The northern province of Quang Ninh makes every effort to build an attractive environment for Japanese investors, aiming to lure more investment from country.

As of this time, the province attracted only 9 projects from Japan with a total capital of 61.3 million USD. The result does not match the province’s potential and advantages.

Quang Ninh is now one of Vietnam’s localities that are the apex of the Vietnam-China economic cooperation project - “Two corridors-One economic belt”, which is an important part of the ASEAN China Free Trade Area.

The locality has huge strength and potential for development of marine-based economy. It has many advantages positions for developing deepwater sea port system for receiving heavy load ships and road and railway systems, which are advantages to goods exchange and tourism development.

In order to effectively exploit its strengths and advantages as well as attract more investment projects from Japan, the province attaches importance to improving investment environment, upgrading transport infrastructure while reforming administrative procedures and enhancing quality of workforce through training.

In its effort to improve investment environment, in 2011 the province established the Department of Investment Promotion and Support to foster investment promotion in the locality. The department enlists the help of provincial departments and sectors to support investment and increase coordination among relevant agencies and investors.

Recently, the province People’s Council also paid more attention to further improve technical and social infrastructure in industrial parks (IPs) with the aim of luring investment from Japan.

Along with completing the master plan for socio- economic development in the locality, Quang Ninh will also spend its budget to perfect its technical infrastructure, systems of electricity supply, waste water drainage and supporting facilities for several IPs in order to meet investors’ demands.

Besides, the province also gives priority to projects on environment protection, while accelerating site clearance and ensuring the one-stop shop mechanism to deal with administrative procedures publicly, transparently, and quickly.

Quang Ninh province issued Decision No. 677/QD-UBND on March 12, 2013 which approved a list of 32 projects to call for investment in the locality in the 2013-2015 period, focusing on fields such as transport, industry, urban infrastructure and tourism.

The province has sent its many delegations to Japan to inquire experience in building economic and industrial zones, hi-tech areas and tourism development, while maintaining ties with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO)in order to promote its potential to Japanese partners.

The provincial People’s Committee organised a seminar to promote tourism development and cooperation between the locality and Japan in the framework of the Cherry Blossom Festival in the province in April this year.

The province is now active in completing its set of investment promotion documents in Japanese language to facilitate introduction of its potential to investors. It has also signed cooperation agreements with JETRO for activities of trade and investment promotion in 2013.

With its efforts, the province hopes to lure more investors from the country of cherry blossoms in the coming time.-VNA