VSIP eyes Phu Quoc island for industrial park

According to a Government Office document released last week  detailing the meeting between Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and authorities from Kien Giang province, the provincial authorities are working with Singaporean investors to develop a Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) in Phu Quoc.

Dung threw his weight behind the project, advising the provincial authorities to learn from the positive experience of Binh Duong province, where two VSIP projects are located, and work with the Singaporean investors to draw up an investment plan focusing on “high-tech and environmentally friendly industries” for his review and approval.

The prime minister will approve the VSIP project after the Ministry of Planning and Investment appraises a project investment proposal submitted by Kien Giang province and the project’s investor, reads the document.

Phu Quoc island, 120 kilometres off the coast of southern Kien Giang province, is the largest island in Vietnam. The government in 2007 drew up a master plan to develop the island as a centre of recreation, trade, finance and banking. The island is one of the most attractive in the country for tourism project developers and hundreds of projects have already been granted investment certificates.

A senior official at VSIP, who refused to be named, confirmed with VIR that stakeholders of VSIP had studied the investment of an “integrated project” in Phu Quoc. However, he said VSIP itself did not yet have a specific plan for this investment.

If VSIP develops an industrial park and township complex in Phu Quoc, it would be the sixth in Vietnam.

VSIP is the most successful industrial park developer in Vietnam. Established in 1994 by Singapore’s Sembcorp Group, Ascendas and Vietnam’s Becamex, it is considered as an icon of economic co-operation between Vietnam and Singapore.

This joint venture owns and runs five industrial park and township complexes in Vietnam. They have two complexes are in Binh Duong, one in Haiphong, one in Bac Ninh and one in Quang Ngai.

As of September 2013, VSIP has attracted nearly 490 investors from 25 countries and territories to invest in Vietnam. These companies have brought $6.4 billion in investment capital and have employed about 140,000 workers. In October, VSIP was named Best Industrial and Warehouse Developer in Vietnam by international finance magazine Euromoney, in the ninth annual global Euromoney Real Estate Survey.