Removing bottlenecks for development

​(News Portal – Dong Nai) - Although the Southeast is the largest economic region motivating the business community, it is currently facing a number of challenges. Bottlenecks that hinder economic and social development, if not resolved soon, will cause the region's growth rate to slow down and lose its competitive advantage compared to other localities. 

Removing logistics bottlenecks is vital for the locality 

There are still many obstacles

The first obstacle to be mentioned is that the land bank for industrial development is reduced significantly. Ho Chi Minh City is expected to have only 46 hectares of "clean" land for investors to lease in 2023. As this area of land is scattered in many districts, it is unable to welcome major investors. Some industrial parks, such as Hiep Phuoc, or Northwest Cu Chi Industrial Park still have hundreds of hectares of land, but have not yet signed a land lease contract with the State.

Dong Nai is also facing similar difficulties in land bank. The province's industrial parks have almost been filled; meanwhile, new industrial parks with an area of more than 7.1 thousand hectares still cannot be built. Binh Duong, and Ba Ria - Vung Tau are also in a similar situation while Tay Ninh and Binh Phuoc have an advantage in terms of land bank, but the industrial parks are located far away from seaports and airports so their potentials are somewhat limited.

Another obstacle is logistics and transportation infrastructure between localities that have not developed in sync, leading to overloaded intra-regional and extra-regional supply chains and reduced connectivity. In addition, the high rate of urbanization with a majority of immigrant workers is posing many infrastructure challenges due to the lack of public investment capital.

According to planning, by 2030, the Southeast region will have 970 km of expressways but at the moment, it only connects through the city of Ho Chi Minh to Dong Nai, Binh Thuan to the North and Long An to the Southwest. Other routes such as Bien Hoa-Vung Tau, Ben Luc-Long Thanh, and Beltway 3 are still under construction. Some national highways are expected to be completed and put into operation by 2025, which will partially solve the issue of connecting regional infrastructure.
Need a unified solution

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Head of Research Department of the Vietnam Institute of Logistics Research and Development, said that in order to improve the ability to develop synchronously, it was necessary to strengthen activities to attract investment capital and improve autonomy of local authorities in operating infrastructure.

According to experts, localities of the Southeast region must work together to make the most of their advantages. In particular, it is necessary to raise awareness and way of thinking in linking regional development to ensure that each decision and policy of each province and city must take into account common interests, aiming at the goal of promoting development of the entire region and narrowing the gap in development levels between localities at the same time.

According to experts and businesses, the flow of investment and supply chain movements is becoming increasingly stronger. Mr. Phil Kyun Choi, Director in charge of Korean business operations in Vietnam, commented that in the past 2-3 years, many factories from China have moved to countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam. It is important to increase the competitiveness of domestic suppliers, as they are clearly not on equal footing compared to those from China or some other countries.

Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Duy Hung, Vice Chairman of Dong Nai Import and Export Association, believed that the 4.0 industrial revolution and the rapid development of e-commerce also required businesses to think of how to optimize and modernize their operations to meet the diverse needs of customers. Enterprises that are more proactive in investing in infrastructure, applying digital management and automation in operations, and increasingly professional management models have greater chances of success and gradually entering the supply chain of international products. ​