Thai Nguyen FDI a source of pride

Thai Nguyen has courted vast swathes of foreign investment over the last five years

At the province’s major investment promotion conference last July, Samsung Group CEO Shim Won Hwan explained why the firm had chosen to drop its anchor in Thai Nguyen in 2013.

The tech giant leader recalled that the firm was impressed with not only Thai Nguyen’s eminent advantages in technical infrastructure, but also the provincial leaders’ strong dedication.

In the early 2010s, Samsung had placed a production facility in the northern province of Bac Ninh. At the time, Thai Nguyen leaders often visited the Bac Ninh complex and expressed desire to host a Samsung project, and their sincerity convinced the South Korean tech titan.

Samsung established its high-tech production complex on handsets and other electronic devices at Yen Binh Industrial Park in Pho Yen town, turning Thai Nguyen into Vietnam’s top performer in foreign direct investment attraction that year with more than $3.4 billion in total committed FDI volume, with 22 newly-licensed projects.

Samsung’s facility at Yen Binh Industrial Park, the group’s largest handset manufacturing complex, has provided jobs to nearly 70,000 local labourers. After five years of Samsung presence, Thai Nguyen has posted an exponential growth in export business, up from several hundred million US dollars to billions of US dollars annually, placing the province among Vietnam’s top export performers.

Since the arrival of Samsung, Thai Nguyen has courted constantly growing FDI influx. The province is currently home to more than 130 overseas investment projects worth nearly $7.7 billion in total registered capital.

To continue posting such laudable achievements, the province has made efforts to constantly improve the local investment climate through timely dissemination of the government’s policies and guidance, and increasing support from local authorised management agencies for financiers.

The province has also prioritised attracting those with financial wealth and industry expertise, and showing keen interest towards high technology and the supporting industries in particular.

According to statistics from the Thai Nguyen Department of Planning and Investment, since the major investment conference last summer, Thai Nguyen has wooed 62 projects from 44 investors with total registered investment value of approximately VND115.6 trillion ($5.03 billion). The province has approved investment proposals and granted new certificates to 28 projects valued more than VND1.64 trillion ($71 million).

Right after the promotion conference, the Thai Nguyen Party Standing Committee issued guidance to push up the realisation of signed investment projects. Along with that, a steering committee was set up and tasked with investment project facilitation led by the chairman of the provincial People’s Committee.

Projects having signed MoUs with the province are in the process of finalising investment procedures, many of them on a large scale and run by leading local companies such as T&T Group, FLC Group, Danko, and TMS to name but a few. The province’s strong commitment has significantly inspired the investors’ mindset.

Do Quang Hien, chairman of privately-held T&T Group said, “If things go smoothly, we will complete the legal setup this year and complete the investment phase by 2025.”

Besides big groups, many locally-based businesses have engaged in expansion related to initiatives signed at last year’s investment promotion event.

TNG Investment and Trading JSC, with a string of projects on apparel production, social housing, and Son Cam I industrial cluster construction, is one such example. According to Nguyen Van Thoi, chairman of TNG and chair of the Thai Nguyen Business Association, the enactment of Resolution 09 by provincial leaders on improving the local investment climate will breathe new air into the province’s investment landscape in the months ahead.

“I believe Thai Nguyen’s investment will catch robust growth in the upcoming time,” Thoi said.

By virtue of open policies and a proper approach in funding attraction, the FDI volume in the province during 2012-2017 jumped 70 times compared to that in the period 1993-2012. In the first half of this year, foreign-invested businesses raked in $16.32 billion in total revenue, of which their export value touched $13 billion and tax payment hit VND3.5 trillion ($152 million), creating jobs for about 110,000 labourers.