Bac Giang - Bright Picture for Investment Attraction

Knowing that investment capital plays a crucial role in economic growth, Bac Giang province has paid attention to attracting investment from both domestic and international sources and creating favourable conditions for business development. Hence, the province has achieved important results in this aspect, which has contributed significantly to local economic development and restructuring.

 

The province has attracted some large projects. For example, WINTEK Vietnam Co., Ltd invested US$1.12 billion to build factories to produce touch panels (TP), liquid crystal display (LCD) devices and liquid crystal modules (LCM). Other big projects included a high-quality pig and cow rearing, slaughtering and processing complex (costing VND650 billion) and a Trung Nguyen coffee packaging and finishing complex (costing VND450 billion) in Quang Chau Industrial Park. Operational projects have positively contributed to economic restructuring, enhanced industrial production value, increased budgetary incomes, and generated jobs for local workers.

 

As regards prospects in the coming years, given difficulties facing domestic and world economies, Bac Giang will promote investment for industrial and service development in the 2011 - 2015 period. The Department of Planning and Investment will continue to actively coordinate with other organs and localities to implement the Investment Promotion Plan for 2011 - 2015 period which gives priority to projects tapping local strengths and potential, paying much for State Budget, having ripple effects (attracting other investment projects), using modern technologies, generated high added value, using less space, causing minimum effect on the environment, and economising energy. The province expects to attract some high-grade golf and hotel projects in the coming time.

 

Affected by economic downturn, many projects failed to mobilise enough funding for their projects. Thus, many have delayed their progress or operated at low capacity. Before this situation, the Department of Planning and Investment has been in cooperation with relevant agencies to advise the Provincial People’s Committee to adopt a number of measures to support businesses and investors as follows.

 

- Effectively implementing tax break policies as governed by the National Assembly’s Resolution 08/2011/QH13 dated June 8, 2011, the Government’s Resolution 13/NQ-CP dated May 10, 2012 on some solutions to solve difficulties for business and support market; Requesting the State Bank of Vietnam branch in Bac Giang province to direct and supervise local commercial banks to strictly comply with statutory regulations concerning loan for businesses.

 

- Checking performances of existing industrial zones in the province as guided by the Prime Minister’s Directive 07/CT-TTg dated March 2, 2012 on regulating management activities and improving performances of economic zones and industrial zones; directing and supervising infrastructure investors and developers of Quang Chau and Song Khe - Noi Hoang industrial parks to urgently build centralised wastewater treatment plants, scheduled to be complete in 2012; and urging infrastructure investors of Van Trung Industrial Park to complete technical infrastructure items in 2012, thus enabling secondary investors to locate their projects there.

- Allocating funds for industrial zone infrastructure planning and construction to attract investors and speed up the progress of preparing projects.

 

Investment administrative reform is always an important solution to attract investment into the province and accelerate project disbursement. In order to shorten the time and offer create favourable conditions for investors to carry out their projects, the department has advised the Provincial People’s Committee to establish a single-window mechanism to resolve investment administrative procedures and deploy their projects outside industrial zones. The reform focuses on business registration, investment approval certification, land leasing, environment, fire fighting plans and building permit granting.

 

In addition, the department reviews and evaluates current procedures and proposes amendments under its jurisdiction to reduce the time required for settling administrative procedures of organisations and individuals.

 

Administrative reform is always a top concern of the department as it helps improve the investment climate in the province and better serve investors.

 

In the past three years, Bac Giang’s provincial competitiveness index (PCI) standing constantly climbed, but its score was just 60.79 points on a 100-point scale. And, compared with other provinces, Bac Giang has to work harder. It is very difficult to make an increase in the ranking, and it is increasingly hard even to maintain and improve the ranking because other provinces are endeavouring for a better business and investment environment in the eyes of investors.

 

To further improve the investment and business climate and lift PCI, the department proposed some solutions as follows: Synchronously deploying the Plan 43/KH-UBND dated September 8, 2011 of the Provincial People’s Committee on master SME development in the 2011 - 2015 period; completing and applying the single-window mechanism for administrative procedures; enhancing the ability of supporting businesses to access credit sources and production premises; allocating sufficient funding for human resource training; and boosting information of legal affairs and markets for businesses.

 

Authorities of all tiers listen to opinions from the business community, promptly resolve their concerns within the jurisdiction or report existing issues to higher levels for resolution to support enterprises, especially SMEs, to overcome this difficult period.