Ineffective investment promotion activities are among the major reasons for weaknesses in attracting and using foreign direct investment (FDI), according to a conference held recently in Hanoi to review 25 years of FDI in Vietnam.
Unfocused activities
Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Doan Xuan Hung said that a large number of Vietnamese investment promotion teams had visited Japan. He received an average of 4-5 such teams every 10 days. However, the teams did not work well, largely due to bad preparations, a lack of perspective and goals, bad presentation of their local strengths and low command of the Japanese language.
At the conference participants pointed out that investment promotion teams had presented their investment needs in a general manner, rather than showing specific fields of investment attraction and specific investment preferences. Moreover, all investment promotion teams only wanted to attract investment in industries and the support sector.
Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment Director Nguyen Van Suu said that investment promotion activities overlapped and that even Hanoi had many investment promotion offices, which had failed to act efficiently.
At a seminar held in October 2012 by the Ministry of Planning and Investment Le Huu Quang Huy, the Economic Counselor and Head of the Investment Promotion Division of the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan, said that 64 Vietnamese investment promotion teams visited Japan in the first half of 2012. However, their visits were ineffective due to insufficient understanding of Japanese culture. For example, many Vietnamese investment promotion teams visited Japan in August, when Japanese generally enjoy their holidays.
Ways of promotion should be changed
After admitting their ineffective investment promotion activities for a long time, Duong Anh Dien, the Hai Phong Party Committee Deputy Secretary and the Hai Phong People's Committee Chairman, proposed that it was vital to renew investment promotion activities by increasing promotion and advertising on websites and media and organizing investment promotion conferences. It is also needed to choose potential partners and places for investment promotion, rather than taking general promotion activities.
Doan Xuan Hung said that there is no need for every province and city to go abroad for investment promotion. They should ally with each other to identify regional advantages and cooperate with the Government to achieve efficiency and success in investment promotion activities.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently announced a draft resolution on directions to improve foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction, use and management in the near future. The draft emphasizes the need to combine investment promotion activities with national socioeconomic development tasks, unify investment promotion activities nationwide, and attract major investment projects, particularly projects from multinational groups and potential partners, which would make a major contribution to socioeconomic development.
In addition, to improve investment promotion activities it is important to make lists of projects needing FDI capital in specific sectors and localities following national, sectoral and regional socioeconomic development directions for specific periods of time.
At the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked sector leaders and local authorities to make their overseas investment promotion activities more concentrated and more specific in the near future./.
By Nguyen Hoa (VEN)