Hai Duong (VNA) – The northern province of Hai Duong this year hopes to absorb 600 million USD in foreign direct investment of which 200 million USD will be disbursed, announced the provincial Department of Planning and Investment.

In the first six months of this year, Hai Duong has attracted 29 foreign invested projects, worth 273 million USD, up by 60 percent from the same period last year. In addition, eight existing projects enlarged their charter capital by 39.6 million USD.

The latest addition brings the number of foreign invested projects in Hai Duong to 187, capitalised at 2.19 billion USD. Some 88 of the projects, valued at over 1.3 billion USD, have been invested at the provincial industrial zones.

Currently, 97 foreign-invested projects are operation aland have created 51,000 jobs.

Hai Duong Province has attempted to attract foreign groups who are willing and able to make investments in infrastructure before implementing their projects, said Nguyen Xuan Doan from the department.

“We met with success using this approach in Ninh Giang industrial complex where a group of Taiwanese investors implemented seven projects after investing in the complex’s infrastructure construction,” Doan said.

This month, the province welcomes a delegation of US enterprises who will be reviewing investment opportunities in the fields of energy, hi-grade glass production, plastic and aluminium.

After choosing suitable locations for their projects, he said, the US investors would pump investment into upgrading the infrastructure of the selected locations

The province has also issued land clearance in accordance to the implementation of each phase of the project, so as to avoid any wastage of land space. “This is a very important move because if the progress of the project is slower than expected, the land will not be wasted,” he emphasised.

In addition to assisting investors in sorting out matters of land clearance and compensation, the provincial authorities said they want to help resolve any impediments that businesses may be facing as a way to speed up projects.

Priorities are being given to large-scale projects that are using available raw materials and labour resources to produce exports.