Ben Tre's new Investment policies released

On January 22, 2010, Mr Nguyen Thai Xay, Chairman of Ben Tre's People's Committee, signed into effect Decision No 03/2010/QĐ-UBND thereby promulgating new preferential policies for investment in the province. This Decision is deemed to replaced an earlier Decision signed by the People's Committee on March 13, 2008, which contained regulations on the same area.

The new investment policies are regulated in 12 Articles that is divided into 4 Chapters, specifying the particular target and scale of applying.

Specific preferences in land lease, for examples, and tax policies, assistances on labour, job training and introduction, and other regulations about costs of waste water treatment, of usage of infrastructure utility, etc.

Other preferences include incentives for investment in industrial park infrastructure, help in investment-related procedures and formalities, etc.

Most remarkable are those regulations on the two main content of policies - the exemption and reduction of tax over land re-lease; and incentives for investment in industrial park infrastructure.

Investors who carry out investment projects in industrial park are entitled to enjoy land re-lease exemption or reduction for regulated period of time. As for projects in the areas that are set for investment by indiscriminated investors, land lease rate is set to 0.25% multiplied by land price (depending on purpose of use).

The new investment regulations also stipulate the specific price list for land re-lease, the percentage of land re-lease exemption or reduction, the rate of waste water cost and costs for use of infrastructure utility in the industrial park.

These incentives are counted in the Vietnamese dong at exchange rate of 18,400 Vietnamese dong for one US dollar. This is in effect in the first-phase Giao Long and An Hiep industrial parks.

In case the currency depriciation (of the Vietnamese dong against the US dollar) is greater than 10% in comparison to the exchange rate stipulated in this regulation, the People's Committee would consider adjustments based on a proposal by the enterprise that controls the industrial park infrastructure system.

The province also encourages investors to carry out land re-lease for projects in tourism and entertainment, resort and hotel, ...

For industrial park infrastructure investors, incentives come in the form of assistances in land planning, land clearance, in technical infrastructure construction, investment promotion activities to attract projects into the industrial park.

Ben Tre Department of Planning and Investment (DPI Ben Tre) is assigned to act as a hub of help to assist investors to complete their investment and trading application procedures from the beginning to the end of the process of investment and trading licensing.