Hai Phong, Quang Ninh industrial parks go green

Hai Phong city and Quang Ninh province, the “red addresses” for attracting foreign direct investment in northern Vietnam, are taking strides to build ecological, environmentally friendly industrial parks.

In the first 10 months of 2023, Quang Ninh led the country in FDI attraction with total registered investment capital of nearly $3.09 billion, accounting for 12% of the country’s total and an increase of 41.3% year-on-year. Hai Phong ranked second with over $2.8 billion, 10.9% and 2.14 times higher, respectively, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Nguyen Manh Cuong, director of the Quang Ninh Department of Planning and Investment, said the 10-month FDI figure was 159.2% higher than the target set by the provincial People’s Committee.

Major contributors to this achievement were Jinko Solar PV Vietnam photovoltaic cell technology complex project worth over $1.5 billion, and a $690 million plant invested by Lite-on Technology Corporation, a world-leading Taiwanese provider in optoelectronics and power management, he added.

Cuong said Quang Ninh now has about 548.61 hectares of industrial land with synchronous infrastructure. The figure is expected to reach 3,658 hectares by 2025 and 5,904 hectares by 2030.

Industrial parks such as Cai Lan, Hai Yen, Dong Mai, Viet Hung and Texhong Hai Ha have basically been equipped with synchronous infrastructure, meeting the needs of secondary investors, becoming the production, processing and manufacturing centers of the province. Meanwhile, the Song Khoai, Nam Tien Phong, and Bac Tien Phong IPs are in the process of completing infrastructure and attracting secondary investors.

Hai Phong’s 10-month FDI achievement also exceeded the yearly plan by more than 20%. In late September, the city licensed the ECOVANCE high-tech biodegradable materials factory project of South Korea's SK Group with total investment capital of $500 million.

Previously, on June 26, LG Innotek Vietnam Hai Phong Co., Ltd. was permitted to increase its investment capital by $1 billion, bringing the total investment capital of its project in Hai Phong to more than $2.05 billion. The project produces electronic components for the automotive industry, mobile phones and phone camera modules.

Hai Phong has 14 well-invested industrial parks creating an industrial land fund of more than 4,000 hectares with an average occupancy rate of about 60.5%. The city is preparing for a new industrial development period until 2050.

Under its construction planning, Hai Phong plans a total of 25 IPs with a total area of up to 15,777 hectares, serving as a driving force for the city’s development. It is working for the establishment of a new economic zone in the southern part, expected to cover 20,000 hectares.

Forming green industrial parks

Le Trung Kien, head of Hai Phong Economic Zone Authority, said that the city always encourages investors to focus on developing sustainable and effective ecological industrial parks. Hai Phong's IPs have already been equipped with international-standard environmental technical infrastructure.

“The city always encourages investors to increase the use of renewable energy sources such wind and rooftop solar power, as well as production technologies that protect the environment,” he stressed.

Hai Phong is also guiding IP infrastructure investors to transform their development model towards an economic, social and environmental balance, ensuring sustainable development towards its green growth goals.

Implementing the National Green Growth Strategy for 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050, and the government’s Decree No. 35/2022/ND-CP dated May 28, 2022 on the management of industrial parks and economic zones, Hai Phong has piloted the transformation of the Nam Cau Kien and Dinh Vu IPs from traditional models to ecological ones, combining industrial activities with environmental protection, thus improving the quality of life in the surrounding communities.

It has also converted DEEP C Industrial Zones (DEEP C) and new IPs into ecological ones, and built a smart high-tech industrial park.

At DEEP C, solutions have focused on implementing renewable energy projects, developing industrial symbiosis opportunities in industrial parks, and building roads from recycled plastic in order to bring environmental, economic and social benefits to both DEEP C and the community.

In 2020 alone, the first solar panel on the roof of a 20,000-square meter factory in DEEP C Industrial Park was put into operation with a capacity of 3 MWp (megawatt-peak). It is expected to increase to more than 20 MWp by 2023.

In late 2021, DEEP C inaugurated a wind turbine with a height of up to 100 meters and long blades, supplying 2.3 megawatts of electricity to its internal power grid. The enterprise plans to self-meet 50% of electricity demand from renewable energy, with an ambition for 100%.

The investor of Nam Cau Kien Industrial Park, Shinec JSC has reserved more than 31% of the area to plant trees. This industrial park has been evaluated by experts as meeting the most criteria of an ecological IP.

The most prominent thing that can be seen in this IP is the strong connection between businesses in the industry and from different industries to become potential customers and suppliers, forming dual circular chains with mutual benefits.

A representative of Thanh Dai Phu My Hai Phong Joint Stock Company, a secondary investor in the IP specializing in recycling by-products of metallurgy and energy industries, shared: "Our company is a link in the industrial symbiosis chain of the steel industry in Nam Cau Kien. Steel companies' waste is the input for our production. One of our products goes back to serve these steel businesses. Thus, steel companies can both save industrial waste treatment costs and reduce production costs by buying raw materials at low prices. Nam Cau Kien Industrial Park has prepared infrastructure and conditions necessary to participate in the carbon credit market from 2025.”

Joining this trend, Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park of Sao Do Group is cooperating with foreign partners to develop solar power systems to supply the industrial park. On November 9, this group signed a deal with leading Vietnamese green energy developer CME Solar to invest in a rooftop solar power system to help reduce pressure on the national power grid and ease carbon emissions. It is estimated that the total solar power capacity that can be installed at the IP will reach up to more than 1GWp.

Meanwhile, Quang Ninh intends to only attract FDI projects in high technology, processing and manufacturing in the fields of electronics, automobiles and clean energy that use less land, water, and labor.

According to Nguyen Van Nhan, CEO of Amata City Ha Long JSC, Quang Ninh has attracted many new projects in the field of processing and manufacturing but these projects have a huge demand for electricity. Therefore, there should be a mechanism to encourage and allow infrastructure investors to invest in renewable energy power projects to serve projects in the IPs, he noted.

Www.nhadautu.vn and www.the Investor.vn will hold the Vietnam Industrial Park Forum 2023: Towards green growth on Thursday, November 16, in Ho Chi Minh City.

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and Vietnam’s Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIE), the event aims to assess the current situation and identify potential and opportunities for industrial parks and economic zones, as well as discuss measures to lure investment to them in the new context.