HCM CITY – The southern province of Đồng Nai has urged relevant agencies to amend the Investment Law so that it covers the change in ownership of companies that are bought by foreign investors.

“The adjustment is very necessary [since] Vietnamese individuals set up businesses and then sell their shares to foreign investors,” Cao Tiến Dũng, director of the province Department of Planning and Investment, told the Ministry of Planning and Investment at a meeting early this week.

These enterprises then become foreign-invested companies and State management offices find it hard to manage them since the laws lack the provisions required for it, he said.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyễn Văn Hiếu promised to take up the issue with the Government.

“Đồng Nai Province has a developed industry and is one of the five provinces that make the biggest contributions to the State budget,” he said.

“The province has achieved growth of around 7.85 per cent in the first six months of the year, higher than the national average.”

But he urged the province to promote exports, which have risen by only 5.3 per cent year-on-year in the first half to US$7.4 billion.

The province has achieved revenues of VNĐ20.5 trillion ($919 million), or 49 per cent of the yearly plan and a 9 per cent year-on-year increase.

Total domestic investment was worth VNĐ7.65 trillion, 85 per cent of the full-year plan, and foreign investment, $1.34 billion, 34 per cent higher year-on-year.

To achieve the year’s economic-socio development targets, the province has cut expenses, improved the efficiency of public investment and of State-owned projects, continued to fix the difficulties faced by businesses, speeded up investment in industrial projects, focused on creating proper policies and mechanisms to attract investment for industrial parks and processing zones and explored solutions to encourage exports, Dũng said.

“Đồng Nai will focus on solutions to capitalise on advantages and mitigate disadvantages faced by our key export products while integrating into the international economy and from the ASEAN Economic Community, Free Trade Agreements and Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

He promised that assistance would be provided to small- and medium-sized enterprises, especially start-ups and creative businesses.

Hiếu said: “I strongly believe that Đồng Nai will be able to achieve all of its 2016 socio-economic targets.” - VNS