Thai Van Men, general director of Tan Tao Industrial Park Corporation, has shuttled around the country for months checking on the new industrial parks his company is developing.

Tan Tao has yet to finish infrastructure for a park it is setting up in Long An Province but the general director of the country’s first IP developer is already doing the paperwork for a massive new project in Kien Giang Province.

Men said he was rushing to buy land as more and more foreign investors were approaching his corporation.

He said his company had broken ground last month for the 262-hectare Tan Duc IP II in Long An Province after fully developing the 273-hectare Tan Duc IP I at the end of last year.

He said the construction of infra-structure for the second stage would be completed on schedule in six months.

Huynh Ngoc Phien, president of another IP developer, Amata Vietnam, said demand from foreign investors had risen by 15-20 percent in the first two months compared to last year.

Larger lots of 30 to 40 hectares were in demand but the joint venture IP developer only had 20 hectares left for sale, he said.

Amata was hoping to clear another 60 hectares this year.

The Thai-Vietnamese venture has developed 250 hectares in 14 years, mostly for foreign investors.

Site clearance problems delayed the park’s second phase by 18 months - land owners had refused to move despite receiving compensation from the government.

Tran Ngoc Hung, deputy head of the Industrial Park and Export Processing Zone Department, said last year was the biggest for IPs since the first opened 16 years ago.

Forty five licenses had been issued in 2007 by central and local authorities to develop or expand IPs with a combined area of around 11,000 ha, he said.

The surge was due to the decentralization of licensing authority and the high demand from foreign investors who had poured $20.3 billion into the country last year, he said.

Ong Beng Kheong, Southeast Asian CEO of Singaporean infra-structure developer, Ascendas, said his company had tied up with a local partner to develop a $100 million technology park in Binh Duong Province last year.

The 150-hectare first phase of the 500-hectare Ascendas-Protrade Singapore Tech Park, owned by Ascendas and the state-owned Protrade Corporation, in the Ben Cat District 1 will be completed by December 2008.

Ong told Thanh Nien Daily in December that Ascendas was looking for other local partners and locations to develop parks in provinces like Dong Nai and Long An in the south and Hanoi, Ha Tay, and Vinh Phuc in the north.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, about 183 IPs with an area of 44,000 hectares have been licensed around the country of which 111 are operational and the rest are in the planning stage.

Hung added that three quarters of the operational IPs, or 11,000 ha, had been leased by the end of last year.

The government plans to develop a further 20,000-25,000 ha by 2015, taking the total IP area to 65,000-70,000 ha.

Source: ThanhnienNews.