Binh Duong’s experiences in developing industrial parks

Due to good practices, especially focusing on mobilizing many resources, industrial parks (IPs) in Binh Duong province have made great progresses, contributed to local socio-economic development only after 20 years.

Mobilizing many resources

The first milestone in the IP development of the province was the establishment of Song Than IP in September 1995. This was a breakthrough step, because Binh Duong had been an agricultural province having many difficulties and fewer experiences in industrial development. However, it was a right decision when Binh Duong province selected a vast stretch of land in the north of Highway 1A and being contiguous to Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City for industrial development.

Binh Duong province has mobilized well all resources to develop comprehensive, modern IPs.

Image: My Phuoc Industrial Park (Ben Cat town)

The next breakthrough was all about the development of Vietnam – Singapore IP (VSIP) on the basis of a joint venture between Becamex IDC and Serm Corp (Singapore). VSIP was launched in 1996 as a green industrial park located on an arterial route (Highway 13) with flexible an operation mechanism facilitating investors. After nearly 20 years, due to modern infrastructure meeting requirements of large investors, VSIP I and II in Binh Duong absorbed 430 FDI projects with a total investment capital of nearly $6 billion and 30 domestic projects with a total investment capital of VND4,000 billion.

Ly Hung, Deputy Chief of VSIP Management Board, said FDI capital mainly focuses on industries with high technologies, such as: electronic components, precision engineering, pharmaceutical... to get high competitiveness. Good infrastructure, open business environment and sustainable development at VSIP have helped to attract large investors from different countries.

Investing in synchronous infrastructure of IPs

After the success of VSIP, Binh Duong has tended to bring industrial zones to the north of the province in order to boost economic development at agricultural districts and shift economic structure, carry out hunger reduction, poverty elimination for people in rural areas. To implement this policy, My Phuoc 1, 2, 3 IP were established and have motivated local economic growth.

After 12 years, My Phuoc IPs have attracted 400 FDI projects with a total investment capital of more than $3 billion. Some large projects with high investments are: automobile tire production of Kumho Asiana Group  with an investment of $360 million; Graft  Vina Paper Company with an investment of $180 million; Maruzen Foods Corporation invested $104 million; Tomoku Vietnam Company invested nearly $50 million...

Up to now, IPs invested by Becamex IDC in Binh Duong have attracted 900 FDI projects with total registered capital of over $10 billion. This is an important resource contributing largely to provincial socio-economic development and increasing annual budget revenues.

The development of IPs has also contributed to turning Binh Duong to an industrial center of the southern key economic zone. Many business leaders believed that good infrastructure and synchronous communication network, abundant labor resource had helped VSIP I and II, My Phuoc, Bau Bang IPs… in attracting investors.

To get these achievements, in addition to the strict implementation of policies, Binh Duong has gathered resources for development. By the end of June 2015, total investment in IP’s infrastructure development was over VND10,000 billion. Especially, Binh Duong used mobilized resources instead of state budget capital while upgrading infrastructure. Among established IPs, there are 2 IPs invested by FDI capital, the others were invested by domestic organizations, individuals and businesses.

In general, IPs were developed to utilize potentialities of all economic sectors, mainly State-owned sector. This is a major success of Binh Duong in mobilizing resources for IP development and realizing the strategy to call for investments, facilitating local socio-economic development.

Reported by Khanh Vinh – Translated by Ngoc Huynh