Vietnam - National Assembly committee urges halt to new economic zones

With economic zones and border gate economic zones countrywide developing haphazardly and operating ineffectively, the National Assembly Standing Committee yesterday called for stopping building new zones.

At a meeting on the supervision of economic zones, the NA Standing Committee also demanded that the government conduct a comprehensive review and evaluation on the development and effectiveness of the country’s operational economic zones.

“The government has to develop appropriate policies and adequate measures to improve the situation,” the committee said, adding that the master plan on building new economic zones should also be revised, in order to not haphazardly set up and upgrade the zones, as is currently being done.

According to the supervision report, Vietnam has planned to build a total of 18 economic zones, 15 of which are already operational, attracting investment worth around US$51 billion.

Meanwhile, the country is currently home to 28 border gate economic zones, which have attracted 70 foreign direct investment projects worth $700 million, and 500 domestic projects worth 40 trillion dong ($1.92 billion).

Phung Quoc Hien, head of the NA Finance and Budget Committee, said the economic effectiveness of the economic zones still needs improving, since their revenues this year only reached $8 billion, while exports were worth just $800 million.

“The zones only contributed $1 billion to the state budget and provided jobs for just 30,000 people,” he said.

Tuoi Tre

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