Ba Ria - Vung Tau exerts efforts to improve quality of investment projects

With breakthroughs in administrative reform and improvement of the investment environment, the southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau has become one of the attractive destinations for major domestic and foreign corporations as well as enterprises in the country and abroad.

Manufactured by modern technology, many products, including pipes, connections, splices and drill rods, from Viettubes Limited Company in Dong Xuyen Industrial Park in Vung Tau city has been exported to many countries around the world. (Photo: NGUYEN NAM)
Manufactured by modern technology, many products, including pipes, connections, splices and drill rods, from Viettubes Limited Company in Dong Xuyen Industrial Park in Vung Tau city has been exported to many countries around the world. (Photo: NGUYEN NAM)

Notably, all investment projects focus on the areas of strength, meeting investment attraction criteria and becoming a driving force for Ba Ria - Vung Tau to confidently develop in the near future.

Hi-tech projects

Immediately after receiving the investment registration certificate for 1.5 billion USD, Hyosung Vina Chemicals Limited Company in Phu My town, Ba Ria – Vung Tau province, has urgently constructed its plant of polypropylene production. The plant was designed and operated by the most modern equipment and technology. Its "heart" is an underground storage facility for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) with a capacity of nearly 250,000 tonnes. The underground storage, which consists of many compartments, measures about 17m in width, over 20m in height and 4.5km in length. Located at a depth of nearly 200m above sea level, it is considered the largest in Southeast Asia today. A representative from the investors said that although it is located deep underground, the storage is operated safely, even in special conditions, such as natural disasters and earthquakes. All incidents, such as liquefied petroleum gas leaks, fire and explosions, will be detected and handled automatically.

Similarly, these days, Long Son Petrochemical Complex Project in Vung Tau city, which cost a total investment of over 5 billion USD, funded by SCG Group in Thailand, has witnessed an urgent working environment. Five main contractors, including TPSK, Samsung Engineering, POSCO E&C, Huyndai Engineering and TTCL, along with dozens of subcontractors, with around 10,000 workers, have been making efforts to apply the most advanced technologies into construction. The construction progress of the project has now reached 83%. As planned, the project will officially go into operation by the first quarter of 2023, making Ba Ria – Vung Tau into a major centre of the petrochemical industry in Southeast Asia.

These are just two of the projects that have been licensed for recent investment, implemented rapidly and effectively despite difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Ba Ria – Vung Tau provincial Department of Planning and Investment, there are now 412 valid foreign investment projects with a total registered investment capital of more than 29.7 billion USD in the locality. The province ranked fifth in terms of foreign investment capital attraction, focusing on processing, manufacturing, solar power, and tourism industries. They are the areas of this locality’s strength and the "pillars" of the local economy.

Vice Chairman of Ba Ria - Vung Tau provincial People’s Committee Le Ngoc Khanh said thanks to the investment in the construction of intensive supporting industrial parks and the training of high-quality human resources, the province has made careful preparations to welcome capable and experienced investors and enterprises, hi-tech projects that use reduced workforces and consume less energy. The locality has also boosted the reform of administrative procedures, transparency and publicity of investment procedures. As a result, many large economic and industrial groups in the world, including Kyoei, Nippon, Sumitomo, Itochu, Mitsubishi, Posco, ACDL, CJ, Lotte, BP, SCG, and Hyosun have been present in Ba Ria - Vung Tau.

The high-quality products from Viettubes company (Photo: NGUYEN NAM)

Selective investment attraction

In fact, after Ba Ria-Vung Tau province publicly announced the criteria for investment attraction, at times this locality faced the risk of severe decrease in both the registered capital and the number of investment projects. Many large-scale projects were rejected because they were "not suitable" for the province’s investment criteria. In particular, the projects related to textile dyeing, leather and footwear, which required an abundance of labour and had the risk of causing environmental pollution, were not able to overcome this technical "barrier".

Vice Chairman of Ba Ria – Vung Tau provincial People’s Committee Le Ngoc Khanh noted that in order to implement the set goals with specific criteria, the province has developed a plan to approach businesses in countries with developed industry, especially Japan and the Republic of Korea. The two countries are also leading in the number of foreign investment projects in Ba Ria - Vung Tau province with a total registered capital of nearly 10 billion USD. Accordingly, there are many major projects including Posco steel factory with total a investment capital of 1.12 billion USD, Posco SS-Vina project with the goal of steel production and processing has a total investment capital of 704 million USD, while Hyosung Group's polypropylene production plant and liquefied gas underground storage facility’s total investment sits at 1.5 billion USD.

In July 2017, Ba Ria – Vung Tau provincial Party Committee issued Resolution No. 06/NQ-TU on improving the efficiency of investment attraction in the province until 2020. Accordingly, during the 2017-2020 period, the province strived to attract 80 FDI projects, with registered capital of about 4 billion USD. By the end of 2020, the goal came true.

Vice Chairman of Ba Ria-Vung Tau provincial People's Committee Le Ngoc Khanh affirmed that the Resolution of the 7th Provincial Party Congress for the 2020-2025 term, once again identified the locality’s economic "pillars" of industry, seaports, port logistics, tourism and hi-tech agriculture. This is the premise for Ba Ria-Vung Tau to promote the attraction of investment projects in key fields. The province is always willing to welcome businesses and projects that match local development criteria, including environmentally-friendly technologies while resolutely rejecting projects that use high amounts of labour, consume an abundance of energy and potentially cause environmental pollution.

Translated by NDO