Hope that businesses continue to invest in Nghe An in many highly effective projects (*)

(Excerpt from the speech of comrade Ho Duc Phoc -Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee - Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee at the conference)

The Investment Promotion Conference and Meeting with Investors is a traditional investment festival jointly organized by the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam - Nghe An Provincial People's Committee and the Party Committee of the Central Business Sector annually in the early spring in the beloved homeland of Uncle Ho, with special attention and direct guidance from National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung. Through 4 times of organization, the Conference has attracted the participation of many strong domestic and international enterprises.Contribute greatly to the socio-economic development of Nghe An province; many projects have been signed investment commitments, opening up many prospects for investment cooperation between enterprises and Nghe An province. Specific results:

- Spring 2009 Investment Promotion Conference:

+ There have been 17 investment agreements with a total committed capital of 19,484 billion VND implemented on schedule and especially 4 social security projects with an amount of 66 billion VND have basically completed the funding as committed, contributing to hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and improving people's lives. Many projects have promoted good efficiency, large capital, modern technology, large budget contributions, creating many jobs for workers, such as the Sabeco Packaging Factory Project of 700 billion VND; Saigon - Song Lam Beer Project of 1,500 billion VND with an output of 100 million liters/year; Hanoi - Nghe An Beer Factory of 800 billion VND with a capacity of 50 million liters/year; Tan Hong Pulp Factory, Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry, Thanh An Hospital with 250 beds,... and many other projects have changed the economic picture of Nghe An province...

+ 02 projects are still slow in progress, in 2012 we need to continue to overcome difficulties to implement.

+ 07 official projects are not implemented because investors withdrew due to market fluctuations, the investment will not be effective..

- At the Spring Canh Dan 2010 Investor Meeting:

7/7 projects with signed investment commitments with a capital of 6,500 billion VND are being implemented on schedule. Some projects continue to be implemented and have been completed and promoted effectively such as: Cua Lo 18-hole Golf Course with an investment capital of 1,500 billion VND, Saigon Eye Hospital 100 billion VND; TH cow breeding and milk processing project 350 million USD; 25-storey oil and gas building; EUROWINDOW Trade Center, Hua Na Hydropower Plant and many other projects.

- At the 2011 Spring Investors Meeting:

+ 7/10 signed projects with registered capital of 11,036 billion VND have been implemented on schedule. Some typical projects include: Vinh Metro Project, Dong Hoi Unburnt Brick Project of 1,000 billion VND; Kobelco Japan Sponge Iron Project; Havina Korea Export Garment Project, Petroleum Staff Training School, 400-bed Maternity Hospital... The projects are carrying out procedures for site planning design and compensation for site clearance.

+ 01 project (Resettlement area, social housing and commercial in Cua Lo Town of Tecco Joint Stock Company) is facing difficulties because the investor and Cua Lo Town People's Committee have not agreed on the items in the planning design.

+ 02 projects (Nguyen Island Tourist Area; Bamboo and rattan factory, market, commercial center in Kim Son town, Que Phong district) have not been implemented. In 2012, it is necessary to continue to remove obstacles for implementation.

+ 01 social security agreement on new rural construction in Nam Dan Town, funded by BIDV with a capital of 10 billion VND, has been completed.

Thanks to the effective promotion of investment projects, although the world and national economic situation in 2011 faced many difficulties, the province was affected by storms, floods, and epidemics, Nghe An still overcame and achieved many great victories. Some outstanding results are:

The growth rate reached 10.38% (while the national growth rate only reached about 6%); The economic structure continued to shift in the right direction (the proportion of agriculture decreased from 28.35% in 2010 to 27.06% in 2011; the construction industry increased from 33.7% to 34.86%). The budget revenue in 2011 reached nearly 7,000 billion VND, the province with the highest revenue among the provinces in the North Central region.

Food output reached 1.2 million tons, the highest ever, goods export reached 230 million USD, up 28%. In particular, Nghe An continued to be successful in the field of investment attraction. In 2011, the province granted investment certificates to 102 projects with a total registered capital of nearly 26,000 billion VND, including 4 FDI projects with a registered capital of nearly 700 billion VND, newly established 1,293 enterprises, bringing the number of Nghe An enterprises to over 9,000; the cultural and social fields have made much progress, national defense and security have been maintained. Education and Training continued to achieve high results, with over 21,000 students passing the university entrance exam (the highest in the country), 83 students scored 27 points or higher; 56 students scored 26 points in the same 2 exam groups and 6 of them were valedictorians of universities (2nd in the country after Hanoi), 82 national excellent students won prizes; 2 Asian Physics Bronze Medals and 1 Gold Medal, 1 International Physics Silver Medal. In 2011, Nghe An province also organized many important investment promotion events such as: Investment Promotion Conference in the North Central region, Meeting with Embassies and international organizations and many conferences, many forms of investment promotion have opened up many new prospects and investment cooperation opportunities for the province.

Currently, Nghe An province is implementing and will implement a number of large projects such as: Construction of Cua Lo deep-water seaport, Dong Hoi specialized port, Kobelco steel factory of Kobelco Group (Japan), Quynh Lap 2,400MW thermal power plant, continuing to invest in expanding the TH TrueMilk project to become the largest project in Asia in the field of livestock and milk processing; construction of Thanh Thuy Border Gate Economic Zone and Thanh Thuy International Border Gate, Cao Veu and Thong Thu sub-border gates, construction of infrastructure of the Southeast Economic Zone and industrial parks to attract large investment projects, striving to make Nghe An a fairly developed province in the North by 2015.

...

2012 is a year in which the economy is forecast to continue to face many difficulties and challenges. The general goal of the province is to mobilize and effectively use resources, promote production development, control inflation, stabilize the economy; strive to achieve a reasonable growth rate, associated with innovation of the growth model and economic restructuring, improve productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy; ensure social security and welfare, improve people's lives; maintain political stability, ensure national defense, security and social order and safety.

In 2012 and the following years, Nghe An continues to focus on mobilizing investment resources from domestic and foreign enterprises, and considers this an important resource to achieve the set socio-economic goals. The general task in attracting investment is to focus on overcoming existing problems to continue to strongly improve the investment and business environment of Nghe An province in the direction of openness, convenience, stability to be worthy of being an attractive, reliable, effective address - a destination for investors, in order to attract more and more investment capital into the province, effectively implement, meet the need to supplement external resources to the total investment capital of the whole society, contribute to achieving the goals in the 5-year socio-economic development plan for the period 2011 - 2015 of Nghe An province.

Nghe An province has prepared clean land funds in Nam Cam Industrial Park in the Southeast Economic Zone, Hoang Mai Industrial Park, Dong Hoi Industrial Park to welcome investors with open and consistent incentive policies. The Provincial People's Committee is focusing on building technical infrastructure such as: seaports, border gates, airports, roads, railways, industry and supporting services; strengthening administrative reform, training high-quality human resources, planning raw material sources and joining hands to overcome difficulties with investors. We hope that investors and businesses will continue to pay attention and invest in Nghe An province with many large and most effective projects.

* Title by Nghe An Newspaper.