Ca Mau attracts major investment
The southernmost province of Ca Mau is becoming an attractive investment destination in the south, according to a local official.
Huynh Viet Khai, the director of Ca Mau Province’s Trade-Tourism and Investment Promotion Centre, said more domestic and foreign investors had shown interest in the coastal province because of major ongoing projects, including the Viet Nam Ship Building Industry (Vinashin) Group’s Nam Can shipyard.
The shipyard will be capable of building ships with a capacity of 30,000 tonnes.
The Vinashin Group also plans to invest in building a cement factory with a capacity of one million tonnes a year, and the Ha Tang Sai Gon Joint-Stock Company is building infrastructure for Khanh An Industrial Park with an investment of VND1 trillion (US$60.5 million).
Other major investors include Sai Gon – Ca Mau artificial plank company with an investment of VND3.2 trillion. A US Group is seeking opportunities to build an oil refinery plant in the locality as well.
Khai said the province was blessed with marine potential and opportunities abound in aquaculture and marine products processing, and oil and gas as well as marine tourism.
Ca Mau Province has 270,000 ha of aquatic farming, one of the country’s four largest fishing grounds.
Its annual seafood export value has hit US$600 million, accounting for 15 per cent of the country’s total seafood export value.
The province is also well known for its natural resources including oil and gas and vast areas of mangroves and cajeput forests classified as a submerged saline ecological system.
The forests cover 100,000 ha and have a biological value ranked as the world’s second biggest after the forests the Amazon in Brazil.
Ca Mau forests offer advantages for the province to develop eco-tourism.
The province planned to give priority investment in aquaculture and maritime products processing to reach an export value of US$1 billion in 2010.
To achieve this target, the province will upgrade the existing 32 seafood processing plants with a total capacity of 150,000 tonnes a year. With its main export item shrimp, the province will also encourage shrimp breeding and off-shore fishing.
VNN
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