Ha Tinh’s potential woos Japanese

Provincial Party Secretary Vo Kim Cu told 30 Japanese enterprises at last week’s meeting in Hanoi that all the best conditions would be given to Japanese investors in various sectors like infrastructure, logistics, ports, urban development, healthcare, education, agriculture, supporting industries, and oil refinery in the province.

“We call upon all of you, as well as other Japanese investors, to invest in Ha Tinh,” Cu said. “I can say for sure that all of you will be treated the same as local enterprises and Ha Tinh citizens. We will speed-up site clearances and will halve the time for processing all administrative procedures for you.”

The meeting was attended by major Japanese enterprises like JFE Shoji, Mitsubishi, Sojitz, Vijachip, Jicem, Tamada, Takagi, J-Power, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, TK Chemical, and NNA.

“We will build a large industrial park for Japanese investors in the time to come. We have also established an office, known as Japan Desk, in charge of supporting Japanese doing business and living in Vietnam,” Cu said.

The Japan External Trade Organisation in Hanoi’s chief representative Atsusuke Kawada said many Japanese enterprises who were operating in Vietnam wanted to open more factories in the country.

“Ha Tinh is a good destination for them, because it has large power plants and Son Duong deep-water seaport,” Kawada said. “Japanese enterprises want to invest in many sectors including manufacturing, retail, restaurant, education, healthcare, IT, and agriculture.”

Kyoshiro Ichikawa, director of I.B.C Vietnam specialised in supporting Japanese investors in doing business in Vietnam, said Taiwan’ s Formosa Group which was developing a $10 billion steel and port complex in Ha Tinh’s Vung Ang Economic Zone would help attract many Japanese investors involved in machinery maintenance and logistics to the province.

Truong Quoc Trung, chairman of Ha Tinh Minerals & Trading Joint Stock Corporation (Mitraco) said at the meeting that Mitraco wanted to co-operate with Japanese partners in a $100 million project to process titanium residues and another project worth $50 million to produce gypsum planks, and agricultural projects.

Currently, foreign investors have been investing over $17 billion in Ha Tinh. with Formosa’s steel and port complex in the top list. The complex, which will be able to produce 7.5 million tonnes of steel in the first phase, will become operational by 2017, before entering the second phase with the total investment capital of $16 billion to produce 22 million tonnes of steel per year.

Japan’s Mitsubishi planned to invest over $2.4 billion in building the second 1,200 megawatt thermal power plant in the 7,000MW Vung Ang power centre. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Samsung proposed to invest $5 billion in building the third and fourth plants in the power centre.