4:10:22 PM | 14/12/2006
Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Mr. Le Huynh Ky, director of the Ca Mau Department of Planning and Investment, about Ca Mau province’s investment attraction policies.
Can you give highlights of Ca Mau’s investment attraction in recent years?
So far, Ca Mau province has attracted one foreign-invested project, capitalised at US$875,000, and ten projects developed by overseas Vietnamese with a total capital of VND 70 billion, let alone other projects on building hotels, seafood processing plants, tourist sites, and urban areas, and transporting passengers by Vietnamese enterprises. In general, most projects have been implemented effectively, generating jobs for many local people, thus contributing to the province’s social activities and export turnover. Recently, many investors have come to Ca Mau to seek business activities, especially after the project on building a gas, electricity and nitrogenous fertiliser complex is carried out.
Despite having great potential for tourism development and abundant farm-produce materials for processing, let alone high natural gas reserves, Ca Mau’s investment attraction remains slow. What are the reasons for this?
As far as I am concerned, underdeveloped infrastructure facilities represent the main reason. Specifically, Ca Mau’s roads remain poor and the number of trained workers is still low. Also, the province is located far from country’s major economic centres. However, Ca Mau province will overcome the difficulties as it will improve local infrastructure facilities with many on-going projects, such as the Can Tho Bridge, the Ho Chi Minh City-Trung Luong highway, the Can Tho-Nam Can section of the national highway 1A, completed in the future. In particular, the operation of the Ca Mau airport with seven flights a week will save travel time for investors. These factors, alongside efforts to reform administrative procedures and improve the local investment environment, we hope that a change for the better in the province’s investment attraction will be seen.
What solutions have Ca Mau province has developed to increase its attractiveness to investors?
We will continue to perfect our business environment, creating favourable conditions for enterprises of all economic sectors to develop. Accordingly, we will apply a ‘one door’ mechanism and minimise licences, thus helping enterprises, especially start-up enterprises, save time. We will promote the reorganisation, rearrangement, and equitisation of State-owned enterprises. We3 will remove all discriminations in treating enterprises of different economic sectors, helping them get access to opportunities, resources, and market information by forming an equal environment, regardless of ownership. The province will boost its investment and trade promotion activities, helping enterprises seek partners, promote their products and trademarks. Ca Mau will provide legal and market information for enterprises and perfect its human resources development, thus improving the quality of local workers to meet better the demand of local enterprises. The province will encourage the establishment of private-owned educational and vocational training schools. The province will also promote the announcement of its land use, and urban area and infrastructure development master plans, as well as standardise land use granting and perfect information about land use, thus helping enterprises easily make their investment decisions. In particular, the province will concentrate on boosting the development of industrial parks and complexes to meet the demand for land for production activities of investors.
What are major fields for investment attraction in Ca Mau province?
We have prioritised the attraction of projects which can exploit and tap fully the province’s potential, thus helping boost our economy with a sustainable development and improved living standard of local people, not doing harm to the environment. We do not barter long-term benefits for short-term development. Accordingly, we will call for projects on processing high value seafood, building infrastructure facilities, industrial parks and complexes, urban areas, tourist sites, industrial shrimp farming, water supply and drainage, waste treatment, shipbuilding and repair, financial, insurance, banking and passenger transportation services.
Ca Mau Province’s FDI Calling Project Portfolio until 2020:
1/ Waste treatment plant in Ca Mau City
2/ Export aquatic processing factories (Hoa Trung Industrial Park, Cai Nuoc District)
3/ Commercial centres and supermarkets in Ca Mau City, Song Doc Town (Tran Van Thoi District) and Nam Can Town (Nam Can District)
4/ Coastal tourist site construction and operation (mangrove forests), Hon Khoai islets
5/ Tourism complex project in Ca Mau City’s downtown (Ca Mau Cultural Park)
6/ New urban zones in Ca Mau City
7/ Pre-cast concrete factory in Khanh An Industrial Zone (U Minh District)
8/ Industrial shrimp-rearing complexes in Ngoc Hien and Nam Cam districts
9/ High-quality aquatic breeding facility in Ngoc Hien District
10/ Hotels in Ca Mau City and Nam Can Town
11/ Fish feed processing factories
12/ Natural gas-fuelled power plant with capacity of 250-500 MW of electricity, which needs US$150 million investment capital and will be built from 2007-2010 (Khanh An Industrial Zone, U Minh District)
Priority locations: Ca Mau City, Tran Van Thoi, Nam Can, Ngoc Hien and U Minh districts
Investment mode: Mainly wholly foreign invested
(Source: Ca Mau Department of Planning and Investment)
Reported by Hoa Binh
Vietnamese
