“Dong Nai knows how to catch potential partners’ attentions”

Mr Hoang Van Huan

Mr. Hoang Van Huan: current foreign investment had some development on comparison with some years ago. In 2004, we had attracted 4.2 billion USD, 35% higher than 2003; in the first four months of 2005, we had attracted 2.1 billion USD (including fresh investment capital and expanding capital), 2.4-folds higher that of the same period of last year. Foreign investment was well developing and we should make use of this.

As for ministry of planning and investment, we highly appreciated Dong Nai’s effort to attract foreign investment. Dong Nai ranked the third after Ho Chi Minh City and and Ha Noi

Entrepreneurs who had good business in Dong Nai were answering questions at workshop in Busan city

 capital City in attracting foreign investment. Despite its third rank, its total foreign investment capital was nearly twice as much than that of Binh Duong province which ranked the four. Dong Nai had about 8 billion USD foreign investment capital and Binh Duong just had 4.5 billion USD. Of course, Dong Nai had this because of some objective conditions. Some other provinces also had the same conditions as Dong Nai but they couldn’t do what Dong Nai province had done. It meant that to achieve these results Dong Nai authorities and officials of relevant department and sectors had good measures to attract foreign investment.

* what do you think about the ways Dong Nai had done to attract foreign investment and about two workshops in Korean City of Seoul and Busan?

- I had chances to participate in other investment promotions visit of Dong Nai such as a visit to Japan last year and visit to Korea. I found that the ways Dong Nai had done were very good. It knew how to catch potential partners’ attention, get in close contact with its partners, to make potential partner to understand and care about its.

Through the two workshops in Seoul and Busan city, I realized that Korean investors wanted to invest in Dong Nai not only because of Dong Nai’s some advantages but also because of the help and care of Dong Nai authorities to Korea enterprises currently having good business in Dong Nai province. Two workshops in Korea ended successfully. There are large numbers of investors coming to the two workshops. These investors asked many practical questions.

* According to you, what should Dong Nai do to have an attractive environment for foreign investors in general and Korean investors in particulars?

- Holding workshops just was the first stage, the most important things Dong Nai had to do were in the many later stages. With projects investors really cared about, we had to get close contact with them. In Dong Nai, the implementation of investment policies had been done well. However, through these two workshops I found that some enterprises accompanying with delegation to Korea hadn’t had good preparations. For example, some Korean investors still worried about the power and water supply system, and waste water processing zone in some industrial zones so they found it very difficult to invest in these places.

Last but not least, we had to get close in touch with entrepreneurs who were doing their business in Dong Nai. “We have to take good care of birds which are beside us. If they are healthy and sing well, they will attract many other birds coming with us. If they are not healthy, whatever we do to attract other birds will turn out to be useless. They will not come with us” as Mr. Ly Quang Dieu, former Singaporean Prime Minister, used to said. This was a good lesson for Dong Nai to learn.

* Thank you very much.

(Source Dong Nai Newspaper)