A craft village cluster in Dương Liễu Commune, Hoài Đức District, Hà Nội. — Photo congthuong.vn

HÀ NỘI — The capital city will make greater efforts to promptly remove difficulties for businesses operating in its industrial zones (IZs) and industrial clusters (IC) in the future, Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Trần Sỹ Thanh said.

During a conference in Hà Nội on Friday, Thanh said the city will always accompany the business community and continue to firmly and synchronously implement solutions to support businesses and improve the business and investment environment.

Top priority will be given to accelerating administrative reform to facilitate the business community, which is considered an important driving force in promoting the capital's socio-economic development, he added.

The committee's Deputy Chairman Nguyễn Mạnh Quyền said that local authorities are willing to organise dialogues with businesses, especially those in the city's IZs and ICs, to find the most optimal solutions to remove their obstacles.

He added that Hà Nội will continue to speed up the infrastructure construction of new IZs and ICs. As planned, the city will have up to five IZs by 2025 and 159 ICs by 2030.

During the conference, city leaders also said they would focus on solving the fragmented industrial development and small-scale IZs that fail to ensure environmental standards and fire and explosion prevention.

Accordingly, the city's ICs must have a minimum scale of 30ha and craft village clusters must have a minimum scale of 15ha so that they would have sufficient land funds for synchronous investment in technical infrastructure by the city's regulations and standards.

Relevant departments and branches are also required to regularly issue guiding documents to solve each problem of investors in the zones and shorten the time to resolve related administrative procedures.

Firms' concerns

During the conference, Phạm Thùy Trang, director of Hanel Mirolin JSC, an investor of Đại Thắng craft village cluster in Phú Xuyên District, said that most IC investors are small-sized enterprises. So, she petitioned the city's committee, sectors and departments to allow them to pay land rent once instead of paying annually.

Trang said a lump sum payment could be considered an accounted asset eligible for a mortgage for a bank loan. When businesses pay land rent annually, they can only mortgage assets on land.

Deputy General Director of the Urban Infrastructure Development Investment Corporation Nguyễn Hoàng Hải said his firm is developing a 78.15ha industrial cluster in Sóc Sơn District.

Though over 56ha of this cluster has been cleared, his firm now faces problems with site clearance for the remaining area that is entangled in a cemetery area. He suggests local authorities extend the project implementation time while petitioning Sóc Sơn District to relocate this cemetery.

At the conference, businesses also proposed to departments and branches to speed up the progress of construction permits and procedures for establishing industrial clusters and ensuring stable power supply.

Hà Nội currently has 10 operational IZs covering an area of over 1,340ha, according to the municipal Industry and Trade Department,

To date, the IZs have attracted 709 investment projects, including 300 foreign-invested projects worth nearly $6.7 billion, the department said.

Also, the city is home to 70 operational ICs which have lured about 3,864 investors, creating 60,000 jobs. — VNS