Selective Investment Attraction, Especially for Enterprises Utilizing Advanced, Modern Technologies

​(News Portal – Dong Nai) - Acting Chairman of Dong Nai Provincial People's Committee Vo Tan Duc stated that attracting high-tech FDI is the shortest path to elevating technological standards, creating new high-quality products, enhancing production, management, and business technology, and swiftly narrowing the technology gap. ​

Workers at Long Binh Industrial Park during working hours

Currently, Dong Nai has 33 established industrial parks (IPs) with an area of 10,514 hectares; 6,024 hectares have been leased, reaching 85.66% of the leasable land area.

Aligned with the province's investment attraction policies

In the first six months of 2024, Singapore was the country with the investment capital of 231 million USD. Newly attracted projects mainly belong to the semiconductor, electronic, and electrical component manufacturing sectors, with no projects in industries with environmental pollution factors or labor-intensive sectors; all ensuring technological criteria, fitting with the province's investment attraction policies. After 30 years of attracting and utilizing FDI, it can be affirmed that FDI has made significant contributions to socio-economic development.

However, according to the Acting Chairman of the provincial People's Committee, FDI has not met the goals and expectations for high-tech attraction for several reasons.

Firstly, the technology brought by FDI enterprises, although higher than what we currently have, is mostly average or advanced compared to other countries in the region. The government has not issued standards or criteria for evaluating and managing the technology brought into Vietnam by FDI. Licensing agencies lack a robust basis for stringent evaluation.

Secondly, there is a general orientation for high-tech attraction, but no detailed direction (or detailed plan) for each industry, based on building a list of high-tech projects. High-tech FDI projects that need attracting are prioritized accordingly. Therefore, there are no specific solutions to attract high-tech FDI for each sector and field.

Dong Nai has not yet formed high-tech industrial parks with complete infrastructure to attract high-tech investments. The remaining land in industrial parks with complete infrastructure is not much to call for projects that meet high-tech criteria.

Another reason is that infrastructure investors in industrial parks wish for quick occupancy to achieve business efficiency and recover investment costs, hence not considering much the quality of projects.

Moreover, we have not proactively trained and allocated qualified technical staff and workers so that this workforce can gradually receive, operate, and master the technology; vocational training programs at training institutions are still heavy on theory, with little practical conditions.

Finally, the linkage for producing high-tech products between FDI enterprises and Vietnamese enterprises is almost nonexistent. The reason stems from the government's support for Vietnamese enterprises in enhancing technological levels and production capacity not meeting the required orientation and high-tech development program.

There are preferential policies for high-tech zone investment projects

To attract selective investments, especially enterprises using advanced, modern technologies, several solutions need to be implemented in the near future.

The Acting Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee stated that the Government has issued Decree No. 10/2024/ND-CP, effective from 25/3/2024, regulating high-tech zones, which stipulates preferential policies for high-tech zone investment projects, serving as an important legal corridor for departments, sectors, and localities to effectively implement in the coming time.

The Acting Chairman also assigned the Department of Internal Affairs to lead, in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology and related units, to develop a human resource training project for evaluating high-tech project dossiers in the province to enhance evaluation quality and the responsibility of managing imported technology, licensing, and certifying FDI projects in the province.

The Dong Nai Industrial Zones Authority considers technology transfer an important factor when evaluating projects and deciding to grant investment certificates for projects investing in Dong Nai. Urgently completing the Cam My High-Tech Park, Long Thanh High-Tech Park, and some other industrial parks with sufficiently large land funds meeting the conditions to attract high-tech projects into the province.

The Department of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs, and the Department of Education and Training are to research and build a high-quality vocational training project to improve the quality of human resources for operating, exploiting, and transferring technology. The Department of Planning and Investment is to research and propose the Provincial People's Committee to report to the Government on policies supporting Vietnamese enterprises in improving technological levels and production capacity to meet the requirements of orientation, high-tech development programs to link, support, and transfer technology to FDI enterprises.​