Thai Nguyen: the northeast’s investment magnet

Thai Nguyen has become home to some of the biggest tech giants around, photo Le Toan

According to latest figures from the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, as of August 20, total effective foreign invested projects in Thai Nguyen amounted to 172 registered at more than $8.38 billion, placing the province in the top 10 localities nationwide in foreign investment attraction.

In the year to date, the province has granted investment certificates to 10 environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient ventures valued at nearly $30.4 million. By early last month, Thai Nguyen was home to 7,170 businesses with total capital value surpassing VND90.9 trillion ($3.95 billion).

Nestled in Vietnam’s northeast centre, Thai Nguyen is part of the East-West economic development corridor that links China’s Guangdong and Guangxi provinces with Vietnam’s major seaports. These factors help elevate Thai Nguyen’s charm in the eyes of foreign investors and provide the premise to spur the province’s industrial development.

Leveraging these bountiful advantages and local skilled workforce, the province’s government has prioritised foreign investment attraction and facilitated the development of local industrial infrastructure. One notable example is South Korean tech giant Samsung, which has placed its billions-of-US dollar production facilities in the province for producing high-tech electronic items serving export and domestic market needs.

The province-based industrial zones (IZs) are giving jobs to more than 100,000 workers and bringing in more than $27 billion in the annual export value, which is a big catalyst to Thai Nguyen’s development.

According to Vu Hong Bac, Party Deputy Secretary and Chairman of Thai Nguyen People’s Committee, the province will prepare a large land fund of about 700 hectares to welcome new investors into its expanded IZs, simultaneously proposing the government for the establishment of Yen Binh IT Park in Pho Yen district over 500ha space.

The province, therefore, wants businesses to avail of the opportunities and commits to doing the best to facilitate business development.

The province’s efforts were duly rewarded as a slew of financially wealthy investors from diverse localities – such as T&T Group, FLC Group, Thien Loc Construction Investment JSC, TNG Investment Trading JSC, and TMS Group – made forays in Thai Nguyen in recent years.

Explaining Thai Nguyen’s advantages, Vu Van Truong, chairman and general director of Thien Loc Construction Investment JSC, said, “We felt quite secure upon choosing Thai Nguyen to set down our business. Besides transparent policies and leaders’ strong commitment for investor support, Thai Nguyen has everything to become a thriving land for development such as abounding resources and quality workforce.”

The projects of Thien Loc in Thai Nguyen have strictly observed their progress targets. For instance, the Song Cong 1 urban development project was recently finalised, and the company is in full throttle with preparations to be able to kick-off construction of the Song Cong 2 project later this month.

Thai Nguyen’s Chairman Bac said that as the country has been bogged down in difficulties due to COVID-19 implications, to reach its 7.3 per cent growth target set for this year, Thai Nguyen continues to take radical and consistent measures to contain COVID-19, focusing on tackling the bottlenecks that hinder business development and ensuring effective implementation of government’s support packages.

Simultaneously, Thai Nguyen would pen its own resolution on business climate improvement, striving to enhance the province’s competitiveness ranking in the national tally.

Thai Nguyen Department of Planning and Investment has been joining efforts with district-level people’s committees and relevant agencies to review and reassess the reasonableness of investment projects to timely detect the projects that may cause waste of natural resources, do harm to the environment, or bring little social and economic effects.

Later in the year, Thai Nguyen will continue working on local IZ expansion and development to avail of the opportunities for investment attraction into major industrial sectors and supporting industries, at a time when the world’s major players are considering shifting their investment flows out of China to regional countries.