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Law forces industrial zones to break promises
If the government isn’t careful, our industrial zones, a major draw for foreign investment, will no longer be attractive to respectable companies.
Owners of industrial zones in the city have received full 50-year rental payments from many businesses already, but under Vietnamese law, they must ask for more money as market rates have gone up.
Decree 142, issued in the beginning of 2006, stipulated that land rental prices must increase every five years.
But since then, land prices in the city have already shot up 30-50 percent.
This month is the deadline for industrial zone owners to collect extra money from business that signed industrial zone contracts prior to 2006, as Vietnamese law stipulates that industrial zone prices must be set at market rates.
Some businesses now have to pay dozens of billions of more dong if they want to keep investing in the zones.
The foreign companies now think our industrial zones are unreliable and inconsistent.
Many foreign businesses have already left, not because of the cost, but because they’re angry that the parameters they agreed to have been ignored.
Some businesses have refused to pay the extra money and have suggested that rental prices be kept unchanged during an investment project, or raised 15 percent at most.
Industrial zones play a key role in attracting investment and creating jobs. The country won’t be the same if these zones are forced to break the trust of their clients.
VietNamNet, TN
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