On January 1st 2014, Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Amended) has come into effect. At the same time, the Land Law was also approved by the National Assembly. In order to effectively promote the Land Law in the future, land issues in attracting foreign direct investment in Vietnam also poses new requirements for balancing, complying with the new conditions and circumstances for the development of economy and society of Vietnam .
According to the General Statistics Office, the sources of foreign direct investment in Vietnam tend to increase rapidly in absolute value. The capital of foreign direct investment in our country’s economy only reached 22 trillion in 1995; the capital of foreign investment increased to 214.5 trillion by 2010, accounting for 25.8% of the total social investment capital. In 2011, it reached 226.9 trillion, accounting for 25.9% of total social investment capital. In the early 9 months of 2012, it reached 170 trillion, accounting for 24% of total social investment capital. Thus, foreign direct investment is still a very important source of capital for economic development in Vietnam.
In terms of the investment sector, the majority of foreign direct investment in Vietnam focuses on the fields of industry and construction: the proportion of investment in the industry and construction sector is consistently high: it reached 54.1% of the total registered investment capital in 2010; 76.4% in 2011; and approximately $12.5 billion in 2012.
Also according to the General Statistics Office, the proportion of economic having foreign investment in Vietnam’s GDP is quite large and tends to increase: in 2005, it accounted for 15.99%; in 2007, it reached 17.96%; in 2008, it was 18.43%; in 2009, it was 18.33%; in 2010, it was 18.72% and in 2011, it reached about 18.97%.
To attract developers in general and entities of foreign direct investment in particular, it requires appropriate land policies in order to create the most favorable conditions for developers to have business and production premises with reasonable cost.
However, in the process of implementing land policy, agricultural area of land use conversion is constantly increasing, that incurs the disturbing risk of ensuring food security of the country at present as well as in future. According to the data reported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the period of 2000-2010, land area for rice cultivation decreased nearly by 370,000ha in our country, in which, the biggest decline was in the period of 2000-2005 with an area up to 300,000ha. Declining trend of rice planting area occurred in almost every regions and localities in the country due to the process of industrialization, urbanization, infrastructure development, investment attraction, including attracting foreign direct investment.
In this process, too much focuses on attracting investment, especially foreign direct investment for industrial and urban development together with loosening the management, not closely managing land use for rice cultivation in many localities, has led to a quite common situation as State zoning for projects, applying for changing State zoning to meet the requirements of developers, that leads to phenomenon of arbitrarily converting the land use of many rice cultivation areas and makes areas for rice cultivation, including areas specialized for wet rice cultivation, significantly reduced. Moreover, land allocation and lease have been executed partially, dispersedly, and not complied with State zoning, leading to the consequence as many areas of agricultural land converted into non-agricultural use became vacant in industrial zones, complexes, and new urban areas.
Up to the beginning of 2011, the remaining land area for rice cultivation in the country was 4.1 million ha. To ensure food security, stabilize agricultural land and improve living standard of farmers, while over 53% of the labor force in our country is still mainly agricultural laborers, it demands to strengthen the management, use of land for rice cultivation.
The Economic – Social Development Strategy in 2011-2020 adopted at the XI Congress of Vietnam Communist Party is “striving until 2020, our country basically become a modern industrialized country”, still need to keep converting a large area of agricultural land for investment attraction, especially to attract foreign direct investment to develop industries, services, urban, infrastructure projects. Resolution No. 17/2011/QH13 dated 22/11/2011 of the National Assembly XIII on State Planning of land use until 2020 and 5-year land use plan (2011-2015) have been determined, by 2020, we have to keep 3.8 million ha of land for rice cultivation. Thus, up to 2020, on nationwide, the area of rice cultivation, which can be further converted the purpose into non-agricultural use, is a maximum of 3,000 ha.
Along with the implementation of measures to strengthen the management system not only to ensure the area of rice land allocated by the Congress, it requires to handle the procedures timely, comfortably for converting rice land use as State zoning to serve for tasks of economic – social development. To resolve this issue, on 11/5/2012, the Government issued Decree No. 42/2012/ND-CP on the management and use of land for rice cultivation. This is the first time the government has had a separate Decree on the management and use of land for rice cultivation, which provides strict management measures, especially for the conversion of rice land uses together with other measures to encourage the use of rice and keep land for rice cultivation.
Lê Mai
Đăng ký: VietNam News
