Foreign businesses invested some 2.5 billion USD in the southern province of Tay Ninh in the first seven months of this year.

Of the foreign-invested projects, 176 became operational, creating jobs for nearly 100,000 local people.

Local industrial and economic zones have attracted 151 projects with a registered investment of over 2 billion USD. Meanwhile, 16 other projects worth 22.1 million USD have been implemented in six industrial complexes.

The production of foreign-invested businesses has so far accounted for 41 percent of Tay Ninh’s industrial production value and they have added 34 million USD to the State budget, making up 5.3 percent of local contribution.

However, the disbursement of foreign investment has remained low, only reaching over 50 percent of the registered capital.

In addition, the implementation of foreign-invested projects has been very slow. For example, the Moc Bai border gate economic zone has 17 registered projects but none of them has been implemented while only one out of nine registered projects in the Xa Mat border gate economic zone is underway.

By employing a host of measures such as streamlining administrative procedures, bettering infrastructure, and opening more vocational training courses for locals, Tay Ninh aims to attract an additional 1.1 billion USD of foreign investment and raise the disbursement rate to 70 percent from the current 50 percent between now and 2015.

Tay Ninh, together with nearby Ho Chi Minh City, and Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Long An, and Tien Giang provinces, forms the southern key economic region.-VNA