Vietnam
hopes more small - and medium-sized enterprises from Japan will invest in the
country as the latter revises its overseas investment strategy in the aftermath
of natural disasters and economic recession, a senior official has said.
"Although Japan is a big investment
partner in Vietnam , most Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises are
hesitant to invest in Vietnam ," Do Nhat Hoang, director of the Foreign
Investment Agency (FIA) said at a meeting held on February 28 in HCM City .
The conference, organised by the Ministry of
Planning and Investment's FIA in collaboration with Japanese's Forval
Corporation, discussed attracting Japanese firms into local industrial parks.
Hoang blamed the Japanese investors'
reluctance on a lack of information about investment opportunities, investment
environment and preferential policies, especially in Vietnam 's industrial parks.
Japan is the fourth biggest foreign investor
in Vietnam with more than 1,600 projects worth $23.6 billion. In the first two
months of this year, Vietnam attracted about $1.2 billion of foreign direct
investment, of which 80 per cent came from Japanese investors.
Hideo Ohkubo, chairman of the global promotion
committee for small and medium enterprises of the Tokyo Business Association,
said the aging demographics in Japan has narrowed down the domestic market.
Several export industries in Japan have stagnated
because of continuous appreciation of the yen, a sharp decline in international
competitiveness of Japan compared to other countries in Asia and the
consequences of the earthquake and tsunami last year.
"Up to 97.3 per cent of the 220,000 SMEs
in the manufacturing industry in Japan do their business at home and are not
used to investing abroad," he said.
India , Indonesia and Thailand have developed
industrial zones that meet the conditions of Japanese investors. Even recently
opened up Myanmar has accepted to build Japanese-style industrial parks to lure
investors, he added.
He recommended that Vietnam turn its
industrial parks into small cities to attract FDI from Japanese SMEs.
Masahiko Koumura, former Minister for Foreign
Affairs of Japan, said: "Japanese firms want to make contributions to
Vietnam 's economic development, based on a win-win co-operation between the
two countries. Vietnam needs to improve its investment environment to become an
appealing destination for Japanese investors."
Tran Duy Dong, deputy head of the Economic
Zone Management Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment
(MoPI), said as of December last year, there were 283 industrial parks in 58
provinces and cities nationwide, attracting more than 4,113 FDI projects with a
capital investment of $59.6 billion.
However, up to 35 per cent of the space
remained unoccupied, he said, adding Vietnam wanted to get connected to Japan
's overseas investment strategy to fill up these industrial parks.
He said investment projects in the
manufacturing sector and infrastructure projects in industrial parks would
receive preferential treatments.
In its industrial park development policies in
the coming time, the Vietnamese Government will offer preferential policies to
businesses who invest in building houses for workers or wastewater treatment
plants in industrial parks. The incentives will include free land lease,
corporate income tax breaks, and preferential credit and import tax exemptions.
According to the nation's development plan, by
2015, 212 new industrial parks will be set up by 2020, covering an area of
60,000ha.
The total area covered by industrial parks is
expected to reach 130,000ha by 2015 and 200,000ha by 2020.
VIR/VNA
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