Hanoi (VNA) - Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh has askedministries and Quang Ninh, Khanh Hoa and Kien Giang provinces to submit plansto establish special administrative economic zones in these regions.

The plans have to be submitted before April 3 to accelerate the creation ofthe Law on Special Administrative and Economic Zones.

Binh said the plans should have specific policies and mechanisms that aredivided into categories of land use, immigration, finance-banking,infrastructure development sectors.

The provinces should have proposals on policies to help develop theirstrengths, prevent competition with each other and be attractive to regionaland international investors.

On December 12, 2016, the Government promulgated Resolution No 103/NQ-CP,agreeing in principle to establish three special administrative economic zonesin Van Don (in the northern province of Quang Ninh), Phu Quoc (in the southernprovince of Kien Giang), and north of Van Phong Bay (in the central province ofKhanh Hoa).

The government asked the three provincial People’s Committees to collaboratewith the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and other concernedministries to draw up plans.

The MPI is working on the Law on Special Administrative and Economic Zones,with an aim to creating a new development model with breakthrough policies andmechanisms to improve investment environment while increasing competitivenessfor attracting investments.

The ministry said the building of special administrative and economic zoneshad become urgent, necessary work as over the past 25 years the models ofindustrial zone, processing zone, economic zone and hi-tech park had not beensufficiently flexible, despite their contributions towards socio-economicgrowth.

Also, the policies and mechanisms in the current models are not attractiveenough for foreign investors. The current models face shortcomings related toadministrative procedures and poor human resources.

Since 1942, many countries have developed successful models of specialeconomic zones, special administrative zones, freedom cities and intelligent,industrial and hi-tech cities with more open policies.

Building of special administrative and economic zones in Vietnam will havepositive effects on neighbouring areas too, the ministry said.

Quang Ninh province is seeking capital for 43 investment projects across severalsectors for the 2016-20 period. It has 121 registered foreign direct investment(FDI) projects with a total investment capital of 5.9 billion USD, as per theMPI’s Foreign Investment Agency.

The Van Phong Economic Zone was established in 2006 and is spread across150,000 hectares. This includes 80,000 hectares of sea and 70,000 hectares ofland, which are under the supervision of Van Ninh District and Ninh HoaCommune. A multi-sectoral economic zone, it has a designed focus on containerand petroleum transit services, oil refining, and petrochemistry. So far it hasattracted 145 investment projects with a total registered capital of 1.47billion USD; 79 projects with an implemented capital of 600 million USD areoperational. -VNA