Through constant efforts to improve its investment climate, Phu Yen province has gained remarkable achievements in attracting capital. Vietnam Business Forum has had an interview with Mr Nguyen Chi Hien, Director of the Phu Yen Department of Planning and Investment. Quoc Hung reports.
Please tell us about the investment attraction activities of Phu Yen in recent years?
With clear directions from the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People's Council and the People's Committee, the investment attraction of Phu Yen has achieved many positive results. A number of projects with foreign investment were adjusted to increase in scale as well as capital amount, namely the Vung Ro oil refinery project of which the refinery plant’s capacity was expanded from 4 million tons/year to 8 million tons/year, total registered investment capital increased from US$ 1.7 billion to US$ 3.2 billion; the Son Hoa Sugar Plant project of KCP Vietnam Industry Co., Ltd. of which the sugar plant’s capacity was decided to increase from 5,000 tonnes/year to 8,000 tons/year (by 2016) and 10,000 tonnes/year (by 2018) with a total registered capital also went up from US$ 42 million to US$ 94.5 million; also there are several projects under review and consideration for acceleration to be more suitable with the current situation. Currently, Phu Yen province has 41 projects with foreign investment, with a total registered investment capital of US$ 7.850 billion; of which 28 projects have been put into full or partial operation.
Regarding domestic investment attraction, since 2006, Phu Yen has announced investment policy for 228 domestic investment projects, of which 64 have gone into operation and 123 projects are being implemented with a total registered capital investment of VND33,236 billion.
To obtain those results, what solutions has Phu Yen adopted?
To attract and manage investment in the context of economic downturn and fierce competition in attracting investment among localities, Phu Yen has implemented many measures. In terms of policy, we strengthened and increased the effectiveness in investment mobilization and promotion in the direction of supporting and creating favourable conditions for effective implementation of investment projects; perfecting mechanisms and policies to encourage investment. The province also continued to promote administrative reform, implementing the “one stop shop” and “interconnected one stop shop” mechanisms to simplify and synchronise administrative procedures among departments and agencies, towns and cities.
Simultaneously, the province also implemented measures to boost disbursement; refused to license projects using out-of-date technology, limiting projects having negative impacts on the environment; examined carefully projects using a large area of land, especially two-crop rice area, granting land with conditions and in line with project progress; reviewed the rate of investment yield/area of land, including land of industrial parks and economic zones. We also conducted review and inspection of projects which was granted investment certificates but hadn’t been implemented or progressed slowly in order to decide how to deal with each case specifically.
On planning: The province continued to improve the quality and efficiency of planning, from the stage of formulation, appraisal and approval to management; Publicizing approved planning; strengthening inspection and supervision to ensure investment and development were implemented in accordance with the approved plan.
On improving infrastructure, we tried to make the maximum out of all resources to develop infrastructure, focusing on exploiting capital outside of the state budget; prioritizing the sectors of transport, water supply and drainage, environmental sanitation.
On human resources: we promoted vocational training, arranging the network of schools and training centres, improving the quality of higher education to meet local human resource demands, while staying in accordance with the provincial socioeconomic structure; Improving the quality of civil servants based on standardization.
Results published in 2013 showed that the PCI index rating of Phu Yen continued to remain modest, so what kind of solution Phu Yen will have to improve the rating?
To overcome limitations and improve the competitiveness index, at the same time motivating investment attraction and socioeconomic development, the Provincial Party Committee and the People's Committee has issued timely and clear directions such as: Directive 3-CT/TU dated 18/3/2014 of the Provincial Standing Committee on strengthening provincial competitiveness; Directive 13/CT-UBND of the Provincial People's Committee dated 06/8/2013 on accelerating key tasks and solutions to improve the investment environment and enhance the provincial PCI period 2013 - 2015. Accordingly, in order to improve the PCI, it’s crucial to become transparent to make it easier for investors to approach.
With provincial objectives previously outlined: improving the PCI index of Phu Yen in 2014, aiming by 2015 to have the province among the top 10; striving to overcome difficulties to enhance the component indexes which were modest or declined in 2013, including: market access; access to land; transparency and access to information, time cost for observation of the States’ regulations, dynamic leadership of provincial leaders, legal institutions. Also, we continued to maintain and good component indexes to motivate investment and enterprise development, at the same time ensuring sustainable provincial socio-economic development.
Phu Yen boosted administrative reform; Simplifying procedures and speeding up procedures relating to investment, construction, land compensation and clearance; Focusing on reviewing, amending, supplementing or repealing provincial provisions which are no longer suitable, or are restricting business activities to reduce the time for business establishment, as well as the costs of market entering.
Can you tell us the general direction of Phu Yen to attract investment in the coming years?
With our potential and advantages, for investment attraction to achieve good results in the coming time, Phu Yen province has identified the general direction in attracting investment. Specifically, for the industry sector: Encouraging investment in the fields of oil and gas industry, petrochemical industry, information technology, electronics and biotechnology; focusing on technology from industrialized countries such as the US, EU, Japan; attaching FDI with development research and technology transfer; Encouraging investment in support industries to reduce input costs of raw materials and auxiliary materials, and improving the competitiveness of domestic products.
As for the construction industry: Encouraging both domestic and foreign investment to participate in construction of the technical infrastructure through appropriate methods including BOT, BT and PPP to build ports, roads, telecommunication networks, water supply, sewerage and waste disposal.
For the service and tourism sector: Encouraging domestic and foreign investors to pour capital in the fields of tourism, health care, education, training and financing, promoting the socialization according to the policy of the government.
For agriculture - forestry - fishery: Boosting investment in biotechnology projects to produce crops and breeds of high yield and quality to put into production to meet domestic and export demand; Encouraging investment in the field of food processing and preservation after harvest to improve product value and competitiveness; Strengthening the participation in the construction of technical infrastructure for agriculture - forestry.
For the orientation of FDI attraction by region: it’s predicted that investors would remain focused on areas with favourable geographical, natural and technical infrastructure conditions. To draw investors into areas where socio-economic conditions are difficult such as mountainous areas to study and invest, helping to narrow the development gap among regions, besides the incentives for foreign investment in disadvantaged areas, it’s also necessary to increase investment in infrastructure by state funding, ODA and economic sectors through appropriate forms.
For the orientation of FDI attraction by partners: In the future, with the support of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Investment Promotion Centre of the Central region, Phu Yen will organize conferences to promote investment in developed countries.
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