In addition, the provincial competitiveness index (PCI) of Tien Giang province ranked quite low in 2013, especially sub-indices like business support services, labour training and transparency. These bottlenecks need to be removed to improve the investment environment.
So, how has Tien Giang actively taken out these "bottlenecks"?
To fish out these weaknesses in investment attraction, the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People's Committee have directed competent agencies to enhance planning quality. Currently, the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People's Committee are directing relevant agencies to review and adjust the master plan for socioeconomic development until 2020, with a vision to 2030 and the Tien Giang region construction plan and amend land-use planning.
To lure investors, the province has focused on building important infrastructure systems, particularly key projects like Provincial Road 871B to tap the National Road 50 and My Loi Bridge (kicked off in 2015) to shorten travel time between Go Cong area with Ho Chi Minh City and Southeast provinces, and water supply projects. Big projects in Southeast Tan Phuoc and Go Cong industrial areas will be centrally developed in 2014-2015.
Tien Giang province has also bettered the investment environment by reforming administrative procedures and improving the quality of investment promotion activities since the start of 2014. The Department of Planning and Investment and the Tien Giang Industrial Zones Authority pledged to finalise investment licensing in 15 working days. The list of investment calling projects and investment promotion documents have been compiled and published by the Tien Giang Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion Centre.
The province is expeditiously reviewing, supplementing and amending investment incentives. Tien Giang will give priority to agriculture and rural development projects, key projects in Southeast Tan Phuoc and Go Cong areas, and investment projects in poor areas. The Provincial People's Committee will also seek synchronous solutions to guide localities and relevant bodies to raise the provincial competitiveness index (PCI), particularly in lowly-ranked contents like business support services, transparency and labour training.
With the above solutions, we believe that Tien Giang province will achieve more positive results in investment attraction in the coming time.
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