VĨNH PHÚC — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc expects Vĩnh Phúc Province to become an economic hub in the northern region marked as a place of renewal and innovation.

Addressing the Vĩnh Phúc Investment Promotion Conference 2016 that focused on the province’s investment potentials and opportunities, he hailed its rapid growth rate over the last several years.

Vĩnh Phúc last year contributed VNĐ31 trillion (US$1.37 billion) to the State budget, 280 times higher than in 1997, an impressive achievement just 20 years after its re-establishment.

Many big groups have invested in the province to produce key products and creating jobs for thousands of people while increasing export turnover. Some of the big names are Toyota Việt Nam, Honda Việt Nam, Piaggio, Daewoo Bus, Partron Vina, Prime and Việt Đức steel.

“This has been an important success: to create jobs and contribute to the province’s growth as well as the State Budget under the orientation of industrialisation and modernisation,” the PM said.

“Vĩnh Phúc has dealt well with the three obstacles in its development, (the lack of) infrastructure, human resources and open mechanism…” he said, adding that other localities should study the province’s achievements for their own development.

He urged the province to continue its renewal, building trust among both local and foreign investors.

“The province should better implement its development plans and strategies to avoid overlapping. Its investment environment should also be improved to become a leader in this regard,” the PM said.

He advised Vĩnh Phúc to accord priority to tourism and services as key economic sectors while promoting hi-tech and clean agriculture.

Hoàng Thị Thuý Lan, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and head of the Vĩnh Phúc Investment Promotion and Business Development Steering Committee, said that with a dynamic approach to renewal, combined with its potentials and favourable location,  Vĩnh Phúc has become an effective destination for many big projects.

Since its re-establishment, the province has defined investment promotion and similar activities as key to its development. With the motto “Investors in Vĩnh Phúc Province are its citizens and businesses’ successes are the province’s success”, the locality’s authorities recorded several breakthroughs to become a bright point in the country in terms of investment attraction, Lan said.

By 2020, Vĩnh Phúc will have developed 19 industrial parks (IPs) with a total area of 5,600 hectares and 31 IP clusters covering 321 hectares by the year of 2020.

“However, the results have still not matched the province’s potentials and advantages,” she said.

She added Vĩnh Phúc paid special attention to improving its investment environment by timely resolving enterprises’ difficulties, enhancing reform of administrative procedures and establishing the Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) to increase professionalism in investment support.

In 2007, Vĩnh Phúc successfully implemented a one-shop mechanism while the rest of the country had just started to launch the model. Investment projects in the province were granted licences in 3 to 5 days, just one-third of the stipulated time. Since 2002, the province also set up IP management boards to help investors get their investment licences. 

“Vĩnh Phúc aims to become an industrial province by the year of 2020 and one of industrial, service and tourism hubs in the country. Accordingly, the province has paid attention to hi-tech projects which are environmentally friendly, creating high added value, saving land and providing jobs to people,” she added.

Vũ Tiến Lộc, chairman of Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Vĩnh Phúc’s provincial competitiveness index (PCI) had continuously improved over the past few years. Last year, its PCI saw a jump to fourth position among the country’s 63 localities.

“The business community highly appreciated the province’s efforts to improve its investment environment,” Lộc said.

He said 30 per cent and 90 per cent of the support industry for automobiles and motorbikes respectively were located in Vĩnh Phúc and neighbouring localities, establishing a big connection chain.

Minoru Kato, general director of Honda Việt Nam, said Vĩnh Phúc had supported the company with taxes policies, water and power infrastructure over the past 20 years of its operation in the country.

“We expect to continue to receive further support and co-operation from the province for our operations,” he said.

Đặng Minh Trường, deputy general director of real estate developer Sun Group, said Vĩnh Phúc had always been friendly to companies. It has favourable conditions for developing resorts and entertainment complexes.

“This year, the province expects to receive 3.7 million visitors. However, the number is not up to its potential. Vĩnh Phúc should have large scale tourism investors as well as strategic tourism products to better exploit the potential,” Trường said.

He proposed that the province develops multimodal tourism services while offering policy incentives to big and strategic investors to successfully build its brand name as an attractive destination.

Nguyễn Văn Trì, chairman of Vĩnh Phúc People’s Committee, said this had been the largest investment promotion event so far in the province. It aimed to gather opinions from both domestic and foreign investors towards issuing suitable policies for an open business environment.

The conference attracted participation of more than 500 people from relevant agencies, localities, associations and businesses.

Under the auspices of the event, the provincial People’s Committee granted business licences to 23 projects of 21 investors with total investment of $1.15 billion.

It also signed memorandums of understanding with 22 investors on 27 projects with a total investment of $6 billion.

The province also awarded three enterprises – Toyota Việt Nam, Honda Việt Nam and Lạc Hồng JSC – for their contribution to its development from 1997 to 2016.

On the same day, Sun Group held the ground-breaking ceremony for Tam Đảo Ecotourism Complex  with the participation of PM Phúc.

Tam Đảo Ecotourism Complex, located in Tam Đảo District’s Đại Đình Commune, will include a park, botanical garden, art exhibition centre, cinema and a recreation area, and will meet the diverse needs of tourists through all seasons.

The ecotourism complex will cost VNĐ2.9 trillion (US$129.5 million) in its first phase. — VNS