Vung Ang: Convergence of "super projects"

CA - With an area of approximately 23 thousand hecta of 9 communes in Ky Anh District, Vung Ang has stored up to become the most developed economic zone of Ha Tinh province in future.

Located next to the South border of Ha Tinh province, Vung Ang economic zone is the farest area from Ha Tinh city. However, the largest capital scale projects of the country implemented by multi-national corporation like Formosa, TATA...; deepwater seaport plans as a dynamic for trading in the area; great human resource drawing plans have waken up Vung Ang with day by day changes.

A convergence of " super project"

In the West of the economic zone, steel rolling plant of Van Loi Corporation is under completion stage that will provide products in beginning 2010. Adjacent to the East, Vung Ang Port I, concrete dams are standing firmly, separating mainland with deep blue water area.

Back to mountain, area of gas and petroleum storage of Vung Ang Oil and Petroleum Company which has been shaped with connected tanks, is finishing final items of operation building, being ready to supply gas and petroleum for the Economic Zone, Lao and North East provinces of Thai Lan.

In the other conner, Vung Ang thermal power plant I now is a large flat ground which is under construction of foundation.

Deputy Director of Management Board of Vung Ang Economic Zone Thai Van Hoa said: For 3 years since the establishment, we has drawn 70 investment projects to Vung Ang Economic Zone with total registered capital of 32.5 billion USD".

Mr. Hoa said, apart from the steel rolling complex and Son Duong port with investment level of 7.9 billion USD, Formasa Corporation (Taiwan) now is studying to invest in a oil refinery and petrochemical complex with value of 12.4 billion USD, so far ranked as one of largest projects in the whole country.

Following Vung Ang Thermal Power Plant No. 1 having capacity of 1,200 MW with total investment capital of 1.2 billion USD which was implemented 2 years ago, LILAMA and PACO had received decision and approved to make investment to Vung Ang Thermal Power Plant No. 2 so as to create a Thermal Power Plant Center having total capacity of 4,800 MW with the capital of 3 billion USD.

Among billion USD projects, in Vung Ang Economic Zone, there are some projects in the stage of procedures finalization and waiting for license such as steel project of TATA (India) having capacity of 4.5 million tons/year, with total capital of 5 billion USD; or steel rolling project of Thach Khe Iron Ore Joint Stock Company having capacity of 2 million ton/year with total capital of 2 billion USD, etc.

In the investment promotion conference on 19^th September at Ha Tinh recently, there are some big projects that are granted investment certificates such as Multi-sector industrial zone development project with the scale of 200 ha and service areas of 20 ha

According to Mr. Hoa, Vung Ang now has great numbers of big projects. Only taking into account the steel output of Formosa that is 7.5 million tons year, steel output of TATA is 4 million tons and Thanh Khe is 2 million tons, Van Loi is 500 thousand tons. Together with these super big projects, many auxiliary enterprises are speeding up the investment to the Economic Zone.

For Formosa Group, investment project to Ha Tinh always comes high in the list of priorities even in the stage of financial difficulty. Mr. Hoa said “Fee for land lease is paid by Formosa as schedule. The promise of constructing 20 schools for communes that their land was acquired by the project is still implementing”.

Speeding up the construction of infrastructure

Dam and water pipeline system is under urgent construction. Electricity system can meet the demand of enterprises. But for this economic zone, there are many things that need to be done.

Forming resettlement infrastructure for 1.864 households which have to relocate so that “new residence place is better than the old one” is not the works that can be done in short time. Mr. Hoa said “Resettlement faced some difficulties due to large areas of acquisition, and short time schedule. So it is necessary to construct infrastructure quickly”.

In order to do this, many resources are mobilized. From 2008 to date, support funds from the center to land clearance are about 1,150 billion VND. Besides that, there is capital from local budget.

Together with the speeding up of infrastructure development of the economic zone, construction of resettlement areas, construction of communal office, clinic, school, etc Project Management Board of Vung Ang Economic Zone also consults free of charge for the local people about house design, and introduces suitable materials to resettled people.

We mobilized enterprises in the province to sell construction material with wholesale price, gather goods and means of transportation at site for supporting the people, Deputy Manager of Project Management Board of Vung Ang Economic Zone said.

Waste treatment area of 30 ha for the Economic Zone had been planned. Japan side was assigned to do consultant works for waste water treatment system of the Economic Zone. Mr. Hoa said, by supporting people in all aspects, we are now changing awareness of local people in positive way so as to get agreement of the whole society.