The central province of Nghe An is expanding external economic relations in a bid to make full use of all resources for fast and sustainable economic development.

On one hand, the province continues to reinforce ties with its traditional partners in Laos, RoK, France and Russia. Nghe An has long maintained good relations with Xiangkhouang, Bolikhamsay, Khammounne, Vientiane and Savannakhet provinces of Laos, Gyeonggi in the Republic of Korea (RoK), Cotes d’Armor province and Tours city in France, and Ulyanovsk in Russia.

On the other hand, Nghe An is seeking out new partners for trade, investment, and culture exchange, particularly localities in Japan, Australia, Indian, EU countries, Canada and the US, through the assistance of Vietnamese representative agencies abroad and foreign representative agencies in Vietnam.

At the same time, the province devotes its resources to develop local key economic zones, including the Southeast economic zone, and the coastal areas, while making endeavours to access loans from the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In August alone, Nghe An has sent delegations to Laos, Thailand and Japan to promote investment, and also received hundreds of delegations of these countries who came to study business and investment opportunities.

By the end of 2013, the province was home to 39 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with combined pledged capital of 1.49 billion USD.

However, several problems are hindering the northern central province’s efforts to promote international economic integration, particularly the low competitiveness of local enterprises and poor skills of external affairs officials.-VNA