Nghệ An Province is working hard to create business-friendly conditions to woo foreign investors, local authorities say. VNS Photo Văn Châu

NGHỆ AN – Four hundred foreign and local enterprises took part in a conference to promote investment in the central province of Nghệ An in HCM City on Friday.
The north-central province has attracted 927 domestic and 53 foreign projects worth VNĐ276 trillion (US$12.1 billion) in the last 10 years, including a $1.2 billion dairy farm by TH Milk Food JSC, a VNĐ1 trillion high-tech pig farm by Masan Nutri – Farm of and some major hydropower plants, a province People’s Committee’s report said.
Thái Thanh Quý, chairman of the People’s Committee, said the province would promote investment by providing investors with information about its potential, strengths and policies and the list of projects requiring investment.
It would also speed up construction of industrial zones and clusters to attract major projects, he promised.
It would especially focus on soliciting investment in 117 projects in areas such as infrastructure construction, real estate, tourism, trade, leather and footwear, seafood processing, power generation, electronics, information technology, supporting industries, the auto industry, and food processing, he said.
Nghệ An is one of the few provinces to have established an investment promotion and support centre under its People’s Committee. It serves as a one-stop agency and helps ease the way past procedures for investors.
The authorities also actively engage in direct dialogue with the business community to resolve their problems quickly.
Beside preferential tax and land policies, Nghệ An also has policies to support investors such as supporting in subsidising compensation paid for land acquired for industrial zone infrastructure, investment in transport infrastructure and others.
Along with support policies, the provincial authority has been accelerating planning for infrastructure development, especially transportation, to ensure easy movement of goods and services.
Nghệ An has emerged as a hot investment destination even as many areas in the north and south have shown signs of saturation, and an increasing amount of capital has been flowing into the province in recent years.
Experts pointed out this is also due to its enormous efforts to build infrastructure and improve the investment climate and business condition.
The increasing investment has helped the province modernise its economic structure, almost triple revenues in less than a decade and create tens of thousands of jobs.
However, its large projects are still mostly domestic and the province is aiming to further attract foreign investment. – VNS