Hai Phong city has many industries formed in the early 20th century. It used to be famous nationwide in key fields such as: shipbuilding, iron and steel, cement, chemicals, marine crystal, paint, mechanics and so on..
The Hai Phong Cement Factory - the cradle of the country's cement industry; the Bach Dang Shipyard, and the Pha Rung ship repair factory are facilities that featured in the golden age of the shipbuilding industry; Thieu nien tien phong plastic, Hai Phong paint, Duyen Hai mechanic, mechanical engineering and a series of establishments specialising in mould and handicraft production flourished in the late 1980s and 1990s. Entering the renewal period, Hai Phong has also been a leading locality in attracting foreign investment with the Nomura Industrial Park built in the 1992-1994 period.
Hai Phong industry has had low points during the crisis period since 2009 when a series of enterprises under Vinashin and a number of state-owned enterprises operated inefficiently, causing the manufacturing industry base to be seriously affected.
However, the city’s industry quickly recovered and developed in the 2015-2020 period with enterprises implementing equitization, restructuring, and adjusting their production strategies. Along with that, Hai Phong has focused on attracting many investment projects of large domestic and foreign corporations. Large industrial projects with modern technology put into operation have brought into play their leading roles, creating interest and attraction for supporting industries and the activities of other related enterprises in the global supply chain.
In particular, the focus has been on the development of processing and manufacturing as well as high-tech and environmentally-friendly industries. Hai Phong is hoping that by 2030, industry-construction will account for 56-57% of the economic structure, the proportion of processing and manufacturing industry in GRDP will reach 41-43% by 2025 and increase to 51-53% by 2030.
Over recent years, Hai Phong has tried to focus on directing drastically, mobilising the participation of all levels, departments, branches and localities, along with many specific mechanisms, policies and action programmes to realise the goal of socio-economic development in general and the growth of the industrial sector in particular. In particular, the city advocates a high level of focus on investment in completing and modernising the transport infrastructure system connecting the region, domestically and internationally, both by road, by sea, by river, by air and by railway; in addition to investing in expanding the connected transport system and infrastructure close to industrial parks and industrial clusters; as well as the development orientation of concentrated industrial zones and clusters.
The city has also publicly promulgated lists of industrial projects that encourage investment in order to orient and improve the efficiency of attracting development investment in Hai Phong. In addition, the field of administrative reform and investment promotion has paid special attention to attracting domestic and foreign investors with the spirit: Hai Phong is always an attractive destination for foreign investors, and the success of investors is the success of the city.
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Building and repairing ships at the Pha Rung Shipbuilding Industry Company, Hai Phong city. |
Continuously over the years, the Provincial Competitiveness Index of Hai Phong has improved strongly from 34th position in 2001 to a top 3 leading locality in 2022; The Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index moved from the lowest group in 2011 to the highest group in the whole country in 2022; the administrative reform index in 2021 and 2022 claimed the first and the second position, respectively.
With the drastic direction and efforts to make a breakthrough in transport infrastructure and administrative reform, Hai Phong’s economy in general and the city's industrial production in particular have seen positive changes. Many large domestic and foreign enterprises have sought investment and continued to expand production, processing and manufacturing, using modern technology.
Many leading corporations in the world such as LG, Pegatron, USI, Bridgestone, etc. have chosen Hai Phong as their destination for multi-billion-dollar projects. At the same time, the activities of these projects have also continued to contribute to creating more attraction for satellite projects in the supply chain to form large-scale industry clusters, such as the production complex of LG at Trang Due Industrial Park; of USI and Pegatron at DEEP C I and II Industrial Parks, which have become core projects, continuing to attract other ancillary projects to Hai Phong, creating supply chains, and forming large-scale industry clusters in production.
All levels, departments, branches, units and localities of Hai Phong have been making efforts with the highest determination towards realising the goal of becoming a leading city of the whole country in the cause of industrialisation and modernisation.
