1. Overview
Central Highlands is an important and strategic region of Vietnam in terms of socio–economic development and national security. Possessing great potentials and advantages for development in agro-forestry, processing industries, energy and eco-tourism, etc, the region has received remarkable supports from the Government in the past years.
After over 10 years of implementing the Resolution No. 10-NQ/TW of the Politburo, the region experienced annual GDP growth rate of 12%. By 2012, the GDP per capita reached 26.9 million VND/person (as compared with 15.5 million VND/person in 2010).
So far, the development of Central Highlands has been below its own potentials and advantages and still a region with difficult socio-economic conditions. In addition to basic obstacles relating to infrastructure, human resources, etc, Regional Linkage in investment promotion among the 05 provinces need to be more concerned.
2. Current Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion of Central Highlands region
Up to now, Leaders of the region’ provinces have made some efforts to co-implement regional investment promotion activities such as: Conferences on Investment Promotion for the Central Highlands (02 times in 2009 and 2013) chaired by the Steering Committee of Central Highlands, Ministry of Planning and Investment and some related ministries; Seminar for drafting an Agreement on Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion (to be signed by all provinces), etc.
Therefore, the investment inflow of the region has had positive changes since 2009 with total yearly registered capital reached about 30,000 billion VND.
However, Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion of Central Highlands has not been really effective as expected. By May of 2014, the region has only attracted 152 FDI projects with the total registered capital of nearly US$ 1.287 billion, accounting for 16.80 % of the number of projects and 4.96% of the registered capital of the whole Central Vietnam (0.38% and 0.54% of the whole country respectively). Of which, Lam Dong province accounted for over 70% FDI capital into the region.
3. Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion to strengthen the quick and sustainable development of Central Highlands region
In order to improve and better investment promotion activities of Central Highlands region from now to the year 2020, the following issues need to be more strongly focused:
Firstly, to strengthen the awareness of key Leaders of Central Highlands’ provinces that Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion is currently an urgent and crucial topic.
Secondly, local governments (of 05 provinces) in the region should closely co-operate to invest and upgrade their infrastructure systems synchronistically, especially traffic infrastructure works such as National Highway No. 14, roads linking to other regions, airports (Pleiku, Buon Ma Thuot, Lien Khương), basic infrastructure of Economic Zones, Industrial Parks, etc.
Thirdly, to set up mechanism for regular and close coordination of operations between the focal investment promotion agencies (IPAs) of Central Highlands region for all steps from planning, implementing, monitoring to evaluating results. By thus, all investment promotion activities of the region will be closely coordinated and supported by the Ministry of Planning and Investment in order to avoid the coincidence or uneffectiveness among the provinces. This will create better strength for promoting new FDI projects into the region. The new Decision No. 03/QĐ-TTg dated 14 Jan 2014 of the Prime Minister on State management of investment promotion is exactly the basis to do this. Steering Committee of Central Highlands and Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) with Investment Promotion Center for Central Vietnam (IPCC) as its subordinate should act as “bandmaster” in creating list and project profiles, organizing regional events and overseas delegations for calling FDI, solving timely investors’ obstacles, etc.
Finally, to foster the application and utilization of information technology (IT) as an efficient tool strengthening Regional Linkage in Investment Promotion among Central Highlands’ provinces. The region’ IPA websites should be more invested and upgraded to reach professional standards, as well as easily linked to FIA and IPCC websites. Building and perfecting an online Regional Database specially-used for investment promotion activities of the 05 provinces is now an urgent task. Importantly, this database should be well-managed and constantly updated.
MBA. Nguyen Quang Anh - IPCC