Binh Duong used to be an agricultural and handicraft province. After nearly 15 years of development, the locality has become an industrialization and urbanization land making many people surprised. On the upcoming Tet, Binh Duong Newspaper’s reporters recorded experts and managers’ thinking of the province’s spectacular development on the way of industrialization and modernization.

Breakthroughs of investment attraction and industrialization

With 28 industrial parks covering 8,751ha of land, the local FDI attraction has so far reached over 2,000 projects, capitalized at nearly US$14bil and won an average growth of over 14% per year. Nguyen Thieng Duc, former vice head of the HCMC Institute of Research and Development, said “Binh Duong’s impressive development is constantly assessed by a famous statement: Binh Duong lays 'red carpet' to welcome investors and talents. And I think that the red carpet has been kept laying to welcome investors. Binh Duong invites investors by transparent structures and incentives…”.

According to Duc, aside from the red carpet, more importantly Binh Duong has focused on strongly developing in infrastructure facility. Binh Duong’s traffic network has created its difference compared with other localities.

 

Binh Duong Avenue, a life-line of Binh Duong province.  

Nguyen The Hung, vice director of the center for Southern Investment and Development under the Foreign Investment Bureau, said “Looking back on the previous period of Binh Duong, the locality was an agricultural and pottery making area. However, after Vietnam has applied the door-opening policy, local leaders right from early years of 1990s launched a famous policy with slogan of the ‘red carpet welcome to investors’.

With concerted efforts from local authority, business community and people, Binh Duong has so far ranked fifth of the whole country in FDI attraction. Before 2008, Binh Duong ranked first in provincial competition index for many consecutive years. At present, the locality has become one of industrialization and modernization localities”.

Binh Duong’s excess of imports over exports

Not only winning breakthroughs of investment attraction, Binh Duong’s production has showed a sustainable development through import and export. The locality’s annual export turnover has jumped 22.9% whilst its import turnover has surged 21.1%. In 2010, the locality reached $8.294bil in total export turnover and $7.126bil in import turnover.

This showed that the province got the excess of imports over exports at about over $1bil, an impressive achievement amid the global economic recession and increase of the whole country’s excess of imports over exports.

Explaining the issue, Duc said that increase of goods consumption and export of Binh Duong has showed that local products have won trust from the world. Therefore, the province’s excess of imports over exports is a natural thing”.

Meanwhile, Nguyen The Hung explained “local and foreign businesses in Binh Duong have focused on producing products with high potentials of export. With nearly 20 years of FDI attraction, Binh Duong gets an increase of excess of imports over exports whilst the whole country remains excess of imports over exports…”.

Towards sustainable development

Nguyen The Hung said that climate change is a hot problem. Amid the common trend, Binh Duong as well as other localities must make greater efforts to ensure sustainable development.

Meanwhile, Duc added “sustainable development is always our aspiration but we must aim at a better future. We can’t develop sustainably if causing exhaustion of natural resources or environmental pollution. If the above problem is solved, I think that Binh Duong or other localities can develop sustainably”.

“Past proves present and ensures future. I think local leaders will know how to get a sustainable development in the coming time…”, expressed Duc.

Reported by T.Son – Translated by A.C