VINACHEM

Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade director Nguyen Van Lai said that industries in the city had developed rapidly for years now. Particularly, the engineering and electronics & information technology sectors contributed a tremendous 40 percent of total revenue from these areas in Vietnam. Chemicals, chemico-pharmaceuticals, plastics, and rubber industries have developed with an emphasis on increasing added values and protecting the environment. The food and foodstuff processing industry has increased the production of refined products using advanced technology. Ho Chi Minh City will intensively invest in these industries for long-term development. Regarding the chemical industry, there are 4,172 production factories in the city, most being private businesses contributing more than 20 percent of municipal annual industrial production value. Many chemical products have established a niche on domestic and foreign markets such as household plastic ware, detergents, and motor tires and inner tubes. Several products have even led the markets and outplayed foreign imports such as Sai Gon and Binh Minh plastic ware, Van Thanh and Kymdan mattress, and Casuvina inner tubes and tires.

Apart from these advantageous areas, the city will also prioritize the development of chemico-pharmaceuticals and pharmacy, focusing on several major categories of medicines such as antibiotics and vitamins, which are necessary for prevention and treatment of severe diseases. So far the city has set up organic/inorganic chemico-pharmaceutical and common excipient production factories to reduce import purchases and to improve the quality of products to meet the domestic demand. In addition, the city will emphasize the development of pharmaceutical materials and traditional medicine, and the planting and processing of medicinal herbs to provide a basis for the development of the traditional medicine industry.

Nguyen Van Lai also said that the city had a plan to restructure the municipal chemical industry between now and 2020 in the direction of meeting clean industry standards and ensuring environmental safety. Specifically, three categories of products will be given particular incentives. These are (1) products under special development incentives including chemico-pharmaceuticals and special medicines to be invested by the State or to be made by foreign joint ventures (other economic sectors will enjoy special incentives, regarding land lease, infrastructure construction and manpower training), (2) products under development encouragement including pharmaceutical materials & common pharmaceutical products, cosmetics & flavorings, rubber products, and those on the city's major list and (3) products to be developed under the market-led mechanism including NPK fertilizer, microbiological organic fertilizer, electro-chemistry, industrial gas, detergents and other chemical products.

Following the development and investment directions, the city will establish land funds in many industrial parks for the development of the chemical industry. Specifically, it will provide 100ha for the chemical industry and 50ha for the rubber industry in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park in Nha Be District, 100ha in the Le Minh Xuan Industrial Park in Binh Chanh District for the plastic and construction material industries, and 200ha of the Phuoc Hiep Industrial Park in Cu Chi District for the chemico-pharmaceutical and cosmetics & flavoring industries. To keep up with the need in the short term, the city has encouraged investors to build modern factories with standard waste treatment facilities and to apply advanced technology in production.

The plans are to help domestic and foreign chemical investors understand the city's development priorities and make proper investment decisions. Ho Chi Minh City expected to make chemicals a clean industry, to increase the added value of chemical products and to protect the environment./.