A ground breaking ceremony for a fourth Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) development was held in Hai Phong, Vietnam on Wednesday.
The Guests of Honour at the ground breaking ceremony were Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
Both leaders had earlier graced the 10th anniversary celebration of the first VSIP project in Binh Duong province, which opened in September 2006.
Prime Minister Lee is on an official visit to Vietnam.
The new VSIP in Hai Phong is jointly developed by Vietnam’s state-owned enterprise Becamex IDC Corporation and Sembcorp Industrial Parks, a fully owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Industries.
Being the fourth such development, the 1,600-hectare industrial park will set itself apart from other industrial parks with its Singapore-style urban development that’s localised to suit the Vietnam market.
It will be an integrated township and industrial park, with 1,100 hectares allocated for commercial and residential development and a combined 500 hectares allocated for a business park and clean industrial park.
According to Sembcorp Industries, the core of the development will to cater to foreign investment industries but with an added attraction of a financial centre, commercial belt, shopping malls, hotels, medical centres and four residential precincts with supporting schools and community spaces adding to its attractiveness.
There will also be waterfront living concepts like villas and a promenade with an arts and cultural centre.
Hai Phong is the third largest city in Vietnam, after Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi but it still has a lot of relatively untapped potential. That’s why the new VSIP will place a greater focus on the integrated township aspect of the place.
The investment capital for the first phase of the 1,600-hectare plot is projected at just over US$100m. At 611 hectares, the first phase is just slightly bigger than Bedok Town.
When fully developed in about 10 years, the industrial park will house a population of 150,000.
The fourth industrial park builds on the success of the first three. Together, the earlier parks have attracted over US$2.5b of investments, have about 380 companies from over 20 countries and hired about 60,000 people.
PM Lee said: “The VSIP projects combined the strengths of Vietnam as an investment location with the experience of Singapore companies.
“The success of VSIP Hai Phong depends ever more critically on the support of the Vietnamese government to provide good infrastructure, clear rules and favourable incentives to encourage investments.”
PM Dung said: “The Vietnamese government highly values the contributions of Singaporean businesses in Vietnam and it’s our policy to offer a favourable business climate to all foreign investors, including those from Singapore for long term and successful business cooperation and investment.”
About a dozen organisations have signed MOUs or Letters of Intent to be part of the VSIP. Among them is Singapore’s Modern Montessori International, a provider of pre-school education.
Its chairman and CEO, Dr T Chandroo, said: “Vietnam, as you probably know, has more than 85 million in population of which 60 percent are below the age of 30. Can you imagine, a big population like this – these people will get married, they will have kids – so I see great potential in the pre-school market in Vietnam.”
And with urban migration on the rise too, the VSIP Hai Phong hopes it will become a showcase for long term development projects.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 13 Jan 2010