Endowed with great potential and plentiful opportunities, Quang Nam province is attracting more and more investors. Certainly, businesses place high expectations for enabling policies creating the investment environment here. To understand practical values that Quang Nam brings to investors, Vietnam Business Forum reporter has an interview with Mr. Dang Phong, Director of Quang Nam Department of Planning and Investment. Hoang Lam reports.
What are outstanding advantages that make Quang Nam province confident to assert its position in the country’s investment attraction landscape?
Lying in Vietnam’s central key economic region, Quang Nam province gathers all favorable elements for development like good natural conditions and synchronous transport infrastructure. In particular, Quang Nam is also the first locality chosen by the central government to establish Chu Lai Open Economic Zone - Vietnam’s first coastal economic zone for various industries and fields, operated according to international practices. By harnessing above advantages, since its re-establishment in 1997, Quang Nam's state budget revenue has exceeded VND20 trillion and become one of 15 localities with budgetary surplus sent to the central budget.
The GRDP growth is fairly high, averaging nearly 10.5% a year. In 2019, its GRDP structure further shifted in a positive direction, with industry and construction accounting for 33.96%; and agriculture, forestry and fishery accounting for 12.62%. Tourism and services expanded by 12.5% over 2018 to nearly VND55,600 billion (US$2.4 billion). GRDP per capita was estimated at nearly VND66 million in 2019, an increase of VND5 million over 2018. The appearance of rural and mountainous areas was given a facelift, with all communes having asphalted roads to administrative quarters and having health facilities. By the end of 2019, as many as 92 communes, Phu Ninh district and Dien Ban town met new countryside standards. In addition to boosting economic development, Quang Nam always promotes democracy based on strengthening the great unity of the entire people. All these are the basic premises for Quang Nam to confidently become a developed province in the region and in the country as a whole.
Did Quang Nam make important progress in administrative procedural reform?
Determining that administrative reform is a major policy of the Party and State, Quang Nam province is resolved to make true progress across the political system, from provincial to grassroots levels. Therefore, the Quang Nam Provincial Party Committee actively launched many plans and resolutions to uphold leader roles, responsibility and accountability. At the same time, the Provincial People’s Committee established the Public Administration and Investment Promotion Center - a place to support businesses to carry out investment projects in the locality. To date, administrative reform and investment promotion will be carried out in a 4-step process: Receipt, appraisal, ratification and delivery at the center, which handles about 30% of total procedures.
Encouraging enterprises and entrepreneurs to give their opinions to complete mechanisms and policies for economic development has produced a lot of desirable successes. Could you please tell us about this?
Over the past years, in order to well execute Resolutions 19 (from 2014 to 2018), Resolution 35/NQ-CP and especially Resolution 02 (2019-2020) of the Government, the Quang Nam Provincial People’s Committee devised many breakthrough solutions to improve the business environment, enhance competitiveness and support business development. One of the important tasks is seeking consultative opinions from enterprises to complete policies and mechanisms. Specifically, in 2019, the province hosted a business dialogue (every two years) and 10 regular business meetings (the fifth day of every month), directed agencies and units to regularly organize theme-based business meetings for specific industries, fields and localities to provide more channels for enterprises to meet and respond to the provincial government. In addition, departments and agencies have actively answered questions raised by enterprises on the Provincial Business Support Portal (http://htdn.quangnam.gov.vn).
Currently, large-scale investors are gradually shifting their investments into the agricultural sector. Do you think that the province still has a lot to do to unlock its full potential?
According to statistics, from 2015 to date, the province has more agricultural companies than previous periods, but they still account for just 3.1% of total enterprises (260 agricultural companies out of 8,400 enterprises). At present, very few large-scale investors are investing in rural agriculture in the province.
To fully unlock local agricultural potential and advantages, restructuring agriculture towards commerciality and sustainability is an inevitable trend where the business is a nucleus. Facing objective difficulties, Quang Nam first determined to create a clean land fund for investors and facilitate them to access capital sources with simple procedures. The province will always be ready and willing to support all businesses; strongly attract investment capital into agriculture; and readily side with them under any circumstance.
What effective strategies will the Department of Planning and Investment take to make more breakthroughs in rural agriculture development?
First of all, the department will step up administrative reforms, effectively implement agricultural mechanisms and policies, especially on incentives for agricultural investment. The province will gradually increase product added value and encourage high-tech application to agricultural development. The province will select 1-2 large-scale enterprises to cooperate with local companies and cooperatives to jointly create value chains for key products; increase investment support for production joint ventures and innovative startups in agriculture; and speed up the issue of land-use right certificates for business entities. In addition to drawing investment projects, the provincial government will continue to mobilize all resources and adopt solutions to further improve the local investment environment; reasonably increase investment fund, sourced from public investment fund, for agricultural and rural development, placed in the panoramic landscape of socioeconomic development of the central key economic region to 2025 and further to 2030, devised to link Quang Nam with other provinces and cities in the region.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
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