Da Lat city in Lam Dong province (Source: VNA) Phu Yen (VNA) – A conference held inTuy Hoa city in Phu Yen province on July 12 looked into the industry and tradesectors of 15 localities in the central and Central Highlands regions, urgingthem to strengthen their connectivity to tap into the local market and boostdevelopment.
Statistics showed that the regions’ industrialproduction value exceeded 198 trillion VND (8.58 billion USD) between Januaryand June this year, up 11 percent from the same period in 2017.
The localities have paid attention to developingeconomic zones, and industrial parks and clusters, thus creating betterconditions for attracting investment and creating jobs. There are now 13 economiczones in the regions. As of June 2018, 1,558 projects worth 150.5 trillion VND(6.52 billion USD) had become operational there.
The regions were also busy with trading activitiesin the first half of the year. While total retail sales of consumer goods andservices reached 341.46 trillion VND (14.79 billion USD), import turnover wasestimated at 2.14 billion USD, up 14.7 percent and 16.9 percent year-on-year,respectively.
Despite vibrant industrial and tradingactivities, officials at the conference pointed out the shortcomings inregional connectivity, noting that asynchronous infrastructure has hampered thedevelopment of trade and logistics services. The abundance of individual small-and medium-sized enterprises has also challenged efforts to expand the market.
An official of the Binh Dinh provincialDepartment of Industry and Trade said that in order to address these problems,it is necessary to better connect the supply and demand of goods so thatbusinesses can seek cooperation chances to form value chains in the region andserve exports. The localities also need to enhance trading connectivity tocapitalise on the consumer market in the region, as well as the whole country.
Vice Chairman of the Phu Yen provincial People’sCommittee Tran Huu The also underlined the importance of locality-to-localityconnectivity.
He said Phu Yen is a gateway to the sea for the CentralHighlands provinces, featuring many types of transport infrastructure such asseaports, roads, and railways for the development of logistics services. Ifregional localities team up with one another, they will successfully attractinvestors and facilitate trading activities.
At the conference, Deputy Minister of Industryand Trade Cao Quoc Hung asked central and Central Highlands localities to paymore heed to the domestic market while producing goods with high value typicalfor each province and city.
Aside from promoting industrial and inter-regiontrading, he also called on them to step up administrative reforms to improvethe investment climate, popularising new policies and free trade agreementsamong enterprises.
For the remaining months, the 15 localities aimto achieve an industrial production value of 278.19 trillion VND (12 billionUSD) and export turnover of 4.2 billion USD, raising the respective totalfigures to 485.2 trillion VND (21 billion USD) and 8.29 billion USD this year.They also target over 357 trillion VND (15.46 billion USD) in total retailsales of consumer goods and services in the latter half of 2018. -VNA
VNA