Chairman of Hai Phong City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Tung
In the first 5 months of 2023, industrial parks and economic zones in the port city have attracted nearly 500 million USD with 17 new FDI projects and nine adjusted FDI projects to increase capital, in addition to two new DDI projects and four capital increase projects with total investment capital of 46.5 million USD. That result has contributed to increasing the number of projects and investment capital in Hai Phong industrial parks and economic zones to nearly 500 FDI projects with total investment of nearly 24 billion USD; 205 DDI investment projects with total investment capital of 12.6 billion USD.
Head of the Hai Phong Economic Zone Management Board Le Trung Kien said that Hai Phong city has always been consistent in its strategy of selectively focusing on attracting investment, actively screening quality projects as well as investors. In FDI projects in economic zones and industrial parks in Hai Phong, more than half of the investment capital is concentrated in the field of electronic, telephone and computer production; 22.3% of capital for the manufacturing industry of automobiles, motorcycles, machinery, equipment, tools and spare parts; about 10% for logistics and infrastructure businesses.
In 2022 alone, more than 81% of FDI capital was invested in Hai Phong with 56 projects in the fields of high technology, processing and manufacturing. At the same time, in 2022, enterprises in the Hai Phong economic and industrial zone achieved revenue of 26.7 billion USD, exports reached 22.7 billion USD, imports reached 21.15 billion USD; contributed over 16.13 trillion to the state budget; creating jobs for more than 195,000 workers.
Pegatron Vietnam General Director Chen Hshin Cheng said that with the right conditions, the enterprise quickly chose DEEP C Hai Phong Industrial Park to build its 14th factory globally, specialising in manufacturing equipment. This is also the second largest factory of the enterprise in Asia with the expectation of creating 13,000 jobs in 2023 and 30,000 quality employees in the future.
According to the Director of the Hai Phong Department of Industry and Trade Bui Quang Hai, although Hai Phong’s industrial scale has grown rapidly, it is still mainly contributed to by FDI enterprises. Traditional industries with the participation of many domestic enterprises have low growth or decline; the supporting industry is slow to develop and has not yet joined the industrial value chain.
The investment and development of infrastructure in economic zones and industrial parks is still difficult, and there are no specialised industrial parks or hi-tech industrial parks; labour quality has not met the market’s demand for skills and soft skills; while housing for workers is still difficult.
In their monthly work evaluation meetings, leaders of the City People's Committee regularly review and evaluate the socio-economic situation in general and always pay attention to the development of three economic pillars; specifying and assigning tasks and responsibilities to each branch, field, and locality together to check the progress of tasks, projects, and works.
According to the Chairman of Hai Phong City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Tung, all levels, departments, branches, units and localities of Hai Phong have been making efforts with the highest determination towards realising the goal of becoming a leading city of the whole country in the cause of industrialisation and modernisation in the spirit of Resolution No 45 of the Politburo on construction and development of Hai Phong city to 2030, with a vision to 2045.
At the regular meeting at the end of the month in May, 2023, the Chairman of the Hai Phong City People’s Committee continued to request the Management Board of Hai Phong Economic Zone actively promote and attract investment selectively in the direction of developing three pillars of the economy, focusing on promoting investment with countries and territories that are important partners such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Taiwan (China), attracting large, high-tech projects that can play an important role and making great contributions to the city.
In addition, the Hai Phong Economic Zone Management Board has continued to review, update and adjust the general planning on construction of Dinh Vu-Cat Hai economic zone to submit to the Prime Minister for approval to ensure compliance with the general planning and create the highest conditions for investors; focus on building 13 new industrial parks according to Programme No.76-CTr/TU of the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee; speed up the implementation of key projects and works at Hai Phong international gateway port at Lach Huyen, Xuan Cau Industrial Park, Tien Thanh Industrial Park; urban projects, social housing, and worker housing...
Notably, Hai Phong has also decided to establish a special working group of the City People’s Committee led by the Chairman of the City People’s Committee. Members of the Working Group are leaders from the relevant functional departments and branches, chairmen of the People’s Committees of districts where the projects are located and where there may be difficulties and obstacles during the implementation process.
This is a move that has highly been appreciated by businesses and investors. It will help quickly and directly remove difficulties and obstacles in administrative procedures, premises and other obstacles to effectively support businesses and investors in the area to speed up project implementation, especially in terms of industrial production projects.
