The northern province of Bac Ninh in the coming years will focus on developing support industries in order to increase the competitiveness of local industrial products, attract foreign investment, contributing to the process of industrialisation and modernisation, Director of the provincial Department of Industry and Trade Vu Duc Quyet told the Vietnam Economic News in an interview.

Bac Ninh currently has 15 industrial parks (IPs) including nine in operation with total occupancy rate of 79 percent. The location of many world-renowned multi-national corporations such as Canon and Samsung has spurred Bac Ninh’s industrial growth towards modernisation.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade, the province’s industrial production value in first six months of 2014 was estimated at 317.515 trillion VND, up 13.8 percent compared to the same period last year.

In particular, the state sector reached 1.645 trillion VND, the private sector reached 2.216 trillion VND, and the FDI reached 293.652 trillion VND. The export value also reached 14.874 billion USD, an increase of 26.3 percent over the same period last year. Total retail sales of goods were estimated at 13.648 trillion VND, up 8.7 percent.

It is expected that the provincial industrial production value will hit 707.515 trillion VND and export value will reach 30.874 billion USD this year, said Vu Duc Quyet.

Bac Ninh is expected to further boost local industrial development as the Samsung’s and Nokia’s projects are kicked off.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade, to date, the province has recorded about 200 support industry investment projects, with total registered capital of more than 1.33 trillion USD.

Cheap labour is no longer a competitive advantage in attracting FDI for Bac Ninh. The province needs to be concerned about how to meet the needs of newly-located foreign companies to produce reasonably priced quality products and spare parts being able to compete with the imported alternatives. Therefore, the province is gearing up the development of its support industries.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Trade Ta Dang Doan, the development of support industries is aimed to attract small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into supply of products, components and associated services for large corporations such as Samsung, Canon, and Nokia; and gradually acquire the technical know-how.

“Bac Ninh will create favourable conditions for SMEs in terms of land lease and rental, machinery and equipment funding. In addition, it will focus on Japanese investment promotion,” he was quoted as saying.- VNA