An Giang: Has Great Advantages in Attracting Investment in Services
The Vietnam Business Forum held an interview with Mr. Nguyen Minh Nhi, chairman of the People's Committee of An Giang province.
Could you please comment on An Giang's remarkable accomplishments in economic development over recent years?
During the 1999-2004 period, An Giang province's economy has recorded many achievements. In the early period, the province's GDP growth rate stood at 6 per cent which has now risen to 10 per cent. GDP per capita in the province is VND 6.1 million, an increase of VND 1.6 million. Plan 31 of An Giang Provincial People's Committee has introduced various solutions aimed at effectively generating employment and enabling poor people to overcome the difficulties caused by the annual four-month-long floods, changing the habit of passive expectation to prevention with rescue aid, and thereby bringing down the poverty rate from 9.3 per cent in 1999 to 5.2 per cent in 2003.
Over the pat years, An Giang has made initial successes in transforming the economic structure of agriculture. The proportion of rice - a key export product - in the province's total export volume has been reduced from 83 per cent in 1999 to 55 per cent in 2003. Meanwhile, the annual export turnover has steadily increased from US$ 140 million to US$ 190 million, reaching US$ 700 million in total over the past four years. Moreover, the province has scored successes in the co-operative plan applied since 2001, which adopted the four-household linkage model and product consumption contracts with farmers. Based on the good results of the model, An Giang has developed a strategy for rural area development during the integration period of 2001-2020 with the core focus on the intellectualisation of farmers, production cooperatives, and the industrialisation and modernisation of agriculture and rural areas.
That said, the most formidable achievement of the province is in respect to the market. Following the US's anti-dumping file against Vietnam's tra and basa fishes, An Giang has rapidly shifted its attention to other markets, especially the domestic one, thereby preventing the fish export volume as well as the fish output of the province from falling. The province's export value of aquatic products has increased from US$20 million in 1999 to US$60 million in 2003. Thanks to the focus on development of the domestic market, the turnover of the two aquaculture companies in the province has reached VND52 billion in the late six months of 2003. Prompted by this achievement, An Giang has drawn a lot of valuable experience that will be useful for the development of the 2001-2020 market strategy.
Another notable accomplishment is that An Giang has managed to develop local finance based on internal resources. The province's total budget income increased from VND800 billion in 1999 to VND1,080 billion in 2003, thus making An Giang a member of the '1,000 billion-club' for the first time.
Could you please inform us of the investment opportunities that An Giang offers?
An Giang's geographic location is unfavourable for transportation, which can push up intermediary costs. Furthermore, the province's land is quite soft and very vulnerable to flood, thus raising the cost of infrastructure and workshop building. These factors make An Giang less attractive in terms of investment in manufacturing. However, the province enjoys great advantages in attracting investment into the service sector that represents the largest proportion in the provincial economic structure (49.6 per cent).
An Giang has two international border gates (waterway and road), one national border gate as well as river ports and seaports for the transit of foreign ships. An Giang has therefore become a strategic point between the economic zone south of Ho Chi Minh City and the ASEAN mainland and other island nations. In 2003, 900,000 tonnes of imports and exports were transported via the My Thoi Port of An Giang. The value of exports to Cambodia via the province's border gates reached US$130 million in 2002 and US$162 million in 2003, accounting for 70 per cent of the total export value from Vietnam to Cambodia.
Could you give us a brief idea of the province's orientation for socioeconomic development in the years to come?
At present, An Giang is formulating a strategy of agricultural and rural area development, and a market strategy for the 2001-2020 integration period. These strategies constitute the two basic orientations towards successful industrialisation and international integration.
Based on these two strategic orientations, the province's authorities will put forth targets, as well as concrete implementation measures, while dynamically and flexibly making adjustments to meet the practical situation and the local resources, to improve the governing capability of the local management apparatus.
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