Quang Ninh (VNA) – Aneconomic forum gathering northern coastal localities and their neighbours washeld in Quang Ninh province on April 2, aiming to enhance the region’s connectivityin economic development and business climate improvement.

The event in Uong Bi city drew officials fromcoastal Hai Phong city, the coastal provinces of Quang Ninh and Thai Binh,along with the nearby provinces of Hai Duong and Hung Yen.

Addressing the forum, Vice Chairman of the QuangNinh People’s Committee Nguyen Van Thang said his province aims to turnservices and industry into the main parts of the local economy, while becominga high-quality tourism hub of the northern region in 2020.

To that end, Quang Ninh has taken bold actionsto restructure its economy, reform the growth model, and switch from the brown(coal-based) to green (environment-based) development approach so as to makebreakthroughs in the field.

Sharing local experiences, Thang noted that QuangNinh has built a synchronous system of overall plans with the participation ofthe world’s leading consulting firms. It has worked to remove infrastructurebottlenecks by developing hard infrastructure like expressways, an internationalairport and seaports, as well as soft infrastructure such as promotinge-government and utilising software for administrative procedures.

The province has also diversified forms ofinvestment and asked the Government for permission to mobilise legal capitalsources for key projects, especially transport infrastructure facilities, headded.

As a result, more than 36 trillion VND (1.5billion USD), three-quarters of which is from private sources, has beenattracted for the building of transport facilities since 2015, the officialsaid, noting that several big facilities were put into use last year, includingthe Ha Long-Hai Phong Expressway, Bach Dang Bridge, Ha Long-Van Don Expressway,Van Don International Airport, and Ha Long International Cruise Port.

At the forum, a Hai Phong official also sharedthe city’s experience in socio-economic development and its efforts to become amajor centre for navigation and maritime transport services in Vietnam.

He said provincial authorities have focused onmeasures to improve the business environment and improve the competitiveness.Since 2016, Hai Phong has worked with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce andIndustry to foster a favourable business climate by streamlining administrativeprocedures, cutting down the time needed for procedure settlement and customsclearance, and stepping up online public service provision.

Other officials from Hung Yen, Hai Duong, andThai Binh also talked about solutions to create an optimal business climate,including helping firms connect with one another in the same sectors or undervalue chains, updating enterprises on market information, organising humanresources training courses, and holding regular dialogues with businesses. –VNA