|
State honours HCM City for FDI successes
HCM City received the Labour Order, first class, on Saturday for its achievements in attracting foreign direct investment in the last 20 years.
"The Government congratulates and applauds the [City’s] efforts," Deputy Primer Minister Hoang Trung Hai said in his speech at the awards ceremony. "This is a very important resource for Viet Nam’s development."
Since 1988, the city has licensed 3,141 successful projects with a total registered capital of US$25.68 billion, 48.5 per cent of it in the services sector, 36.3 per cent in industry, and the rest in agriculture-forestry-fisheries.
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, British Virgin Islands, England, France and the US have been the biggest investors.
Recently, FDI has trended towards education, training, healthcare and technology.
"By attracting FDI, the city has acquired state-of-the-art technologies and advanced management skills and created hundreds of thousands of jobs," chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Hoang Quan said. "The capital also enables development of technical and social infrastructure."
FDI has helped the city develop some key industries such as software, telecommunications, electronics and finance and banking, in addition to hotels, urban areas, amusement parks and logistics.
Foreign companies accounted for over a quarter of the city’s total exports in 2007.
Flip-side
But things are not all smooth sailing for the city in attracting FDI. It has been affected by the global downturn, faces a growing shortage of skilled workers, suffers from poor infrastructure and rising production costs, and faces growing competition from neighbouring countries in attracting FDI.
"To achieve better results in the next 20 years, the city should ensure FDI inflows are in line with the development plans for each industry and locality," Hai said.
He also called for picking up management skills from foreign investors and studying the weaknesses of Vietnamese businesses.
"If businesspeople can’t apply new and modern management, the Vietnamese economy won’t be able to compete," he warned.
Hai urged the city to speed up administrative reform.
He wondered why the city, which has received FDI investment pledges of $25.68 billion in the last 20 years, had seen only $10 billion of that amount so far.
"We all know that Viet Nam lacks capital but why can’t they spend all the FDI committed? We need to find out the reason. If not, the benefits of FDI only exist on paper," he said.
"Successful FDI attraction requires a win-win solution. If foreign investors can’t win, Viet Nam loses too.
"Furthermore, we lack co-ordination in every task," Hai said.
VietNamNet, VietNamNews
|
