After years of efforts, great achievements have been made in Binh Duong province thanks to the decisive policies of economic development in the orientation of structure transition from pure agriculture to industries and services powered by promoted models of concentrated industrial parks and clusters that elevated provincial socio-economic development.
VSIP has become a developmental symbol of industrial parks and clusters in Binh Duong for years
Emergence
In the 1990s, people thought of Binh Duong or Song Be as a wild land of rubber plantations and food paddies. Getting to Long Nguyen of Bau Bang, I usually preserve 2-3 hours for coffee and chats with an old farmer, Nguyen Van Ngon, a resident of Ben Cat of friendly and joyful manner. I has been fascinated by his stories about famous lands in Binh Duong.
He retold the stories of a wild Binh Duong with scattered housing and plant covering. At the time, farmers were practicing makeshift production that could give them lives of thrift and insufficient foods.
Those days of hardship passed by to the beginning of 1990s when the reforms were in place nationwide in orientation of industrialization and modernization by the 6th National Party Congress Resolution (in 1986) and the 7th National Party Congress Resolution (in 1991). Song Be province was permitted to plan and develop 15 industrial parks on an area of 6,000 hectares. After the province division (on January 1, 1997), there were 13 industrial parks on 4,033 hectares left.
An engineer is operating automated system of a factory within Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park. Photo: Xuan Thi
The first founding factors to sustain the construction of concentrated industrial parks and clusters with strong domestic and foreign investment of Binh Duong are namely Song Than I and Binh Duong which were set up in 1995. At the time, majority of localities have been diverted to agricultural reforms to eradicate poverty and Binh Duong was alone as a pioneer of the model construction.
Today’s fruits
In 25 years of determined policies for constructing and developing industrial parks and clusters found the launching base for socio-economic development bringing about fruitful outcomes in the province, Binh Duong, at local people’s delight, has been transformed from a purely agriculture locality to a model industrial urban area of second high foreign direct investment (FDI) luring nationwide at the time.
Connected traffic routes and industrial park after industrial park are what we find on getting to Thuan An city and Di An city. The modern and industrialized buildings are mingled in the on-going industrial and urban life.
Being led by managing officers of VSIP I, we spent nearly half a day just having a glimpse at the 500-hectare premise of the model industrial park. Standing before the ground neatly constructed, we could not hold back our curiosity about treading the roads in VSIP I that is accommodating 30 industrial parks in Binh Duong.
Behind the gates of familiar logos is a space for science and creativity fostered by world famous companies. ‘Made in Vietnam’ products are produced here every day to service customers of the world around. Looking at the keen young workers operating on the machines, we think of the industrious bees working for a lifetime.
Following up success of the previous term, in 2015-2020, Binh Duong provincial authority continue with policies favoring enterprises in promoting investments into high-tech and auxiliary industrial fields servicing environment-friendly automobile production and assembly, financial services, logistics and supporting industries, high-tech agriculture and especially the new careers based on new industries.
Flushed-up success in the Q4 of 2019 was marked by the exceeding targets of FDI attraction in 2015-2020 in terms of capital and schedule. The targeted FDI attraction of USD 7 billion of the province was met in Q4 of 2019 by the actual attraction of USD 10.2 billion, exceeding VND 3.2 billion.
The socio-economic development and construction has been successful; however, how to construct ideal environment for production and business operations is still a question for all-level departments.
“How to win the heart of investors and employers and make them stay in Binh Duong for the long-term and how to make all production and business operations flow smoothly without and obstruction from administrative procedures are our major consideration,” said Nguyen Thanh Truc, Deputy Chairman of Provincial People’s Committee.
As an experienced person of investments in Vietnam, Hideyuki Okada, Chairman of Japanese Business Association in Ho Chi Minh city (JBAH) informed that Binh Duong is a good choice for launching production and business operations thanks to industrial and traffic infrastructure among the synchronous and favorable matters. Binh Duong provincial leaders have, particularly, favored production and business development. According to Okada, those are the reasons why more and more Japanese enterprises are getting to Binh Duong.
(To be continued)
Reported by Dinh Thang – Translated by Vi Bao
