Nam Dinh province will make every effort and take consistent solutions to draw VND80 trillion (US$3.5 billion) of investment capital in 2021-2025. Vietnam Business Forum’s reporter has an interview with Mr. Mai Van Quyet, Director of Nam Dinh Department of Planning and Investment.
What do you think about investment promotion and attraction of Nam Dinh province in recent years?
In 2020 and 2021, due to COVID-19 epidemic impacts, the province found it hard to attract investment inflows. But with its flexible solutions, Nam Dinh managed to entice 156 projects, including 121 new projects and 35 revised projects; 32 FDI projects with a total registered capital of US$116 million and 124 DDI projects with VND77.4 trillion. Notably, in 2021, the province licensed three projects of VND99 trillion invested by Xuan Thien Group to manufacture iron and steel, prefabricated concrete structures and rolled steel.
Notably, over the past time, investment promotion has always been an important task to the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People's Committee. The province issued many incentivization policies such as Resolution 04/NQ-TU dated June 18, 2021 of the Provincial Party Committee and Plan 79/KH-UBND dated July 16, 2021 of the Provincial People's Committee on administrative reform, competitiveness improvement and investment promotion and attraction in the 2021-2025 period; Plan 99/KH-UBND dated August 20, 2021 on Improving the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and the Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index) in the 2021-2025 period. In the last leadership terms, the Provincial Party Committee issued thematic resolutions on investment promotion and attraction to engage the whole political system into this work.
Nonetheless, investment promotion and attraction still confronted certain limitations such as inadequate regional connectivity; small-scale, low-tech, labor-intensive and unevenly distributed projects; slow-moving infrastructure construction in industrial zones; and insufficient land fund while high-technology attraction and management policy is not effective and technological adoption capacity is still weak on insufficient technical experts and skilled workers.
In order for Nam Dinh to successfully realize the goal of having more than VND80 trillion of direct investment fund in the 2021-2025 period, what solutions is the department advising and carrying out?
The Department of Planning and Investment is advising the Provincial People's Committee to assign relevant agencies to execute the following solutions:
1. Planning: Improving the quality of plan formation, management and implementation; completing the provincial planning to 2030, with a vision to 2050, ensuring consistency with regional and national planning; and carrying out major plans such as Nam Dinh City construction master plan to 2040, with a vision to 2050 and Master Plan for Southern Rang Dong Urban Area Construction to 2040.
2. Infrastructure:
- Prioritizing investment resources for key projects with strong ripple effects on development like the traffic route linking the Nam Dinh marine economic zone with Cau Gie - Ninh Binh Expressway; coastal traffic route along Nam Dinh province; Dong Cao, Ninh Cuong and Ben Moi bridges; Nam Dinh - Lac Quan - Coastal Road.
- Speeding up infrastructure construction in industrial zones; quickly filling up Rang Dong Textile and Garment Industrial Park; completing infrastructure investment in My Thuan Industrial Park; expanding Bao Minh Industrial Park; launching Hong Tien Industrial Park; removing obstacles for My Trung Industrial Park to come into operation soon.
- Carrying out development procedures for Ninh Co Economic Zone; gradually building an economic space linking the coastal area of Nghia Hung, Hai Hau and Giao Thuy districts.
3. Administrative reform
- Changing leadership and management mindset; regularly monitoring, urging and inspecting responsibility of agency leaders; improving operational quality of the Nam Dinh Public Administration Service, Investment Promotion and Business Support Center.
- Effectively implementing administrative procedure reforms, especially procedures relating to investment, production, business, land and construction.
- Completing e-government construction, moving towards an inclusive digital government and digital transformation; stepping up information technology application to document management and processing; improving the quality of online public service delivery at Levels 3 and 4.
4. Improving the business investment environment, enhancing competitiveness and promoting investment attraction
- Creating favorable conditions for investors to access planning information, speeding up settlement of legal procedures on land, dykes and environment and actively removing difficulties in site clearance; resolutely handling projects behind schedule or using land for wrong purposes.
- Promptly applying investment incentive and business support policies; strengthening trade and market promotion, branding support; boosting the appraising quality of investment projects, with importance attached to financial capacity, technology and environmental measures.
- Consolidating the vocational training network and improving training quality; developing human resources for actual business needs; training vocational skills, soft skills, foreign languages and computer knowledge; and encouraging connectivity between enterprises and training institutions.
- Improving the effect of focused professional investment promotion linked to socioeconomic development, sectoral planning; enticing big investors from the US, the EU, Japan and South Korea and large domestic corporations; upholding localized investment promotion by supporting and encouraging existing enterprises to reinvest and expand production.
5. Institutional Policy
- Effectively implementing investment promotion and business development policies in line with national and provincial regulations; coordinating with investors to research and apply specific policies to large-scale projects.
- Paying attention to human resource development, applying investment support policies for human resource training, especially high-quality human resources.
Would you be kind enough to describe some investment policies in 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030?
The province will actively boost investment attraction in traditional markets and partners and expand into new ones under multilateral and bilateral agreements.
In industry, the province will gradually shift from extensive investment to intensive investment and give priority to high-tech, environment-friendly industry from 2025 and beyond. It will select foundation industries for prioritized development by utilizing local potential advantages; deeply taking part in the global production network and value chain; boosting environmentally friendly, economical use of land; creating high added value and boosting export and budget revenue.
Nam Dinh province will only approve production investment projects into industrial zones. The province will only consider licensing projects outside industrial zones only when they are big enough. It will not license textile, garment and footwear investment projects in Nam Dinh City and surrounding localities.
The groundbreaking ceremony of infrastructure development project of My Thuan Industrial Park, November 25, 2021
In addition to prioritizing development of high-quality services and urban services, which focus on developing education and training, healthcare, tourism, logistics, finance - banking, post - telecom services and social services for industrial zones, the province will focus on developing agriculture and wooing high-tech projects.
What do you think about the province's Market Entry Index? What solutions is the Department carrying out to raise its score and standing?
The province's Market Entry Index scored 8.45 points in 2020, an increase of 0.22 points but its standing dropped seven places over 2019, ranked No. 10 out of 63 provinces and cities. In 2021, it marked 7.07 points, down 1.38 points, sliding 14 places to stand at No. 24 on the rankings.
To improve its score and ranking, the Department of Planning and Investment is focusing on implementing solutions below:
- Handling and preventing bureaucratic harassment against enterprises; reviewing and streamlining processes and having clear resolution roadmaps. After submitting records, applicants will not be asked to supplement incomplete ones more than one time.
- Encouraging enterprise registration in the electronic environment on the National Enterprise Registration Portal; supporting online business registration to increase public services of Level 4 delivered online.
- Drastically and effectively implementing the public administration reform master program; speeding up administrative procedure reform towards simplicity and efficiency; improving the quality of procedural consultation and guidance (in person, by phone or via email, etc.) in a clear, easy-to-understand manner.
- Further rectifying disciplines and ethics of public service; upholding the responsibility and ethics of public service leaders and public employees in the performance of their official duties, especially in dealing with investment and business documents and procedures; and strictly handling harassment cases.
With a drastic approach and action, the Department of Planning and Investment is determined to make a strong change in the Market Entry Index, an act to help raise the overall Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI).
Thank you very much!
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi