In the last 8 years, Binh Duong’s accession process to World Trade Organization (WTO) has achieved good results. To obtain industrial development, Binh Duong province has done well preferential policies of infrastructure construction. However, due to the trend of global integration, provincial industry is in need of clear directions for the coming years.
Exports increases sharply
As usual, Ms. Nhan Thi Thoa living in My Phuoc ward, Ben Cat town goes shopping at Metro supermarket at weekend. Ms. Thoa said, the supermarket has diverse and abundant sources of goods, meeting well consumer’s needs. Among these are high-quality Vietnamese goods. “Ten years ago, I had to go to HCM City to buy these goods. Now, supermarkets and shopping centers are available throughout the province with abundant forms of good, thus I do not have to travel so far and have more choices”, said Ms. Thoa.
Wood processing at Kaiser Vietnam Company in My Phuoc 1 industrial park, Ben Cat town.
The presence of dozens of giant domestic corporations, multinational companies, such as: Metro, Aeon, LotteMart, Co.opMart Vinatex, Citimax ... have provided a huge quantity of goods to serve local people. In 2014, retail and service sale revenues of the province reached VND103,492 billion, which was 8 times higher than before Vietnam becoming a WTO’s member on November 2006. Average growth rate of trade - service reached over 20% per year. Many domestic enterprises in provincial industrial parks have produced and distributed goods to other provinces and satisfied also export demands.
Mr. Vuong Sieu Tin, Director of Phuoc Du Long Ceramics Company (Thuan An town), said, prior 1995, family pottery was a fragmented market. In 1995, the normalization of Vietnam - United States relation changed everything. In 1995, Phuoc Du Long Ceramics Company started to appear in the world market. In 1998, the company found partners for exporting their products to the US and European market without intermediaries. Mr. Tin said, at that time, exported batch of goods worth only $50,000 brought a great hope for an open market in the future.
8 years after Vietnam joined the WTO, Binh Duong potteries have been exported to dozens of countries around the world, contributed significantly to $1.6 billion of national handicraft’s export value in 2014.
According to Mr. Vuong Sieu Tin, potentialities of Binh Duong pottery are enormous, because big names, like: Minh Long, Minh Phat, Phuoc Du Long ... have become familiar partner of international customers. Particularly in 2014, his company obtained a turnover of $3 million, his products were mainly exported to the US, Canada, Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia...
Focus on developing auxiliary industries
At the present, Binh Duong has nearly 20,000 enterprises including 2,500 FDI enterprises producing 80% export value of the province. This has been an enormous pressures to domestic enterprises in the integration process.
Binh Duong has 6 business associations of textiles, wood, lacquer - sculpture, pottery, electrical and leather shoes with 375 members. These are export strengths of the province. However, these strengths are disproportionate to financial, technological capabilities of FDI enterprises.
Mr. Nguyen Van Giau, Chairman of Economic Commission under National Assembly, assessed, the weakness of domestic enterprises nationwide and Binh Duong is their small and medium size (making up 97%). The global market is opened to Vietnam through bilateral and multilateral agreements, and most recently Free Trade Agreements (FTA) between Vietnam - European Union (EU), which has become a real challenge to domestic companies. Removing barriers for FDI enterprises to enter Vietnamese market or maintaining barriers to protect domestic companies has worried the Government. Governmental assistances for domestic companies to upgrade their production are critical in this process.
Mr. Giau said, FDI enterprises have been assisted in loan borrowing with preferential interest rate by the Government. FDI producers always offer lower price for a same product than domestic businesses, deteriorating the "fair competition" between domestic and foreign enterprises
Mr. Vu Nhu Thang, Head of International Cooperation Commission under Ministry of Finance, said, Binh Duong province was turning towards a green industry, but auxiliary industries was also in need, because these were what many countries need. Auxiliary industry has a huge potentiality worth trillions of dollars on a global scale. Industries, such as: automobile, electronics, garment, footwear, wood, foods ... need support from auxiliary industries.
Reported by P.Hieu – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
