IZ filling up fast after smooth land clearance

Effective land clearance and compensation policies are being credited with much of the park’s success.
“We are having to turn away small projects applying for a site in the Hoa Xa IZ,” said Nguyen Xuan Tuyen, deputy head of Nam Dinh’s IZ authority.
“We are looking for large projects to fill the remaining area. We expect the industrial land in the zone to be filled by investment projects by late next year with registered capital expected to be around $260 million,” he said.
Located west of Nam Dinh city, in Nam Dinh province – the former textile centre of Vietnam – the 357 hectare Hoa Xa IZ cost VND472 billion ($30.2 million) to develop. More than 250ha are reserved for industrial factories, the rest have been set aside for infrastructure projects, including roadways and wastewater treatment facilities and parks.
“To date, investors have leased more than 150ha of industrial land in the IZ,” Tuyen said.
Forty different investors have sites in the IZ and the 27 that are operational churned out $7 million in turnover last year, Tuyen said.
The Nam Dinh government approved 44 of the 45 licences for the projects in the IZ. The central government was responsible for one, Tuyen said.
The South Korean-owned Youngone Nam Dinh Company operates the largest project at the site with $53.2 million in registered capital.
Tuyen said getting the land at the site cleared quickly was of the most important factors in attracting investors to the IZ.
“After planning the IZ, we decided to clear the sites before passing them on our investors,” he said, acknowledging that land clearance was always a big problem for investment projects involving large areas of land.
The authorities planned to clear the land in three stages. In the first two stages, 270ha were cleared for construction.
The last stage will be finished by the end of next year.
Consistent and transparent land compensation policies ensured land clearance went smoothly, Tuyen said.
“A constant price was applied through the whole compensation process, to everyone, and so we received no complaints from the residents about the areas being cleared.”
The authorities were responsible for clearing the area and paying compensation, Tuyen said. Investors only have to pay for leveling their sites.
Tenants who invested in the IZ before 2004 are eligible for a land compensation subsidy of nearly $1 for every square metre they have used and a site-levelling subsidy of nearly 70 cents per square metre.