The total industry promotion funding of the 15 provinces and cities in the Central Highlands in 2013 will reach 38.285 billion VND (1.81 million USD), up 15.96 percent compared with the previous year. Report by the Vietnam Economic News.

Among eight programmes of industry promotion activities in the region, the one on supporting economic cooperation and development of industrial clusters topped the disbursement rate, accounting for 88.65 percent of the year’s plan, followed by the one on improving management capability and starting a business (87.11 percent).

Some other important projects which directly affected the development of rural industrial units were actively implemented by regional industry promotion centres and recorded relatively high disbursement.

According to reports from the Agency for Regional Industry Development (ARID) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), in the first nine months of 2013, 15 cities and provinces in the Central Highlands disbursed 23.343 billion VND, accounting for 60.97 percent of the plan for the whole year.

During the period under review, the regional industry promotion activities have provided vocational training to 3,870 rural workers with disbursement capital of 4.441 billion VND, accounting for 61.87 percent of the yearly plan. Some provinces such as Binh Dinh, Lam Dong, Quang Binh and Thua Thien-Hue had fulfilled 100 percent of vocational training plans.

As for the programme on technical demonstration model and scientific, technology transfers, the regional industry promotion also demonstrated 12 technical models and supported 50 enterprises and production units in applying modern machinery and equipment into production. This programme also disbursed 4.343 billion VND, accounting for 52.82 percent of the plan.

The industry promotion activities in the region also well implemented awareness raising programmes and provided information about industry promotion and industrial development policies, disbursing 1.406 billion VND, accounting for 72.47 percent of the plan.

In addition, the cities and provinces in the Central Highlands paid attention to some other industry promotion subjects such as handicraft development and supported coordination and cooperation in industrial development among different provinces. In the first nine months, the regional localities disbursed 5.73 billion VND for these activities, accounting for 86.63 percent of the year’s plan.

The ARID reported that industry promotion activities in the Central Highlands were conducted very efficiently compared with those in other localities across the country, in terms of disbursement speed, diverse activities and scale, quality of industry promotion projects.

In particular, Lam Dong province offered capital assistance for industry promotion projects, which then encouraged more investment and business expansions of local enterprises and industrial units. This model was also imitated by other localities in the region and has started to spread.

However, localities also reported many difficulties in the disbursement of industry promotion funding, especially state funding. The reasons were due to small and very small scale of rural industrial enterprises with poor disbursement performances amid difficult market developments. Therefore, the local enterprises did not dare to take risks to invest and expand production.

In addition, other obstacles for the development of local industry promotion included low funding for each project, weak capabilities among the industry promotion staff and complicated payment procedures for industry promotion projects.

Despite the issuance of Resolution 45/ND-CP dated May 21, 2013 in the field of industry promotion which offered more preferential treatments for beneficiaries, this resolution has not been applied due to insufficient guidance documents.

Before those limitations, ARID director Do Xuan Ha asked the regional cities and provinces to tighten checks and monitoring programs to timely remove difficulties for the beneficiaries and complete the industry promotion projects on schedule.

He also called for awareness and training programmes relating to Resolution 45/ND-CP to encourage participation of rural industrial units and renovation of administrative procedures to make the local industry promotion more efficient. As for localities with a large number of ethnic minorities such as Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Kon Tum, they need to organise vocational training courses and help them apply new and modern knowledge to the traditional occupations, contributing to ensuring stable incomes and improving their living conditions.-VNA