Vietnam has many potentials and strengths in developing the marine economy. The 8th Conference of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure) issued Resolution No. 36-NQ/TW on "Vietnam's sustainable marine economic development strategy to 2030, vision to 2045", determining that by 2030 Vietnam will become a strong marine nation; basically meet the criteria for sustainable marine economic development; form a marine ecological culture; proactively adapt to climate change.

Attracting many large projects

According to Dr. Le Van Hung - Institute for Regional Sustainable Development Studies (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences ), by 2023, Vietnam will have a total of 18 coastal economic zones (EZs) established and built. The coastal EZs are mostly concentrated in the Central coastal region (11 zones), the Northern region has 4 zones and the Southern region has 3 zones (not including Ninh Co EZ, Nam Dinh province, which has been added to the development plan of coastal EZs in Vietnam).

Most coastal economic zones have very large planning areas, such as Van Phong Economic Zone with an area of ​​150,000 hectares, Nghi Son Economic Zone after adjustment is 106,000 hectares, Phu Quoc Economic Zone is nearly 60,000 hectares, Van Don Economic Zone is more than 55,000 hectares.

Dr. Le Van Hung said that large-scale planning is very important in building a synchronous and comprehensive infrastructure in the long term. It helps coastal economic zones not only be places for production and business, but these areas can become new urban areas, creating a favorable environment for workers and residents.

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Chu Lai Port. Photo: GX

Regarding investment attraction, in the 20 years since its establishment, coastal economic zones have attracted many investment projects in production and business. As of 2021, there were 506 foreign investment projects and 1,648 domestic investment projects attracted to coastal economic zones. Of which, Dinh Vu - Cat Hai coastal economic zone attracted the largest number of investment projects with 205 foreign investment projects and 105 domestic investment projects; Nghi Son economic zone attracted 19 foreign projects and 233 domestic projects; Dung Quat economic zone attracted 49 foreign projects and 195 domestic projects.

Coastal economic zones have attracted about 49 billion USD in foreign direct investment and 1,245.5 trillion VND in investment capital from domestic projects.

"Thanks to attracting large investment projects, coastal economic zones have quickly become the leading contributors to the budget revenue of provinces/cities. Currently, many coastal economic zones contribute a large part to the budget revenue of provinces such as Dung Quat Economic Zone contributes up to 80% of the total budget revenue of the province, Chu Lai Economic Zone contributes 65%, Nghi Son Economic Zone contributes 61.3%, Vung Ang Economic Zone contributes 56%, Phu Quoc Economic Zone accounting for 43.2%. Creating large jobs for workers.

For disadvantageous provinces, this is an important source of budget to help localities continue to invest in infrastructure to serve socio-economic development. For these localities, coastal economic zones are truly the most important growth pole for industrial development and local budget revenue...", Dr. Le Van Hung assessed.

According to this person, coastal economic zones have begun to form a number of industry clusters such as in Chu Lai Economic Zone for automobile production and assembly, in Phu Quoc for tourism, and in Dung Quat and Nghi Son economic zones for oil refinery and petrochemicals.

Great contribution to local economic development

Dr. Le Van Hung acknowledged that coastal economic zones have initially made positive contributions to the development process of localities, especially the process of promoting industrial development and structural transformation to gradually narrow the development gap between regions.

Positive contributions include a number of coastal economic zones that have created a clear change in economic development for provinces and cities in terms of attracting investment capital, contributing to industrial value, export value, paying to the state budget, and improving labor productivity. Many coastal economic zones have truly become pillars and have made great contributions to local economic development such as Nghi Son, Dinh Vu - Cat Hai, Vung Ang, Chu Lai, Dung Quat, and Phu Quoc economic zones.

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Chu Lai Economic Zone is contributing a large budget to Quang Nam province.

Thanks to the establishment and construction of coastal economic zones, socio-economic infrastructure in localities has been gradually invested and completed. Some coastal economic zones have had a clear transformation in terms of connecting traffic, port systems and seaport logistics services, airports, industrial parks, training facilities, and medical services thanks to both capital investment from the budget and mobilization from the domestic and foreign private sectors.

However, according to Dr. Le Van Hung, in addition to positive results, coastal economic zones also revealed some limitations such as not really attracting quality investors, with enough capacity to create branded products and competitiveness in the international market.

In particular, the attracted enterprises have not created a large spillover effect on the development of industrial clusters and supporting industries to create specialization in development. Therefore, the linkage and cooperation between enterprises in the zone, between FDI enterprises and domestic areas, between enterprises in the zone and outside the zone are still very limited...

In addition, large enterprises attracted to coastal economic zones are currently mainly focused on resource-intensive and energy-consuming sectors (such as petrochemicals, steel, thermal power, chemicals, cement, and construction materials), so the risks of negative impacts on the environment are inevitable, especially long-term impacts on the ecological environment.

In addition, the construction process, business activities and management of ecological protection have not been strictly controlled and protected. Many coastal economic zones still lack centralized wastewater treatment areas and hazardous waste and garbage collection areas.

To promote coastal economic zones to truly become the driving forces for local and regional development, Dr. Le Van Hung proposed that Vietnam should conduct research to have key pilot policies to create a development environment for 2 to 3 clusters of coastal economic zones by region. Only then will resources be truly focused on perfecting infrastructure, social services and tools to protect and restore the ecological environment to create truly sustainable coastal economic zones.

At the same time, coastal economic zones need to pilot a number of development models such as green industrial parks and production and business zones that specialize/focus on a specific group of industries/fields.

Lake Giap