Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh addresses at the conference. — VNA/VNS Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Vietnamese Government and State agencies are attempting to create favourable conditions for foreign investors, including those from South Korea, according to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh.

Speaking at a conference held in Ha Noi on Tuesday, Khanh expressed hope that foreign companies would make significant contributions to Viet Nam's economic development.

Hosted by the ministry and the South Korean Embassy in Viet Nam, the conference aims to discuss measures supporting foreign-invested enterprises and address the difficulties in implementing new policies on investment, trading, tax, export-import and customs.

Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the ministry's Export Department, said South Korea was an important partner of Viet Nam. Hai said the Government and the ministry wanted FDI enterprises to increase their investment in new and existing projects in Viet Nam by focusing on support industries and material production for the textile, footwear and electronics industries. He also called on foreign-invested enterprises to foster the production of high-value exports and form supply chains with Vietnamese businesses, with the aim of increasing the volume of local goods produced in Viet Nam.

The director of the ministry's Institute for Industry Policy and Strategy, Truong Thi Chi Binh, said firms with foreign direct investment (FDI) should make the most of new-generation free trade agreements signed between Viet Nam and its partners to boost production and create high-value products.

During the conference, representatives of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency mentioned issues concerning tax incentives when using materials produced in Viet Nam and the difficulties facing South Korean firms due to mandatory filing of import tax returns. Statistics show that South Korea-invested enterprises contributed 25 per cent to Viet Nam's total export value in 2015. The combined export value of the two South Korean-invested Samsung Electronics Viet Nam plants in the Thai Nguyen and Bac Ninh provinces hit US$30.2 billion in 2015, contributing 27 per cent of the total export turnover created by FDI firms nationwide and some 19 per cent of the country's export turnover. — VNS