9:44:35 PM | 27/6/2011
Binh Phuoc is located in the southeastern region of Vietnam and lies in the Southern key economic region, gateway to the Central Highlands. Binh Phuoc is bordered by Cambodia on the North East. The province has always provided favourable policies to investors; with abundant human resources and natural land area. With many favourable conditions, Binh Phuoc is becoming a “golden land” for investors.
Natural conditions
Binh Phuoc has a total area of 687,392 hectares, a population of 880,000, including 7 districts and 3 towns with the provincial capital in Dong Xoai district, 110km from Ho Chi Minh City. Binh Phuoc is an intersection of important traffic roads including National Road 13, 14, and Ho Chi Minh Highway connecting with Binh Duong, Tay Ninh and Ho Chi Minh City. In the future, the Trans-Asia Railway crossing Binh Phuoc will connect Vietnam with Cambodia, Lao, Thailand and Myanmar.
Climate: Binh Phuoc has annual average temperature of 260C and is not severely affected by natural disasters, so it is very convenient for agricultural and industrial production, especially high value industrial trees such as rubber, cashew and pepper.
In addition, Binh Phuoc has abundant natural resources, with various minerals for the mining industry. The province also has considerable tourism potential thanks to its many rivers, streams, lakes and a variety of foods. Moreover, Binh Phuoc has 12 recognized historical sites, a system of restaurants and hotels. This is a high potential field for the province.
Huge resource
Human resources are one of Binh Phuoc’s advantages with more than 500,000 people of working age; this is crucial for industrial development and the process of transforming the economic structure. The province now has 13 vocational training schools with capacity of 4,500 – 5,000 labourers/year. Around 2000 – 2500 labourers are highly skilled after graduating from universities, colleges and schools outside the province. It helps increase the number of trained labourers to 120,000.
In terms of power, Binh Phuoc has some hydro-electric plants such as Thac Mo (150MW), Can Don (72MW), Srok Phu Mieng (66MW) and other small-scale ones. Its power transmission network includes a system of 500KV, 220KV and 110 KV and some other medium & low voltage lines, covering the whole province with over 5,000km of electric lines, insuring stable supply for production and living activities.
At the moment, Binh Phuoc has some water plants such as Dong Xoai plant (5000m3/day, expected to increase to 20,000 m3/day), Thac Mo, Phuoc Binh, Binh Long, Loc Ninh, Bu Dang plants (5000m3/day). Some other water plants are under construction to serve industrial parks in Chon Thanh, Dong Phu and cement factories. In addition, communes are being equipped with water supply systems. There are about 45 irrigation projects, 38 reservoirs and 7 dams in the whole province, with designed capacity of 5,000ha.
Telecommunication system is also provided in communes and wards, serving the demand for international communications and digital information transmission. The mobile phone network covers most areas of the province. Commune and district telecommunication stations are linked to the optical fibre transmission network.
In the whole area, Binh Phuoc has 244,024 hectares of rubber, 155,758 hectares of cashew and 10,000 hectares of fruit trees. The province is changing 60,000 hectares of exhausted forest into rubber and material forests.
Land for industrial production is well prepared at favourable locations. 8 industrial parks have been approved by the Government with an area of 5,205 hectares. It is expected to build Dong Phu Industrial Park with an area of 10,000 hectares, Hoa Lu international bordergate economic area with an area of 28,364 hectares and other scheduled industrial groups with an area of 1,101 hectares. Administrative procedures are done under “one door policy” to insure the most favourable conditions for investors.
The banking system is developed in all districts, including bank for agriculture, bank for investment, commercial bank; some joint – stock bank branches such as Sacombank, Nam A Bank, Dong A Bank, bank for development and many others. Besides, the province also attracts insurance companies including Bao Viet, Bao Minh and Prudential. In addition, departments of customs are arranged at border gates and at industrial parks. Consulting services are also available in most areas, convenient for investors.
Socio-economic situation
In 2006-2010, Binh Phuoc had stable economic growth in the context of a tough local and global economy. Many main services of the province are in competitive markets, like pepper, cashew and rubber latex. Service sector quality, in finance, banking, consulting, etc, is much improved.
In parallel with economic growth, the province maintains political and social stability, national security; administrative reforms in business registration and investment procedures are regularly implemented to better create more favourable conditions for local people and enterprises. Applying ISO quality management systems in State management in some sectors contributes to improving the PCI of Binh Phuoc.
The province has achieved fairly stable growth of economic sectors and production value. Agriculture-forestry-fishery occupies a large proportion of GDP. Agriculture is developing in goods production and diversity. Trade-tourism-service also has positive development.
In 2010-2020: in terms of economy, Binh Phuoc strives to maintain an average economic growth rate of 13% in 2011-2015, it is expected to get 14% if it has favourable conditions; agriculture-forestry-fishery aims for growth from 5-6%; a 22-23% growth rate for construction industry; and 16-17% for service sector. GDP should average VND35.97 million per capita in 2015. Regarding the key development factor of human resources, from 2011-2015 the province aims for 3% growth in employment and 3.7% for 2016-2020. It is clear that natural resources and investment capital are important, but human resources are still a decisive factor.
Preferred policies for investment
Binh Phuoc gives priorities for processing industries: production of industrial products using preliminarily processed rubber materials (automobile tire and other products); processing agricultural products, fruits; production of animal foods; breeding cattle; and processed meat. Some other industries are encouraged to invest in Binh Phuoc including electronics-electric, mechanical industry, textile, leather and shoe, wood processing, handicraft, construction material, water supply and drainage. In addition, projects for constructing infrastructure for industrial parks, BOT, trade centres, market, bordergate economic area, sports, entertainment, 2 star and higher hotels are also in Binh Phuoc’s investment encouraging list. The province will not encourage investment in projects that may have bad impacts on environment. Binh Phuoc now offers a flexible policy for land leasing price, providing free or reduced land rents in some districts including Loc Ninh, Bu Dop, Bu Dang and Bu Gia Map. Especially, Binh Phuoc offers a preferential tax rate of 15% for a period of 15 years applied to newly established investment projects in the above districts. At the same time, the province offers a permanent 10% tax rate for some investment sectors of education-training, vocational training, health care, culture, sports; a 20% preferential tax rate will be applied over 10 years for newly established projects in Bu Gia Map, Dong Phu, Hon Quan and Chon Thanh.
In the process of project implementation, if a company faces difficulty after completing basic technical infrastructure, it has the right to transfer the project, however, this new project must be suitable with scheduled targets and approved by the competent authorities.
Moreover, Binh Phuoc also gives support in training human resources for projects in the list of preferential projects and investment encouraging areas.
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