Ha Noi, June 11 (VNA) - Viet Nam's investment environment has considerably improved with sound adjustments in its taxation policies in accordance with its international economic integration roadmap and effective reforms in public finance management and customs.

The World Bank (WB)'s Country Director in Viet Nam, Klaus Rohland, WB Chief Economic Specialist Martin Rama and International Finance Company (IFC) Director Deepak Khanna shared this view as reporters interviewed him at a press conference held in Ha Noi on Thursday.

That the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has authorised local governments to manage some specific projects and it is preparing for a decree to entrust people to supervise investment efficiency are evidence of the Vietnamese Government's efforts to reform its public finance management, Rama said, adding that investors praised these policies.

The country has succeeded in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). The FDI accounts for a high percentage of the country's GDP and the private sector has strongly developed, Rama stated.

The MPI said adjustments in mechanisms and policies in recent years have specially focused on encouraging the private sector, particularly young entrepreneurs.

The MPI gave an example that it granted business registration licenses to over 10,000 private enterprises capitalised at nearly 21,000 billion VND in the first four months of this year, an annual rise of 38.4 percent in the number of newly-established enterprises and 24.7 percent in registered investment capital.

Viet Nam now has more than 130,000 non-State enterprises with a combined investment capital of 10 billion USD, nearly 14,500 cooperatives, over 12.4 million saletraders and thousands of farms, accounting for 50 percent of the country's export turnover and the same percentage of the country's GDP.

The foreign-invested economic sector registered 6.7 billion USD in revenue in the first five months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 28 percent in comparison with the country's total growth of 17.4 percent.

There are some important legal changes, including amendments to the Enterprise Law, the Law on State-owned Enterprises, a number of taxation laws and the issuance of the Law on Credit Organisations, the Land Law and the Construction Law. The Law on Competition and the Law on Electricity are expected to be issued. All these have significantly reduced the level of subsidy for State-owned enterprises (SOE). Additionally, the SOE's restructuring and reform programme is being accelerated, thus increasing the efficiency of these enterprises. The programme focuses on equitization at a large-scale, helping SOE's join the stock market.

The WB's economic experts spoke of economic reform policies, saying that they brought a good investment environment to all Vietnamese economic sectors.

Government representatives and business communities in and outside the country will review the effectiveness of the investment environment policies at the Vietnamese businesses forum next week, an activity on the sidelines of the consultative group meeting for Viet Nam.

At the forum, the MPI will present reports on progress in Viet Nam's investment environment improvement from the 2003 forum to now. Investment environment-related comments are expected to be given at the forum by a variety of associations and trades. Representatives from international organisations will also give comparisons on business costs in Viet Nam and other regional countries. Participants will also focus their discussions on taxation, banking, capital markets, land and labour use.--Endtiem

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Back in 2002 Total FDI in VN is $1.4 B ... VN is heading the right way...
$10B -$20B in FDI will do

The 6.7B USD is not the FDI figure. Rather, it is the figure for revenue derived from the FDI invested in Vietnam over the years for the first 5 months of 2004.

Lets hope Vietnam gets into the WTO so we can dump cheap shrimp on the world markets and not get tarrifs on them.

Friggin U.S shrimp companies sueing Vietnamese farmers for dumping cheap shrimp after the U.S-Vietnam bilaterial trade agreement.

Haven't they heard of competition? Vietnam electronics are losing money due to cheaper imports, but when we put cheaper shrimp, then these companies start sueing ours. There's no justice for a country that is not in the WTO.

The US is a country full of hypocrisy.

It preaches globalisation yet increasingly becoming more protective of its own industries. They want to dump their goods on other markets while forbidden other countries from dumping their goods in the US market.

I can just go on and on forever but I won't.

they are full of sh!t

I've read recent news stories about Vietnam Shrimp farmers losing their life savings trying to go to court over U.S shrimp companies for dumping very cheap shrimp.

WTF? These Shrimp farmers want to put high tarrifs on Vietnamese Shrimp so they can keep making lots of money by overcharging customers.

