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Quang Ninh urged to do more to attract investment
The northern province of Quang Ninh was expected to lure more projects to become an economic centre in the north, President Nguyen Minh Triet said in a meeting with provincial authorities and leaders of the Viet Nam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin).
Triet applauded the province's rapid and relatively comprehensive development over the past year, especially its efforts to boost economic growth and create an increasingly favourable and attractive environment for investors.
However, he stressed the province still faced many difficulties and had a lot of work to do to ensure strong and sustainable development.
Poor infrastructure was the first difficulty to identify when taking into account development requirements, Triet said, adding that human resources were still in short supply despite the province's efforts to improve education and training.
The President asked the coal sector to pay special attention to planning coal mining and usage.
Predictions indicated the country would have to begin importing coal next year, so the question was how the sector could satisfy domestic demand, Triet said.
Current policies were encouraging coal exports but the sector must also have plans to ensure the safety of national energy, he added.
Vinacomin should invest more in production equipment to raise productivity while also ensuring safety for its employees as well as strengthen its management and supervision of coal exploitation and production, he said.
According a report issued by the group, Vinacomin targets raising its output from the current 43 million tonnes per year to 55 million tonnes by 2015.
Due to the rapid increase in domestic demand, the group plans to reduce the volume of coal for export to 4 million tonnes by 2015.
The group also plans to speed up exploration and exploitation in coal basins in northern Quang Ninh, Bac Giang and Hai Duong provinces and has plans for prompt research of the Red River delta coal basin.
The province's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth last year reached 12.7 per cent and GDP per capita attained US$1,330.
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