|
MPI doesn’t want to have more EZs
The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) believes that the expansion or development of more economic zones (EZ) needs to be considered thoroughly together with the human resource development strategy, the development potentials and the national benefits.
MPI has clearly expressed its viewpoint that it does not expect to have more EZs, right on the threshold of the national conference reviewing the 20 years of EZ building and development, slated for today, February 17.
Number of EZ increasingly high, achievements modest
The idea of developing coastal EZs was initiated in 1997. The fourth Congress of the Party Central Committee in the year laid out the policy on building some EZs and free trade areas in a trial basis in some coastal localities.
After that, Chu Lai EZ, the first coastal EZ in Vietnam was established in 2003. In 2008, the Prime Minister released the Decision No 1353 approving the plan on developing coastal EZs in Vietnam by 2020, which says that Vietnam would have a system of 15 coastal EZs throughout the country.
After that, in 2010, the Prime Minister agreed to add three more EZs into the development plan, which means that 18 EZs would be developed in the country by 2020 which would cover the total earth and water surface of 730,553 hectares, or 7.305.53 kilometers, or 2.2 percent of the total area of the country.
Coastal EZs can get support from the central budget to invest in the important socio-technical infrastructure items, service works and the works for public interest. To date, the state budget has disbursed 11,361 billion dong under the support program.
With the big area and the limited investment capital, most of the EZs now, according to MPI, are “still in the investment stage and need to be completed in technical infrastructure”.
The bigger problem is that the EZs still cannot attract much investment. To date, they have attracted 31 billion dollars worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) and 564 trillion dong worth of domestic investment. However, this is just the registered capital, and the figure does not show the actual investment situation.
The total land leased to implement investment projects in coastal EZs has reached 20,000 hectares, accounting for 40 percent of the total land area reserved for industrial production, tourism and services in the coastal EZs. Of this, secondary projects have been implemented on 7000 hectares.
Regarding the revenue, the total revenue of coastal EZs in 2011 was 8 billion dollars, including one billion dollars from exports.
Difficulties cannot generate solutions
MPI has found out that problems have arisen during the operation of the EZs, though some initial achievements have been gained
The establishment of some EZs still cannot satisfy the demand of the development process. It is because local authorities did not consider developing EZs in the harmonized development of the whole country, and they only tried to develop EZs for the short term benefits of the localities.
It was local authorities who proposed the establishment of EZs, but the main investor is the state and the money mostly comes from the state budget. As a result, the infrastructure items have not been implemented in a comprehensive way and they cannot meet the requirements to attract investment.
In principle, a coastal EZ would be able to develop well if it has key projects which can attract more satellite projects, and if it is located near deep water seaports and airports. However, not every EZ can meet the three conditions, which explains why it is difficult to attract investment to the EZs.
Meanwhile, EZs seem to target the same goals in their development. All of the EZs want to attract investment into the shipbuilding, seaport services, sea tourism, seafood processing and thermopower plants. This has resulted in the fierce competition among localities in attracting investment.
vietnamnet
|
