Prioritising Attraction of High-tech and Environment Friendly Projects

"Da Nang city continues to prioritise investment in high-tech industries, supporting industries, high-quality services, information technology and services such as education, healthcare and logistics, to contribute to speed up the restructuring and economic shifting, and build Da Nang into an environmentally-friendly and industrialised city." This is the confirmation of Mr Tran Van Son, Director of Da Nang Department of Planning and Investment, in an interview with Vietnam Business Forum around some results and solutions to attract investment of the city. Quoc Hung reports.

Could you please tell us about the results in attracting investment that Da Nang has achieved?
As of May 31, 2017, the city attracted 486 foreign-invested projects with a total registered investment of US$3.25 billion, of which, the total realized capital reached 67 percent of total investment registration. Investors come from 40 countries and territories. For investment in the country, the city issued investment certificates and investment decision for 148 projects with a total investment capital of VND85,400 billion.

Thanks to that result, the appearance of the city has changed; many high-rise modern buildings have been constructed and many resorts of globally known brands are now found in the city such as Intercontinental, Hyatt, Sheraton, Pullman, and more.

Attracting investment has created jobs, improved skills for local people and in neighbouring areas, contributing to improving the lives of workers; diversifying commodities and increasing export turnover, contributing to the socio-economic development of the city in a sustainable manner, especially services and tourism.

What is the core factor determining the success of Da Nang in attracting investment?
Da Nang is blessed with mountains, forests, sea, lakes and peninsula, and a strategic location as an important transportation hub of the country, so it can promote economic and tourist investment activities in the country and the region. They are important factors, but the deciding factor in my opinion is still the city's efforts. The promotion of administrative reform has created a strong breakthrough to well implement the policies and guidelines of both Da Nang and central leaders.

Da Nang has actively planed the land to call for investment in large projects; built six industrial parks and one hi-tech park in service of production and business activities of enterprises. At present, the city is preparing to invest in the construction of four more industrial parks to attract more investment into the city.

Da Nang has built and implemented the programme "Da Nang Year of Enterprises 2014" (and continues to deploy in the following years) which has focused on removing difficulties, and helping businesses maintain and develop production, business, especially in terms of capital and policies.

In addition, the "Da Nang Enterprise Development Project to 2020" with solutions to improve the investment environment, production and business, technology solutions, production and business premises, credit solutions, human resources, trade promotion and investment promotion, have brought positive impacts to the business community.

Can you tell us what solutions Da Nang has to continue to improve the efficiency of attracting investment, enhance the competitiveness to attract investment?
In the context of attracting more and more competitive investment, in addition to the policies and solutions that have been developed and applied in the past, the city continues to offer solutions to continue in the coming time, to improve the efficiency of investment attraction as follows: Continue administrative reform and reduce the time to solve in many fields such as tax procedures, customs, labour, investment registration, to create a favourable investment environment, quickly remove difficulties and obstacles for businesses, create business confidence for the city government.

The city will further elaborate the land plots which are ready to call for investment, to formulate more preferential policies and investment support for branches and domains prioritised for investment attraction so as to encourage the development of enterprises, and continue to supplement capital for the City Development Investment Fund to support start-up businesses and projects that need loans to develop business.

The city will continuously develop infrastructure, renovate the training of human resources, expand the cooperation with localities in countries that Da Nang identified as key partners to attract potential investors, such as Japan, Korea, USA and Singapore, and renovate investment promotion.

With the orientation of building Da Nang into an environment friendly city, what will the city do to attract the high tech, friendly environment projects?
Da Nang has been aiming to build an environment friendly city with a green economy; it is expected that by 2020, Da Nang will basically meet the requirements on environmental quality of land, water and air, prevent pollution and degradation of the environment, especially in the marine environment. Therefore, the issue of attracting selective investment projects has been set up by the city. In spite of the low level of FDI, the city has denied many big projects of US$200 million to US$2 billion in order to avoid negative impacts on the environment.

Socio-economic development orientation of Da Nang city is to strongly develop services, especially tourism and trade; to concentrate on attracting investment in hi-tech industries and information technology; to encourage the development of supporting industries, especially focusing on deploying effective solutions to boost the attraction of investment into the city. In terms of attracting investment, the city attracts clean projects, develops sustainably, restricts the attraction of large projects, but has the potential to pollute the environment.

In the coming time, the city will continue to prioritise investment in hi-tech industries, supporting industries, high-quality services, information technology and services such as education, medical and logistics, to speed up the restructuring and economic shifting and build Da Nang into an environment friendly, industrialised city. Da Nang will continue to manage and closely control the attraction of new investment projects, ensuring security and defence and sustainable development. The city does not allow investment projects to use or install backward technologies and equipment that may cause environmental pollution or reduce competitiveness, thus affecting the sustainable development and integration of the economy.