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| Investment in port infrastructure opens up new opportunities for attracting investors. Photo: TUAN KIET |
Innovation in investment promotion
Investment promotion is considered one of the crucial tasks for successfully accessing and attracting investment capital from both domestic and foreign sources to the province, aiming to create a driving force for economic development. Therefore, in order to achieve positive results in investment promotion, Thua Thien Hue has made use of the support of central ministries and agencies as well as international organizations. At the same time, the province strengthened establishing relationships with consulting firms and large corporations to promote and invite investments.
Through strategic cooperation activities in 2022, the province has collaborated with major corporations, opening up numerous opportunities for cooperation. They have signed a Memorandum with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), successfully organized the "Meeting with Green Thua Thien Hue" conference, and participated in the "Meeting with South Korea - Central and Central Highlands" conference, etc.
Thua Thien Hue also participated in investment promotion and trade within the framework of the Vietnam - Czech Republic - Europe Economic, Trade, and Investment Cooperation Forum in the Czech Republic, as well as the trade promotion and investment program and multi-dimensional cooperation between Vietnam and Kyushu, Japan. Additionally, the province successfully organized an investment promotion conference for container shipping companies at Chan May Port.
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| Delegates participating in the Investment Promotion Conference for Container Shipping Companies at Chan May Port |
During the first months of 2023, the province also signed a program for economic and social development cooperation between Ho Chi Minh City and several northern and North-Central localities until 2025; signed a memorandum of understanding for industrial development cooperation with Becamex IDC Corporation and VSIP Group in Binh Duong province.
Through these activities, the functional agencies of the province promote propaganda and provide information about investment environment, business, project portfolios, priority areas for investment attraction, as well as the mechanisms and policies of the province. They support and advise investors during the project implementation process, manage investments in industrial zones and clusters, and timely provide recommendations to the Provincial People's Committee in solving difficulties and obstacles for businesses and investors.
“Taking care of" investors
In addition to promoting investment through dialogues and cooperation activities, the fact that provincial leaders and departments regularly enhance exchanging and contact with businesses through direct and online forms. This timely resolves and addresses difficulties and obstacles for businesses.
This approach contributes to creating an effective ripple effect in accompanying business operations within the business community, creating opportunities to indirectly promote investment through businesses that have already invested in local area. Allowing businesses to share their opinions about the investment environment when they receive attention and have practical experience will yield much better results than other investment promotion programs.
Mr. Phan Quy Phuong, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, once shared that he considered every negative evaluation from the business community as a limitation that the province needed to make even greater efforts to overcome. Therefore, to get closer to each level and each sector, for many consecutive years, in addition to evaluating the effectiveness of administrative and governance indexes such as PAPI, PCI, ICT-index, and DTI, as well as the Public Administration Reform Index (PAR INDEX) conducted by agencies and organizations, the province also evaluated additional indexes of competitiveness at the provincial, department, and district levels (DDCI) to identify which units (departments, divisions, sectors, or localities) receive low evaluations from the business community, which procedures and activities need to be improved accordingly.
The Provincial People's Committee is also determined to establish and maintain the effectiveness of four working groups responsible for monitoring and managing investment projects, led by Mr. Chairman and three Vice Chairmen of the Provincial People's Committee. These teams have directed, urged, inspected, supervised, and resolved obstacles to expedite the progress of implementing projects outside the budget and disbursing public investment capital for projects using budget funds, as well as to put into operation projects that have been granted investment licenses. They also complete procedures for attracting investment and selecting investors.
Through the collaboration of these working groups, the maximum limit of businesses having to handle administrative procedures related to projects on their own is minimized, and the prolonged processing time for administrative procedures by provincial departments is resolved. They also address obstacles that projects are facing to accelerate the progress.
The number of 34 projects, with a total investment capital of about 21.563 trillion VND, approved for new investment proposals in 2022, somewhat demonstrates the effectiveness of the local community's accompanying activities in supporting the removal of difficulties for businesses, as well as the flexibility in investment promotion activities.
In 2023, the province also sets the goal of focusing on supporting the on-schedule implementation of 3 projects that have started construction, supporting 17 projects that have been approved for investment proposals and chosen investors to commence in 2023, and supporting 14 projects that are calling for investment to complete investment procedures.
According to the leaders of the Department of Planning and Investment, in the first 6 months of the year, the province granted new investment certificates to 9 projects with a total registered investment capital of 3,705 billion VND (including 5 FDI projects with a registered capital of 39 million USD). They also approved investment proposals for 7 projects with a total investment amount of about 1,589 billion VND. This figure is still modest.
Therefore, in the coming time, the province will continue to focus on on-site investment promotion to stimulate project commencement. It will also focus on building an investment promotion database, further enhance readiness in investment promotion, and concentrate on supporting the completion of investment proposal files to have prepared products for investment attraction.
Regarding the department's role, it will focus on preparing investment promotion products. At the same time, the department will coordinate and support localities in reviewing projects that meet the requirements and assist in preparing files to approve investment proposals for projects when all conditions are met (including current status, land origin, construction planning, land use plans, etc.). Furthermore, it is crucial to focus on attracting investment in projects and strategic-scale investors to generate economic development changes in the area, including tourism projects of great potential.
In addition, to effectively carry out the investment attraction calling, the department will regularly review and evaluate the capabilities of investors through reliable channels of information to select reputable and capable investors to participate in projects in the area.