Southeast region may gain specialised FDI policies, Photo: VNA

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is collecting opinions of ministries and localities in the southeast region for the draft plan to implement the region’s master plan towards 2030 and beyond.

The MPI is also completing a drafting report which proposes specific policies for socioeconomic regions, which will then be sent to ministries, branches, and localities for comment.

“The proposed policies are truly tailored to exploit the region’s potentials and strengths, addressing development bottlenecks to achieve the objectives set by the Politburo,” Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said at the fourth meeting of the Coordinating Council for the Southeastern Region in Ho Chi Minh City on over a week ago.

“In particular, in addition to the policies proposed to be applied generally across the country, the southeast region has proposed several specific policies, such as on industrial park development, increasing industrial land quotas, and on priority industries and occupations to draw in strategic investors,” Minister Dung said.

At the meeting, the Ministry of Science and Technology reported on the implementation to establish and promote innovation and startup centres in Ho Chi Minh City and its neigbouring provinces of Binh Duong, and Dong Nai.

The Ministry of Information and Communications also reported on the implementation of a dynamic IT industrial zone, attracting investment in the production of electrical and electronic products as well as AI in Dong Nai, Binh Duong, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces.

Localities in the southeast region are proactive in completing modern infrastructure for socioeconomic development and high-quality investment attraction. In terms of logistics services, Ba Ria-Vung Tau is promoting the construction of a free trade zone connected to the seaport in the Cai Mep Ha area and Cai Mep Ha Logistics Centre in Phu My area.

Morover, the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Vietnam Customs are developing a circular for piloting open ports, aiming to optimise operational capacity, maximise berth usage, and reduce logistics costs for import and export goods.

Secretary of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Party Committee Pham Viet Thanh told VIR that good planning will create better development space, strong investors, and solid projects.

“The work of building and implementing planning is a significant task; thus it is necessary to take advantage of this opportunity to create space for growth and investment attraction, remove bottlenecks, and create new development drivers, combining the implementation of transport infrastructure, transformation, and public administration capacity,” Thanh said.

At the same August 10 meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked those involved to review legal bottlenecks to propose amendments, especially those in the Public Investment Law, speed up public investment disbursement, and use public investment to entice private funding.

“It is important to foster the traditional growth drivers of investment, export, and consumption, along with the new ones, including innovation, science-technology, green transition, digital transformation, and new industries like semiconductors, AI, and cloud computing,” PM Chinh said.

In particular, completed infrastructure is an important factor to engage and retain investors. Nobuyuki Matsumoto, chief representative of the Japan External Trade Organization in Ho Chi Minh City, said that Ba Ria-Vung Tau is one of the localities that the organisation recommends businesses to invest in.

“This locality has many advantages, such as having Cai Mep - Thi Vai Port and the under-construction Long Thanh International Airport," Matsumoto said. “It is rich in oil and gas resources and has a liquefied natural gas warehouse, as well as a stable electricity supply. Besides that, it is located next to Dong Nai and Binh Duong – two provinces with many factories, ensuring the stability of the supply chain.”

In the first seven months of this year, Ba Ria-Vung Tau led the country in foreign direct investment attraction with over $1.54 billion, exceeding the number for the whole of 2023, according to Ba Ria-Vung Tau Department of Planning and Investment. New projects in the province operate in the sectors of biology, electronics, and high technology.

Meanwhile, projects in Ho Chi Minh City and of Binh Duong and Dong Nai also use advanced and environmentally friendly technologies, while being less labour-intensive and boasting high productivity.

Statistics from Dong Nai Industrial Zones Management Authority also note that newly-licensed projects in the province are mainly in semiconductors, electrical components, electronics, and mechanical engineering.

Statistics published by the Foreign Investment Agency under the MPI showed that four of the top 10 localities with the largest foreign investment in the first seven months are in the southeast region: Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, and Binh Duong. These four localities attracted $5.26 billion, accounting for 37.2 per cent of the whole capital influx in the top 10 and just over one-third of the capital amount in the whole country.