A workshop was organised in Hanoi on November 29 to discuss measures to attract more investment to Vietnam's industrial parks (IPs) and economic zones (EZs) in the coming time.

The event was jointly held by the Vietnam Investment Connection JSC and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Over the past two decades, IPs and EZs in Vietnam have demonstrated their important role in promoting the country's economic growth.

The country has a total of 289 IPs and 15 coastal EZs in 59 provinces and cities across the country, contributing more than 80 billion USD of the country's annual import-export turnover and accounting for 35 percent of the economy's total import-export turnover.

The IPs and EZs drew about 70 percent of the total foreign investment flow into the country and created jobs for over 2 million labourers.

According to Deputy Head of the EZ Management Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MoPI) Tran Duy Dong, as of the end of October, 2013, IPs nationwide attracted over 4,700 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with a total registered capital of 69.2 billion USD, equivalent to 80 percent of the total FDI capital poured into industrial fields.

Meanwhile, the number of domestically-invested projects operating in IPs in the period was 5,100, totalling 461 trillion VND (around 21.95 billion USD).

In the first 10 months of this year, 9.9 billion USD was invested in IPs and EZs, accounting for 70 percent of total FDI investment in Vietnam.

However, the development of IPs and EZs is yet to meet expectations as the attraction of investment was affected by the global economic downturn.

MoPI Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Trung said the country should increase investment promotion in the time to come, towards luring investment projects that have advanced technology and high economic value, especially environmentally friendly projects and those in the supporting industry field.

In addition, the country needs to create a favourable investment environment to improve the confidence of investors and remove difficulties for them, he added.

It should also pay attention to upgrading the industrial infrastructure system, build accommodation and other public facilities for labourers, while planning to train human resources to satisfy investors' demands, Trung stressed.

By VNA

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