Long An (VNA)🅘 – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and authorities of southern Long An province pledged all possible support for investors in the locality but asked them to respect their commitments, especially those relating to environment protection.

Addressing an investment promotion conference in the locality on October 17, the Government leader asked the province to do all out in building an incorruptible administration to win businesses’ trust. The local administration should strictly implement its pledges to businesses and people, through maximising the use of advanced technology in administration and information management, and its development policies should position businesses in the centre, he noted. “The Government and I have high hopes that Long An will become one of the powerful economic drivers of the country during this working term,” the PM said. He also pointed to the need to increase dialogues with businesses and show good performance in planning, advising Long An to learn from development experience from Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong province. He suggested that domestic and foreign investors cooperate with the local governments to build large-scaled and green industrial clusters with strong competitiveness. Long An’s authorities have committed to improving the business and investment environment towards fast-processing procedures, safe business and effective investment, and sustainable growth. The province has posted the fastest growth in the Mekong Delta region and among localities with high growth in the southern major economic region over the past five years. It ranked ninth in 63 localities nationwide in the provincial competitiveness index, and second among 13 Mekong Delta localities only after Dong Thap. It enjoys a favourable location for economic development as it neighbours the country’s economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City and shares the 133-km border with Cambodia with nearly 14,000 hectares border gate economic zone. For his part, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Van Can affirmed that Long An will do its utmost for investors as it considers their successes and difficulties as its own. He called for investments into transport infrastructure system serving the industrial expansion in the province’s major economic area and high technology in line with agricultural restructuring. He also introduced 16 projects that are calling for investment, including a project to build urban and transport system connecting Long An with Ho Chi Minh City . On October 16, the province launched its Public Administration Centre which is the headquarters of six departments. After three years of implementing its socio-economic master plan, Long An has attracted 722 projects worth over 5 billion USD, mostly from Taiwanese, RoK, Singaporean and US investors. Foreign direct investment has helped the province secure a 12 percent growth annually, nearly doubling the average figure of the country. However, a number of projects are found to potentially cause pollution. Within the framework of the conference, Long An signed memoranda of understanding of cooperation worth tens of thousands billion VND with four domestic and foreign investors. Local authorities also granted investment licences to 12 investors with a total investment of 4.3 trillion VND (192.7 million USD).-VNA