For Rapid, Sustainable SKEZ Development (11/02)
11/02/2011 - 34 Lượt xem
Advantages
Covering 28,000sq.km (or only 8.6 percent of the country's total area) and making up just 6 percent of the country's population, SKEZ has drawn more than 40 percent of total domestic investment capital and 60 percent of the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) capital. Investment accounts for 50 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), 1.5 times more than that for the country. More than 50 percent of industrial revenue, almost 70 percent of export earnings and more than 50 percent of state budget revenue come from the zone.
Provinces and cities in the zone have restructured the economy across the board, through flexible and feasible economic measures. The industry and service sectors are an engine for economic restructuring. At this time, industry makes up 50-60 percent of the economy in SKEZ.
Particularly, the textile-garment industry in SKEZ is the most developed in the country, focusing on Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai Province and Binh Duong Province, which have created 30-40 percent of the total workforce and 40-45 percent of the national textile-garment production.
Economic sectors in SKEZ have also changed. The state sector continued to make up 45 percent of the GDP. However, the FDI sector continued to increase rapidly such as that in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City. The zone has received 3,033 projects, including 1,801 FDI projects with more than US$15 billion worth of FDI investment capital and almost VND66.2 trillion worth of domestic investment capital. Industrial zones that are operational have leased 72.3 percent of the available land. Many of them have even been leased entirely. These zones have drawn not only FDI capital but also a strong domestic capital flow. Industrial zones where there are many domestic projects are Tan Tao receiving 168 domestic projects and VND5.16 trillion, Le Minh Xuan receiving 135 domestic projects and VND1.72 trillion.
Sixty-six industrial zones have been set up on 16,423ha in SKEZ, representing 56.8 percent of total industrial area in Vietnam and 70.7 percent of total industrial area in key economic zones across the country. Of these, 46 industrial zones are operational making the most of SKEZ's advantages in attracting domestic and foreign investment capital and contributing to creating more than 600,000 jobs and stable incomes.
Apart from this, industrial zones in SKEZ have created 20 percent of annual industrial production in the country (about US$10 billion) and 20 percent of the national industrial export revenue (about US$4.5 billion).
Challenges
Despite the advantages, the development in SKEZ does not match the potential and relies on quantity, rather than quality. Most industrial facilities in the zone are final-phase factories such as those rolling steel, assembling automobiles/electric ware/motorbikes and making garments/footwear. Meanwhile, support industries (which are also considered as source industries) are almost undeveloped. High-grade services like credit, banking and insurance are not well-oriented. Economic development does not combine with environmental protection. SKEZ faces the hottest environmental problems in Vietnam, including the imbalance between urban industry and rural agriculture.
While many rural people cannot find a job, industrial zones and export processing zones in SKEZ have to recruit 70 percent of their workers from the north and the central region. The zone has grown the fastest in the country in terms of economy and the division between the rich and the poor. The living standard also differs widely in provinces in SKEZ. Small industrial zones for medium and small-sized enterprises have been set up at a snail's pace, proving that the current development in the zone is definitely not sustainable. High-quality workforce currently meets only 30-40 percent of the need, largely due to slow labor restructuring and insufficient vocational training.
Although provinces and cities in the zone have early realized their advantages, they have developed in their own way, mostly relying on favorable locations. Most provinces and cities are unable to make the most of their particular advantages. All provinces and cities in the zone have invested in industrial zones and attracted investors in the same fields, leading to excessive production. They lack a regional strategic vision that should create a breakthrough for the zone.
Breakthrough solutions are needed
To make SKEZ an economic development engine in Vietnam, there is a need to apply specific mechanisms/policies for the zone to ensure regional alliance and planned development. The most important thing for SKEZ is to enforce a mechanism to harmonize/combine provinces and cities in the zone to make the most of their advantages, and to enhance long-term fair cooperation/competition to prevent overspending, misspending and ineffective investment since provinces and cities do their own way and in many cases damage each other's efforts. It is also vital to improve the economic structure in general and sectoral structures in particular to drive towards development in depth to ensure rapid and sustainable growth.
Ho Chi Minh City plays a leading role in socioeconomic development in the zone. For this reason, it needs to quickly pioneer in creating several key industrial products, establish a capital market and a money market, and to raise capital through the securities market to keep up with the need for development in the city, the zone and the country.
Now is a high time for SKEZ to increase investment in education-training to quickly overcome shortcomings, regarding the structure and quality of the workforce, particularly high-tech workforce in high-tech and major service industries.
It is also important to (1) combine industry with industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas, (2) set up high-quality farming areas that will provide materials for the processing industry, and (3) quickly form rural industrial zones for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Environmental pollution has been alarming, particularly the environment in industrial zones and urban areas, requiring provinces and cities in SKEZ to take urgent measures to solve the problem. Environmental protection should become a criterion for evaluating development solutions indicated in the master plan for regional socioeconomic development to make sure that industrial development in any province will not pollute the environment in neighboring provinces. It is also needed to seriously observe the regulations on evaluating environmental impacts from every domestic/foreign investment project, to ensure rapid and sustainable development in the zone./.
Source: VEN