It's not fair that Vietnam's electronics industry is selling like crap in Vietnam because of cheaper imports but when we do the same thing we get tarrifs and lawsuits.

Thing is the U.S Can do it because Vietnam is regarded as a "non market economy" and is not bound by the laws of imports and tarrifs.

Vietnam needs to get into the WTO as soon as possible to become a market economy.

VN will joint WTO soon .. US, Japan .... all support VN .. Just wait a bit longer...

Tien Dat is a very popular electronic brand in Vietnam. Based in Saigon, it is growing rapidly and their goods- DVD players, VCRs etc are high quality stuff. I was surprised. We bought one for our house in Vietnam when we were there 4 months ago. Oh boy it's good.

Sad thing is the price of global oil is going up and might cost Vietnam around 1 trillion dong.

Vietnam has lots of oil, but sadly no refineries to refine them so they have to import oil.

Vietnam needs to make some refineries. Vietnam is still an unspoiled country and most of it's resources like oil,seafood and vegetation have been mostly untouched.

When Vietnam gets into the WTO we should start dumping seafood in the millions on the market. LOL

Vietnam already have one oil refinery. She is currently building a second one this year.

Well I read that Vietnam depends on importing oil since they don't have the equipment to refine their oil supply.

Vietnam To Start Building Second Oil Refinery In 2004


DOW JONES NEWSWIRES, 09/11/2003



HANOI -- State-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas Corp., or PetroVietnam, plans to start building the country's second oil refinery and petrochemical complex in 2004 and begin operations in 2008, a senior corporation official said Thursday.

The $2.54 billion project will be built in Nghi Son district in Thanh Hoa province, 125 kilometers south of Hanoi.

The official, from PetroVietnam's Administration Department, told Dow Jones Newswires that because the Nghi Son refinery project will be the country's largest single investment, its construction must be approved by the National Assembly - Vietnam's highest lawmaking body.

"We expect the lawmakers will approve our construction plans in their summer meeting next year," he said. The National Assembly usually starts gathering in May.

"For the time being, PetroVietnam continues considering technical and financial options for the project," he said.

He added that the project may proceed in the form of a joint venture.

"We have received some investment proposals from foreign firms, and we think the Nghi Son project will be built and operated in the form of a joint venture, in which PetroVietnam will have more than a 50% stake," he said, but gave no details of which foreign firms are interested in the project.

State media reported Thursday that the government has agreed to allow foreign firms to take a total stake of up 20% in the project.

The Nghi Son refinery will be able to process 7 million metric tons of crude oil a year, supplying about 5.2 million tons of petroleum products. Each year, the project will also produce many other products such as 240,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, 300,000 tons of polypropylene, and 500,000 tons of bitumen, PetroVietnam figures show.

Half of the refinery's crude will come from domestic sources, while the balance will come from imports, the official said.

PetroVietnam is working with Japan's Nippon Oil Corp. to complete a feasibility study on the project before the end of this year, he added.

PetroVietnam is expected to restart building the country's first refinery later this year, in Dung Quat in the central Quang Ngai province, at a cost of $1.6 billion. Construction of the Dung Quat refinery was delayed when a Russian investor exited the project last year.

PetroVietnam is preparing to sign in the fourth quarter a major contract with a foreign consortium - led by France's Technip-Coflexip and including Japan's JGC Corp. (J.JGC) and Spain's Technicas Reunidas - to build a main refining facility for the Dung Quat refinery. The facility is costing $800 million.

When completed in 2006, the Dung Quat refinery will be able to refine 6.5 million tons of crude oil a year.

Vietnam's oil fields produced more than 17 million tons of crude oil last year, all for export. Without refineries, the country must import all its oil products.

It imported 6.724 million tons of petroleum products worth $1.622 billion during the first eight months of this year, government figures show.

The government has forecast the country's demand for petroleum products will double by 2010.

-By Hanoi Bureau; Dow Jones Newswires; 844-8250732; phammuoi.nguyen@dowjones.com

-Edited by Hilary Mc Cully