PM urges An Giang to lure more major businesses

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visits an exhibition within the conference. (Photo: VNA)

An Giang should seek ways to attract capable businesses and develop global brands for local products, he said.

Technological application would create a foundation for a developed processing industry, tapping potential and natural advantages of the locality in aquaculture and agriculture, towards a modern agriculture, he suggested.

The leader urged An Giang to utilise its advantages of handicrafts, distinctive culture and landscapes to develop tourism, saying An Giang is a spotlight of Mekong tourism.

He described An Giang, Kien Giang and Ca Mau provinces and Can Tho city as ‘horses’ to fuel the Mekong Delta’s growth, and asked regional localities to seek effective and result-oriented cooperation mechanisms and policies.

PM Phuc lauded the successful operation of many groups in the locality in the sphere of agricultural production, and noted his wish that enterprises will run long-term business in An Giang, helping spur local socio-economic development.

An Giang should bring into full play its advantages, especially the local business environment and the quality of its institutions and human resources in State administration, in order to become a model in the development of value chains and sector clusters.

The province is expected to make significant breakthroughs and a success story after the issuance of the Government’s Resolution No. 120 on developing the Mekong Delta adaptable to climate change.

At the conference, PM Phuc announced the Mekong Delta’s transport planning orientations.

An Giang has been dubbed as the capital of rice and tra fish and an economic and trade centre connected with Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho City and the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh.

It has been seen as the gateway for Vietnam and other Mekong Delta cities and provinces to Cambodia and other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Aquaculture is the spearhead economic sector of An Giang with a total farming area of 2,700ha and an output of over 379,000 tonnes of different kinds of fish and shrimp each year.

Tra and basa fish are the province’s strategic product, being raised on 1,734 hectares with an output of 287,000 tonnes a year. Seventeen businesses are operating in the locality with 23 factories specialised in seafood processing in service of exports, with an annual accumulated capacity of 400,000 tonnes.

At the conference, An Giang presented decisions on investment plans for 25 projects engaging in agriculture, trade-service-tourism, industry, construction, and healthcare, and others on investment pledges totalling an estimated 132 trillion VND for nine investors.