A factory of Vina Kraft Paper Co. Ltd. was financed by SCG Group from Thailand, in My Phuoc 3 Industrial Park in Binh Duong province (Photo: VNA) The region comprises HCM City and the seven provinces of Binh Duong,Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh, Long An and Tien Giang.
Foreign enterprises chose the southern key economic region as an investmentdestination, due to its young and abundant labour force with lower wagesthan other countries, and large consumer market.
This year, HCM City was the locality most affected by the COVID-19pandemic. After prolonged social distancing, the city stillranked third in attracting foreign investment with nearly 3.74billion USD, accounting for 12 percent of the country's total.
Cao Thi Phi Van, deputy director of the Investment and Trade PromotionCentre of HCM City (ITPC) attributed the city's position in term offoreign investment to its great efforts inaccelerating administrative reforms, simplifying business conditionsand improving the quality of civil servants to better facilitatethe business community, Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper reported.
In anther bright spot, over 96 percent of the 1,412 enterprises inHCM City Export Processing Zones and IndustrialParks (HEPZA) have resumed their operation and 80 percent of theiremployees have returned to factories, Hứa Quốc Hưng, head of themanagement board of HEPZA said.
The stability in economic management in HCM City over the past month has helpedencourage foreign investment inflows back to the locality, Hung said, addingthat after the social distancing period, a number of foreign investorsworked with HEPZA.
As of last year, the city was home to 10,434 valid foreign-investedprojects with capital totaling 49.47 billion USD.
Meanwhile, Binh Duong province ranked 4th among 59 localities in the country interms of foreign investment attraction with over 2.13 billion USD in2021. Thus far, the southern province has 4,021 validforeign-invested projects with a total registered capital of over 37.17billion USD.
Director of the Binh Duong Department of Planning and Investment MaiBá Trước told Tien Phong that the positive inflow offoreign investment helped the province overcome difficulties to realise"dual goals" in 2021.
These were a 4.3 percent year-on-year growth in its industrial production indexand yearly rises of 13.5 percent and 14.7 percent in its export and importturnovers to 31.5 billion USD and 24.6 billion USD, respectively, resulting ina trade surplus of 6.9 billion USD.
Similarly, Long An province was the second locality in attractingforeign investment in 2021 with over 3.84 billion USD, accounting for 12.3percent of the total investment capital of the country. Of the sum,over 3.51 billion USD came from 54 newly-licensed projects; 255 million USDfrom 65 existing projects to raise their levels of capital while the remainderof investment from capital contribution or share purchase was made byforeign investors.
Dong Nai province in 2021 surpassed the yearly target with over 1.35billion USD investment. During the year, the provincelicensed 51 new projects with a total registered capital of 295 millionUSD. It also allowed 49 operating projects to add 470 millionUSD to their capital and approved 597 million USD worth ofcapital contribution and share purchases of foreign businesses in a totalof 87 transactions.
Dong Nai has to date attracted 1,792 foreign-invested projects with a totalregistered capital of nearly 32.7 billion USD. Most of these projects camein processing and manufacturing, textile and footwear industries.
The newspaper cited Nguyen Thi Hoang, deputy chairwoman of Dong Nai provincePeople's Committee as saying that many countries around the world nowhad policies to reopen their economies, and this would be anopportunity for foreign enterprises to accelerate their overseasinvestments.
Hoang said her province would concentrate on callinginternational enterprises to develop their projects in theprovince and contributing to its economic development. Top prioritywould be given to businesses with projects in supporting industries,high technology and clean technology rather than labour-intensive projects.
The vice chairwoman added that local authorities would create the mostfavourable conditions for businesses by shortening the time used forfulfilling procedures related to investment, production and export.
Ba Ria-Vung Tau, another province in the region also experienced apositive foreign investment inflow last year.
From January to December, the provincial Industrial Park Authority grantedlicences to 13 foreign-invested projects worth 207.76 million USD. Italso approved 25 existing projects to raise their capitalby 268 million USD. Most foreign-invested projects in the provincewere large-scale, with average registered capital of about 103million USD per enterprise.
Nguyen Anh Triet, head of the authority, said the foreign investmentregistered in the province last year exceeded the plan set for the year. Heattributed the result to the province's efforts to improve its businessand investment environment.
However, Triet said that Ba Ria-Vung Tau would notattract investment at all costs. Top priority would be given toprojects in hi-tech industries and those that were environment-friendly,and less so in labour-intensive industries./.
VNA
