Along with industrial manufacture, Binh Duong’s service sector has reached a robust growth, greatly contributing to the local socio-economic development.
Domestic enterprises on acceleration
Under provincial Program of “Developing hi-quality services
in the 2011 and 2015 period, vision till 2020”, the province will give priority
to promoting hi-quality services with great competitiveness and high added
value to satisfy modernization and industrialization process; strive to reach
an annual growth by 22%-23% in service value. Till 2015, the proportion of GDP
of service sector will account for 38% of the local economic structure.
Measures are to speed up the development of sectors in terms of finance-banking-insurance;
trade-tourism-export import; post, telecommunications; logistics… 
The program has so far gained many important achievements. Regarding financial-banking domain, the whole province is home to 50 bank branches and 10 people’s credit funds. According to the Binh Duong Branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, province-based banking system has been developed in a synchronous way. A series of banks have expanded their market share, satisfying the demand for capital of the local people and economic sectors for production and business activities.
With a total population of more than 1.7mln people and more than 18,000 domestic and FDI enterprises, Binh Duong has absorbed many investors in the domain of trade. Many strong brand names in this domain like Co.opMart, Vinatex, CitiMart…have worked stably in TDM city, Thuan An, Di An towns, Tan Uyen, Ben Cat districts…
Many enterprises, namely IDC Tan Cang-Song Than Co.Ltd., U&I Transportation Forwarding Joint Stock Co., Thanh Phuoc Port Joint Stock Co., Thanh Le Import Export – Trading General Co.-One member limited liability…, have got involved in the domain of logistics and port construction in Binh Duong. This is because Binh Duong is situated in the center of southern key economic zone with a total import export turnover reaching more than US$25bln.
The implementation of projects in the domains of logistics and port construction in Binh Duong is a good sign, contributing to opening a gateway for the transportation of import-export goods of Binh Duong and neighboring regions, making a linkage in terms of infrastructure between Binh Duong and international deep-water ports.
Attractive to foreign enterprises
Not only domestic enterprises, foreign ones have also been interested in Binh Duong’s service sector. In the financial-banking field, the whole province now has 3 join venture banks and 4 wholly foreign-owned banks on effective operation.
Many big retailers, namely Metro Cash & Carry, Big C, Lotte Mart, have also reached a stable operation in Binh Duong. Japanese corporate retail group AEON will put its second trade center into operation with a total investment capital amounting to US$95mln.
Regarding logistics and port construction, Binh Duong has lured many great projects from enterprises in Singapore, Germany, Danmark…Singapore’s Mapletree Group put its logistics park into operation in provincial Industry-Service-Urban Complex with a total investment capital of US$110mln. Prior to that, the group worked very effectively in VSIP I. Germany’s Schenker Vietnam Co. spent US$5.5mln on building its logistics center in Song Than I Industrial Park. A joint venture between Singapore’s YCH Corp. and Binh Duong Export, Import and Production Co. also built a logistics center in Thuan An town with a total investment capital of US$14mln. Meanwhile, Damco, member of Danmark’s A.P.Moller-Maersk Group poured US$4mln into construction of its modern logistics center for the first phase…With strong points in terms of finance and experience, these foreign investors are enjoying advantages in the logistics field in Binh Duong.
Since 2011, Binh Duong’s service sector has continuously reached a high growth. The province’s total retail sales revenue of commodities and services in 2011 was estimated at VND54.4trillion. The figure was more than VND75trillion in 2012 and VND89.544trillion in 2013. In the first four months of 2014, it was more than VND34.978trillion, up 18.7% compared to the corresponding period. With the above growth, the proportion of service sector in the local economic structure reached 35.3%.
The above results show that provincial Program of “Developing hi-quality services in the 2011 and 2015 period, vision till 2020” has been effectively implemented. With such premise, it is believed that the proportion of service sector in the local economic structure will reach 38% as planned.
Reported by T.Minh-Translated by K.T
