Investment climate

The Japanese trading house will pull out of the 2-gigawatt Vinh Tan 3 project, planned to be located in the southern province of Binh Thuan, because of climate change targets, Reuters reported, citing two anonymous sources.

Without mentioning Vinh Tan 3 specifically, Mitsubishi said in a statement that it was committed to reducing its investment in coal power in line with international climate goals.

The 2-gigawatt plant was originally scheduled to come online in 2024.

OneEnergy, a joint venture of Mitsubishi and Hong Kong’s CLP group, holds a 49 percent interest in the $2 billion project. State-owned utility Vietnam Electricity owns another 29 percent. Chinese companies are handling materials procurement, construction and equipment delivery.

This marks Mitsubishi’s first withdrawal from a coal plant project. The trading house has said it will not build any new facilities of this type after Vung Ang 2, a Nikkei report said.

Mitsubishi still has a stake in the Vung Ang 2 coal power plant being built in the central province of Ha Tinh, which is more widely known after being subject to critical scrutiny by environmental and other groups as well as investors.

With five groups of solutions and 25 tasks, the plan puts forward that by 2030, the State’s management methods will be reformed in a fundamental and comprehensive manner and aligned with international principles and practices in a bid to create a favourable business climate for all economic sectors, thereby helping achieve all targets relevant to the private economic sector as stated in Resolution No 10-NQ/TW, developing the private economic sector into an important driving force of the socialist-oriented market economy.

During the course of the three years implementing the resolution, Vietnam’s private economic sector has seen robust development and has gradually become a driving force in promoting national economic growth.

Private businesses, particularly large scale ones, have made remarkable strides in establishing their roles and position in the national economy. Many private enterprises have shown performance levels as effective as or even more so than State-owned and foreign-invested enterprises.

More and more major private corporations and domestic joint stock companies have invested abroad in developed countries to expand their markets and promote their brands such as Vingroup, Vietjet Aviation Joint Stock Company, Truong Hai Auto Corporation (Thaco), T&T Group, Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk), and FPT Group.

Private enterprises made up only 20% of the 500 largest enterprises in Vietnam (VNR500) in 2017, the figure then reaching 57.8% in 2019. The proportion of overall revenue from private enterprises also increased to 37.51% in 2019 from 27% in 2016.

These figures were made possible thanks to the efforts of enterprises themselves as well as Government policies designed to create a favourable and equal business environment in recent years.

However, according to the General Statistics Office, private enterprises only contribute about 9.1% of GDP.

To address the problem, the 13th National Party Congress’s Resolution was adopted with many new viewpoints and orientations for the State’s economic management, aimed at making major breakthroughs in developing the private economic sector.

The resolution stresses the development of a strong entrepreneurial force, the restructure of State-owned enterprises, and the strengthening of links between domestic and foreign-invested enterprises.

To achieve these goals, State management activities must respect the law of the market in order to promote the socialist-oriented development of the private economic sector. It is also necessary to remove hindrances facing production and business activities, including those in the private sector, in order to facilitate businesses’ operation and encourage them to make even bigger contributions to the country’s development.