A workshop entitled ‘Promoting Investment in Da Nang, and Viet Nam as a Whole’ took place in Japan’s Nagoya City on Tuesday.  Co-organised by the Bank of Nagoya and the Da Nang People’s Committee, the event was attended by representatives from 90 Japanese businesses involving the support industry, information technology (IT), logistics, trade and services.

The workshop in progress

During his opening speech at the event, Mr Ishii Hideharu, the Bank’s Managing Director, remarked that the workshop aimed to help Japanese businesses to learn about the investment environment in Da Nang, and Viet Nam as a whole.

Thanks to its effective economic reforms, Viet Nam is considered to be one of the most attractive destinations for foreign visitors in Southeast Asia.  Recent years have seen a significant increase in FDI inflows into the country from the USA, Japan and South Korea.

Da Nang has been voted one of Viet Nam’s localities boasting the best investment environment.  This is thanks to its top positions in the country’s Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and Public Administrative Reforms rankings for many consecutive years.  In addition, numerous dialogues between the local authorities and foreign companies have been organised in order to help them to overcome difficulties and expand their business activities in the city.

As of early this month, Da Nang had attracted 435 FDI projects, worth over 3.688 billion USD in total, from 43 countries and territories worldwide.  Currently, Japan takes the lead amongst the city’s foreign investors with 113 projects worth 397.49 million USD in total.  These projects are mainly in such aspects as manufacturing, processing, IT and construction industries.

Da Nang and Jomyo Pagoda representatives

Speaking at the event, the Da Nang People’s Committee Vice Chairman, Mr Dang Viet Dung, noted “Da Nang is considered as a key transport hub in ASEAN and Asia.  It is attractive to foreign investors due to its low-cost labour force and low job-hopping rates.  In addition, my city has seen an increasing number of local employees with Japanese fluency thanks to Japanese-English bilingual engineer training programmes which are offered at local universities”.

Mr Dung said that the land lease fees at 6 local industrial parks (IPs) are currently cheaper than those in nationwide localities.  Most notably, foreign investors in the Hi-tech IP will enjoy fee exemption or reduction for corporate income tax, import duties, value-added tax, and land lease prices.

Moreover, a Japan Investment Promotion Group has already been set up at the city’s Investment Promotion Centre with the purpose of providing useful information and services in the Japanese language for Japanese investors.

The city leader took the opportunity to appeal for Japanese businesses involving hi-tech, IT and support industries to invest in his city, and pledged that the local authorities would create very favourable conditions for them.

On the same day, the group of Da Nang’s leaders, led by Vice Chairman Dang Viet Dung, visited the Japanese Jomyo Pagoda where the 400-year-old ‘Chaya Shinroku Kochi toko zukan’ painting is being kept.  The painting features Japanese traders’ business activities in Viet Nam during the 16^th century.  Vice Chairman Dung highly appreciated the pagoda’s bilateral cultural exchange activities with the Tam Thai Pagoda in the city’s Ngu Hanh Son District over recent years.