Giant unviels mega projects

The high-profile projects, which the chairman of the privately-run New Hope Group discussed with Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc last week, comprise a two million-tonne capacity steel facility, a 50,000-tonne capacity aluminium refinery, a trade mega-complex and an urea production facility.
New Hope Group chairman Liu Yonghao, who led a delegation of 70 Chinese enterprises looking for investment opportunities in Vietnam last week, told Vietnam Investment Review that his company’s projects for Vietnam are a result of the country’s new WTO membership status and similar economic development conditions with China.
“Vietnamese high-ranking governmental officials who are very progressive are another motivation to our group’s decision. Chinese investment capital in Vietnam remains very humble and can not symbolise either of the countries’ potential. We wish to become a bridge for Vietnamese and Chinese investors based on our successful operations in Vietnam,” Yonghao said.
During the last six years, the privately-run firm has built six animal feed facilities across Vietnam, each of which is capitalised at $4 million. The group is currently developing two additional facilities, one in Haiphong and the other in the Mekong Delta.
Yonghao, who was listed as one of 20 Chinese billionaires in 2006 by Forbes magazine, said that he was still looking for suitable places for the group’s proposed steel facility and aluminium refinery, which are close to seaports and raw material supplying regions, either in Vietnam’s north or centre.
“In case domestic raw materials are unavailable, we are also ready to import raw materials to make finished products,” Yonghao said.
New Hope Group has expressed its plan to develop a trade megacomplex including wholesale markets, office buildings, apartments and shopping malls in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. The complex with estimated $400 million in investment capital will apply a new business model that links the production and logistics sectors, similar to the New Hope’s Kunming O-Park in Yunnan and Nanning O-Park in Guangxi.
Yonghao said that following this visit, the fourth of his business trips to Vietnam, New Hope would immediately set up a special taskforce to work out specific investment details on the proposed projects before being delivered to the Vietnamese Government for approval.
“We have sufficient financial and human resources and the projects’ feasibility is now reliant upon Vietnamese actual investment conditions and the Vietnamese Government’s willingness to accept these projects,” Yonghao said. Besides New Hope’s projects, a Guangdong Hi-tech Association representative, who accompanied Yonghao, also unveiled his desire to develop a hi-tech park in Vietnam, where Guangdong companies could set up their manufacturing bases in IT, pharmaceutical and electronic sectors.
Phuc said the New Hope and Guangdong Hi-tech Association projects were suitable with the nation’s sectoral development requirements and advised Chinese investors to closely work with the MPI’s Foreign Investment Agency and the Ministry of Industry.