Speaking at the 15th session of the Da Nang People’s Council meeting several days ago, Nguyen Thanh Phuc, a council’s delegate, said the city has gained encouraging achievements in socio-economic development in 2023, but bottlenecks still exist.

Many land problems have remained unsettled after many years. Projects believed to have positive influences and make a great contribution to the city’s development cannot be deployed because of complicated procedures, including requirements on environmental impact assessment, fire prevention and control, and construction permits.

According to Phuc, Da Nang is an attractive destination for investors, and investment in the city in 2023 was better than 2022, but remains modest compared with the city’s potential and determination.

To attract more investment in 2024, Phuc said it is necessary to make investors feel secure and confident with open and flexible mechanisms. The city needs to pay more attention to resolutions and new planning, and remove bottlenecks in administrative procedures to pave the way for foreign capital inflow.

He stressed that investors' complaints are about administrative burden, unclear preferential policies, and different interpretation of laws by different localities.

Tran Thi Thanh Tam, director of the Da Nang Department of Planning and Investment, said that the city’s resources for economic development have begun slowing down and the city needs new driving forces for growth. In the immediate time, Da Nang will focus on new groundbreaking policies to generate momentum.

Tam said the city was heavily impacted by Covid-19 in 2020-2021 and gained recovery in 2022, but it has been affected by post-Covid problems and global economic conditions.

Ho Ky Minh, Da Nang Vice Mayor, said the city is attaching great importance to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), while considering the US as the key market for Da Nang to boost cooperation.

A forum on the Vietnam-US comprehensive strategic partnership was held in Da Nang in mid-November. To date, Da Nang has attracted 81 US-invested projects with total capital of $487.85 million, including 19 IT (information technology) projects capitalized at $63.8 million.

“The business fields where the US has advantages in are exactly the fields that Da Nang wants to attract, such as IT, hi-tech production, automation, semiconductors, AI (artificial intelligence), supporting industries, healthcare, education, and resort real estate.

Ho Giap