Vietnam hopes oil refinery 'will help develop whole country'
Monday, 2 March 2009
DUNG QUAT, Vietnam, March 1 (AFP): A bony brown cow, an uninvited guest at the opening of Vietnam's first oil refinery, meanders up to the heavily guarded entrance before thinking better of it and trudging off.
It's a brief but telling reminder that if Vietnam wants the project to drive an industrialisation boom in its impoverished centre, it has a long way to go.
The communist government's decision to build the refinery, costing more than 2.5 billion dollars, also scared off several foreign investors.
But officials hope the new facility and nascent industrial zone around it will help develop the whole country, especially the rural centre.
"Dung Quat will be the momentum for the centre's development," Le Van Dung, vice-chairman of Dung Quat Economic Zone Authority, told the agency.
"Dung Quat is the pilot model for investment and this pilot model shows it's encouraged other provinces in the central area to follow.
"I think in the next 10 years, heavy industry in central areas will promote industrialisation and development in the whole of Vietnam."
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week opened Dung Quat refinery in Quang Ngai province, home to some of the poorest, least skilled people in Vietnam and with no tradition of heavy industry.
The area is intended as a counterbalance to the capital Hanoi, in the north, and Ho Chi Minh City-formerly Saigon-the country's economic hub in the south.
Le Van Dung said Dung Quat was following models from Tokyo and Osaka-Japanese cities with heavy industry zones whose trump cards are having the use of deep sea ports.
But a trip to the 10,300-hectare (25,000-acre) industrial zone, built on what used to be mostly farmland, shows Dung Quat could not be further from the Japanese metropolises.
Cattle compete with haphazard motorbikes on sparse, newly laid roads through the area, which combines a smattering of large factories with ramshackle restaurants brewing up simple dishes for the zone's workforce.
Vietnam-energy-oil-2 Last Vietnam Authorities say 20,000 people currently work in the industrial area, mostly Vietnamese complemented by foreign specialists and managers.
There is certainly plenty of space available for expansion, but foreign take- up could be slow given the dire state of the global economy.
Three years after the first factories moved in-foreign as well as Vietnamese-about 100 companies are working out of the zone, Dung said, adding skilled workers account for 30 per cent of the workforce.
"We don't want to turn Dung Quat into an area of low-skilled workers," he said, adding training centres had been set up to educate new employees.
Bruno Le Roy, the engineer overseeing the final stages of building the refinery for French oil services company Technip, said he has "seen in the last two years a big change in the area."
They say they have no chance of finding work in the industrial zone because the factories there are only looking for workers with specific skills-and are finding their new employees in other areas of the country.
"I wish I had some skills to find a job there," said Nguyen Van Ha, a tough- looking 28-year-old who works in a wooden processing factory.
Together with his wife he says they earn a total each month of three million dong (170 dollars) to support their five-month- old baby.
It's a brief but telling reminder that if Vietnam wants the project to drive an industrialisation boom in its impoverished centre, it has a long way to go.
The communist government's decision to build the refinery, costing more than 2.5 billion dollars, also scared off several foreign investors.
But officials hope the new facility and nascent industrial zone around it will help develop the whole country, especially the rural centre.
"Dung Quat will be the momentum for the centre's development," Le Van Dung, vice-chairman of Dung Quat Economic Zone Authority, told the agency.
"Dung Quat is the pilot model for investment and this pilot model shows it's encouraged other provinces in the central area to follow.
"I think in the next 10 years, heavy industry in central areas will promote industrialisation and development in the whole of Vietnam."
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week opened Dung Quat refinery in Quang Ngai province, home to some of the poorest, least skilled people in Vietnam and with no tradition of heavy industry.
The area is intended as a counterbalance to the capital Hanoi, in the north, and Ho Chi Minh City-formerly Saigon-the country's economic hub in the south.
Le Van Dung said Dung Quat was following models from Tokyo and Osaka-Japanese cities with heavy industry zones whose trump cards are having the use of deep sea ports.
But a trip to the 10,300-hectare (25,000-acre) industrial zone, built on what used to be mostly farmland, shows Dung Quat could not be further from the Japanese metropolises.
Cattle compete with haphazard motorbikes on sparse, newly laid roads through the area, which combines a smattering of large factories with ramshackle restaurants brewing up simple dishes for the zone's workforce.
Vietnam-energy-oil-2 Last Vietnam Authorities say 20,000 people currently work in the industrial area, mostly Vietnamese complemented by foreign specialists and managers.
There is certainly plenty of space available for expansion, but foreign take- up could be slow given the dire state of the global economy.
Three years after the first factories moved in-foreign as well as Vietnamese-about 100 companies are working out of the zone, Dung said, adding skilled workers account for 30 per cent of the workforce.
"We don't want to turn Dung Quat into an area of low-skilled workers," he said, adding training centres had been set up to educate new employees.
Bruno Le Roy, the engineer overseeing the final stages of building the refinery for French oil services company Technip, said he has "seen in the last two years a big change in the area."
They say they have no chance of finding work in the industrial zone because the factories there are only looking for workers with specific skills-and are finding their new employees in other areas of the country.
"I wish I had some skills to find a job there," said Nguyen Van Ha, a tough- looking 28-year-old who works in a wooden processing factory.
Together with his wife he says they earn a total each month of three million dong (170 dollars) to support their five-month- old baby.