Passion for the development of Uncle Ho's homeland

Delegates exchanged on the sidelines of the workshop. Photo: Duc Anh

This is the first time Nghe An has organized an investment seminar before the annual meeting of investors in the past 10 years. According to experts and businesses, this new approach demonstrates the province's great receptiveness in strongly improving the investment environment and also affirms its determination to develop with a "breakthrough spirit". The frank and enthusiastic speech of Provincial Party Secretary Nguyen Dac Vinh at the beginning of the seminar strongly conveyed that spirit, as well as expressed the province's concerns to investors and experts.

It can be said that in the 9 times of organizing the Conference to meet investors and attract investment in the province (2009-2017), Nghe An has witnessed outstanding results compared to the previous period. 980 investment projects with a total capital of more than 276,000 billion VND, including 927 domestic investment projects and 53 foreign direct investment projects, have shown that strong change.

However, at the workshop, according to the assessment of Associate Professor Dr. Tran Dinh Thien - Director of the Vietnam Economic Institute, that change is quite strong but not enough to fundamentally change the development structure. The investment flow is not large enough, not of sufficient quality to create a breakthrough development for the province. This is an issue that the province needs to study to have stronger solutions, especially if it wants to increase investment attraction, to achieve the goal of becoming a fairly developed province in the Northern region...

Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien spoke at the workshop.

Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien also suggested that the province should reform its institutions in the spirit of breakthroughs to have a superior institution to attract high-class investors. On the other hand, according to the assessment, the business force in Nghe An is still quite weak in terms of fields and low in terms of technology and management level. This becomes an obstacle because if the partners come in but the internal businesses are weak, the synergy will certainly be weak. Therefore, in addition to attracting investment, the province needs to have a policy to develop its enterprises. "Both sides grow together, both strong, both cooperate and compete with each other, that is better" - Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien said.

Speaking at the workshop, former Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen re-evaluated the province's advantages such as "large land, large population", relatively synchronous infrastructure, high-quality human resources", and also pointed out the extremely favorable conditions in the international integration trend of our country, especially the recently signed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Analyzing those conditions, the Minister who has made a great mark in the country's international economic integration process believes that this is a very favorable time for Nghe An to become an attractive destination, strongly attracting investment capital.

However, according to him, to be able to best exploit the advantages created by "heaven, earth, and time", the key is that the province must be more active, strong and determined in reforming administrative procedures, improving the business environment, and raising the provincial competitiveness to be among the top in the country. "This is something that does not cost much money, Nghe An can absolutely do it" - the former Minister of Trade shared one of the solutions to build Nghe An into a prosperous province.

Highly agreeing with the above comments and analysis, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan - Head of the Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), based on the analysis of survey data, highly appreciated the advantages of Nghe An, especially the quality of human resources. Also according to VCCI data, Nghe An is being evaluated well in the input procedure group. "In PCI, there are 10 component indexes, including the market entry index, Nghe An got 8.9/10 points, very high" - Mr. Tuan said and noted that the administrative procedure groups after the project entered the province were not highly evaluated. Therefore, according to the representative of VCCI, the key issue of Nghe An is to focus strongly on the post-registration, post-investment promotion stages and the coordination of departments and branches; cooperation, care, and companionship with businesses.

Mr. Dau Anh Tuan also said that Nghe An not only needs to attract new projects but also needs to pay attention to developing small and medium enterprises in the area. VCCI representative analyzed: Nghe An's export figures in 2017 reached 682 million USD, up 20% but lower than the national average and only accounted for 0.32% of the total export turnover of the country, Nghe An's immigration rate is still very high. "That is a signal showing that there is a need to develop private enterprises dynamically and sustainably in Nghe An alongside strategic projects that can change the structure and appearance of the province. These two steps must go together" - Mr. Tuan recommended.

During more than 3 hours, 10 groups of issues were raised by experts and investors with great enthusiasm, frankness and responsibility with a common goal of contributing to building Nghe An into an increasingly attractive destination for investors. The issues raised were seriously and receptively received by provincial leaders, departments, branches and localities, so that the effectiveness did not stop at the conference but also spread to all actions and work of the entire political system according to the motto that Nghe An committed: "The government accompanies businesses, the success of businesses is also the success of the province".