Dai Tu investors propose selling IP to local enterprise

IPs make infrastructure and services available to investors in one spot

“The letter does not mention details of a future transfer, but aims to seek the MPI’s approval in principle before a detailed proposal is submitted,” an official from the ministry’s industrial park (IP) and export processing zone department said.
So far, more than $10 million has been pumped into the IP, with capital contributed by 15 Taiwanese share-holders. Most infrastructure, developed on a 40ha site leased from the State, including inner-park roads, a power station and underground systems, has been finished.
Electricity links from outside grids, vital to the running of an IP, are expected to be complete by the end of this month.
A Dai Tu park representative confirmed to Vietnam Investment Review the investors’ transfer plan, but said she had no idea about details.
Nguyen Van Viet, vice-director of the Hanoi Authority for Industry and Export Processing Zones (HIEPZ), however, said he had not heard anything about Dai Tu’s transfer plan.
“We actually have planned to send a delegation to Taiwan in April to discuss with the investors whether they will go on with the project or quit it,” he said.
Construction of the IP, located near National Highway No.5, started in mid-1999.
Over the past four years, Hanoi leaders have urged investors to speed up the project’s implementation, without success.
Hanoi has licensed five IPs, including the domestic Sai Dong B, Japanese-backed Thang Long, Malaysian-invested Noi Bai, the 100-per-cent Taiwanese-owned Dai Tu and the South Korean-invested Sai Dong A, of which only the first three are operating.
Sai Dong B, considered the most successful IP in the north, has all of its 38.5 hectares of first-phase industrial land rented, with 23 projects and total investment of $238 million.
Hanel is to commence construction on the 22ha of the park’s second phase in the final quarter of this year, 70 per cent of which has been rented in advance. The investor expects to have the second-phase site occupied by the first quarter of next year.
About 80 per cent of Thang Long IP’s 87ha first-phase industrial land has been filled. Infrastructure development for a 75ha second-phase site started last week.
Noi Bai IP, 10 kilometres from Noi Bai airport in Dong Anh district, is the least successful with only half of its 34ha first-phase land leased.
Local electronics firm Hanel, the sole investor behind Sai Dong B, is negotiating with its joint-venture partner Daewoo to take over the debt-ridden South Korean group’s stake in the Sai Dong A IP construction joint venture.
The Daewoo Construction-Hanel joint venture was licensed in July 1996 to develop the 420ha Sai Dong A park.
However, so far the project has failed to even commence land clearance due to the foreign partner’s financial difficulties.