Vinh Phuc: Many Policies Supporting FDI Businesses

In addition to the general incentives prescribed by the Government of Vietnam, when investing in Vinh Phuc, foreign investors can also enjoy many others issued by the province, including support policies for investment projects in supporting industry and workforce training. The time limit for processing dossiers is shortened one third compared with the general regulations.

After falling behind in the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), Vinh Phuc has managed to develop and implement schemes to improve investment environment and enhance PCI ranking; focusing on solving difficulties and problems of the investors in the area (investment promotion activities in place).

Mr Vong said, Vinh Phuc is committed to continuing to improve administrative procedures, infrastructure, human resources, etc in order to create a stable, transparent and open investment environment for those to invest in and implement successfully projects.

By the end of June 26^th 2014, the total number of FDI projects in the province of Vinh Phuc was 158, of which 107 projects are in industrial zones (IZs) and 51 projects outside IZs. The total newly provided and added capital was US$159.4 million, accounting for 106.4 percent compared with the year plan of US$150 million. Until the present time, Vinh Phuc province has a total registered investment capital of US$2,907.9 million.

Since early this year, many investors, mainly from South Korea, have come to survey Vinh Phuc for their large-scale projects. There appear more investors from Europe (Netherlands, France). Of the 18 new FDI projects in the first six months of the year, there are 13 investment projects funded by South Korea, mainly focused in manufacturing electronic products.

To solve the problem of rent land for FDI enterprises, besides IZs which are well operating with high occupancy rates, Vinh Phuc is focused on promoting investment in Ba Thien Industrial Zone. Currently, the province has assigned Vinh Phuc IZs Management Authority to manage Ba Thien IZ, creating competitive advantages with other IZs in the neighbouring cities, attracting the interest of foreign investors, especially investors from South Korea in manufacturing electronic components. Until now, there are 7 investors who signed a memorandum to rent land in Ba Thien IZ, among which 5 projects have been granted investment certificates.

To accelerate FDI projects locally, recently, Vinh Phuc has strengthened the post-test, concentrated on reviewing the progress of implementation of FDI projects, urged slow projects and projects do not have the ability to implement to take dissolution procedures ahead of time; promptly answered questions of businesses and legal issues which have not been clearly defined. The province also submitted timely written instructions to consult the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Industry and Trade to answer businesses, allowing some projects facing financial difficulties to continue to extend their projects and allowing some projects to suspend temporarily to overcome difficulties.

In the normal course of business, for some companies facing difficulty in the output market in certain areas, Vinh Phuc has facilitated to allow them to engage in suitable additional fields. As of June 20^th 2014, the province had adjusted investment certificates for 6 businesses which added their business fields (including 3 businesses adding businesses fields in goods export and import activities and 3 businesses adding business fields in sublease excess factory).

Generally assessing the investment climate of Vinh Phuc, most Japanese business leaders have said that they have plans to expand business in Vinh Phuc, despite the continued global economic crisis. According to them, the positive factors of investment environment in Vinh Phuc in particular and Vietnam in general is the social and political stability, easy to employ workers and increased outsourcing market. In particular, Japanese companies selected Vinh Phuc as their stop because they realized that the province has a developed industry and many attractive incentives especially for supporting industries, abundant labour resources and developed infrastructure. Therefore, 100 percent of the Japanese investment projects in Vinh Phuc is considered very successful.