Thanh Hoa Province: Industry promotion helps business growth

On October 2, a conference was held in Berlin to promote investment in the north central province as part of the working trip to Germany by senior provincial officials.

Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee and Vice Secretary of the provincial Party Committee Nguyen Dinh Xung introduced his province’s strengths and potential with rich minerals and abundant human resources, as well as numerous incentives.

The province is home to many forest product enterprises, most of which are small in scale and poor in capital and technology.

As of September 2017, the provincial industrial promotion and energy efficiency center provided enterprises with assistance worth VND4.1 billion for advanced technology and participation in trade fairs and exhibitions. Many beneficiary projects, including a film-faced plywood production project and a project for the application of advanced technology in export forest product manufacturing, among others, have been implemented on schedule.

The project for application of advanced technology in wooden fine art and handicraft articles at the Hong Ky Infrastructure Construction Joint Stock Company in Canh Nang Town of Ba Thuoc District is the highlight of the provincial industrial promotion sector. The company built workspaces, warehouses and a production-holding yard while procuring new equipment and machinery to make high quality design products. The new technology has helped the company shorten production time and minimize emissions and noise while ensuring product quality. A company representative said the industry promotion program helped it reduce cost and encouraged it to expand production, enabling it to provide additional jobs for local people.

Industry promotion programs contributed to developing industrial production and adding value to provincial industrial products, especially processed and forest products. Nonetheless, many enterprises are too small in size and do not meet the standards of eligibility for industry promotion assistance. Another problem facing implementation of such assistance projects is a shortage of industry promotion staff, making the verification of beneficiaries and project implementation difficult.

The center proposed that the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Agency for Regional Industry Development (ARID) provide bigger annual industry promotion assistance for the province to enable additional projects, offer detailed information about eligibility terms, and assist enterprises to upgrade environmental pollution treatment systems.