DVIZ’s Belgian investment flagship

Reggy Vermeulen is on the right

Reggy Vermeulen, general director of Dinh Vu Industrial Zone, tells VIR’s Song Ngoc that the completion of the zone’s infrastructure network would help lure rich investors.

With the inauguration of the waste water treatment plant, have you completed all the infrastructure system in the Dinh Vu Industrial Zone (DVIZ)?

In addition to the previous power station of 124MVA, the water system of 5,000 cubic metres per day and the waste water treatment module of 200 cubic metres per day to serve the first phase development of 164ha,  on March 14, 2012, we are glad to inaugurate the new wastewater treatment plant of 2,500 cubic metres per day after a year construction.

This is an important milestone for us to complete all essential utilities for stage 1 of the second phase of 377.5ha, such as a power station of 250 MVA, a water provision network of 12,500 cubic metres per day. All the utilities in the zone are designed in the flexible way to be able to expand when it is necessary to cope with the demand of existing and potential clients.

In terms of the Jetty development to serve petrochemical clients, we have completed three terminals up to 20,000 DWT with expected annual throughput of three million tonnes per year. DVIZ’s clients can also enjoy port service from seven operating terminals inside the zone.

Foreign direct investment is slowing down in Vietnam this year, what will you do to convince investors to come and stay in DVIZ?

Fortunately, the direct investment slow-down is not the case this year for DVIZ. Actually in our case and thanks to our international marketing effort, last year over 80 per cent of the zone’s land area were leased to foreign invested firms. With our worldwide reputation and with the commitment of giant investors like Bridgestone from Japan last year, we catch a great business opportunity.

More and more corporations from Japan, America and Europe are working with us for setting up manufacturing bases in DVIZ. Investors from different industries find in DVIZ a strategic location as our zone has a great advantage when it comes to intermodal transportation connection between the sea, the road, and the railway.

Besides the sizes of land lots are designed flexibly to meet investors’ diverse demand, DVIZ is enjoying very favourable tax incentives. These factors have allowed DVIZ to turn 2012 into a very successful year despite the general FDI slow-down and the slow-down of the industry in Vietnam.

After Bridgestone, which is developing a multi-million dollar tyre manufacturing facility in DVIZ, who will be your next tenants?

One of the key aspects of our sector of activity is to be confidential over the possible future investment of new tenants. However, since Bridgestone has selected the zone after two years of project site evaluation in terms of the land, utilities conditions and incentives, many vendors and supporting industry suppliers of Bridgestone have contacted us for a possible land lease.

Furthermore, by the end of this month, we will have one more client from Japan in the petrochemical industry with a total investment of $15 million. In addition, we expect to have many more clients from other nations with a projected total investment of around $190 million by the end of this year.
 
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has recently ordered to stop building new industrial parks in Vietnam. Does this decision affect DVIZ's operation and expansion plan in the future?

Since early days in our business strategy, it is very clear for us to do a thousands of hectare industrial zone. We find great business opportunity in Vietnam and we are committed ourselves to a long-term partner here. We have proceeded our expansion plan since the success of the first phase.

The expansion is actively implemented while we are in early days of the second phase. Thanks to the gained interesting experience and management skills, we have been working with some partners in Vietnam to stronger mutual name and create added value for each other. Therefore, the recent decision shall not impact on our expansion plan.

Rent A Port, the major foreign partner in DVIZ, announced to build a logistics center at Haiphong’s Lach Huyen seaport. Could you give more details about the progress of this investment plan?

Rent A Port always collaborates very closely with Haiphong People’s Committee and with Haiphong Economic Zones Authority. With these two partners we are assessing the opportunity to develop a logistic and petrochemical area within the Lach Huyen development. This project will be following the project initiated by the Vietnamese authorities in collaboration with the Japanese.

Once the construction of the first phase of the Lach Huyen project starts, we will be able to communicate more in details over the exact scope of this new logistic and petrochemical zone. However we can say that Rent A Port is moving forward for this new step in the already close and successful relation with Haiphong authorities.