The US Consul General (CG) in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Seth Winnick, recently paid a two-day working visit to Binh Dinh Province. In the morning of 19 September 2005, the CG and his colleagues had a courtesy meeting with Chairman Vu Hoang Ha of the People’s Committee of Binh Dinh Province, who introduced in details the overall situation of the province and the plan to develop Nhon Hoi Economic Zone (EZ). The reason why CG Seth Winnick visited Binh Dinh is that the province, in his opinion, has been a typically successful example in socio-economic development for the past years and he wished to come study himself and brief the provincial officials and business people about his Consulate General. The CG proposed industry and tourism should be the key sectors to help Binh Dinh take off and the province had both potential and practical conditions to develop these sectors.

At the short meeting with the Director of the DPI and the Investment Promotion Center (IPC Binh Dinh) later on that morning, the CG got to know the operation of the local enterprises, both state-owned and private, especially those in industrial sector. The contribution to the provincial gross production of the industrial companies and their number of workers were among the CG’s interest. Talking about investment in tourism development, the CG confirmed that US investors were well experienced in building and operating large-scaled resorts the world over and they could do it along the long scenic coastline of Binh Dinh.

On 20 September 2005, the Consulate General delegation and Binh Dinh People’s Committee co-held a round table discussion on how to attract investment in Binh Dinh, where the CG commented that Binh Dinh has been on the right way to industrialization and development by creating a level playing field for all economic sectors and positively preparing infrastructure before inviting the investors, and that Binh Dinh population would satisfy the demand for human resource of the local businesses, especially when Nhon Hoi EZ starts to operate. According to the CG, overseas Vietnamese (or Viet Kieu) should be considered as potential investors in Binh Dinh and Vietnam as well because they share the same culture and language. In order to move on, the CG said, Binh Dinh should make use of its advantages in geographic location with the busiest port of Quy Nhon, a long coastline with many beautiful beaches, and a large population together with Quy Nhon University; and should further improve the business environment and stabilize the incentive policies. What the CG could do to help Binh Dinh in the near future was to communicate with American business people about Binh Dinh, introduce US consultants to service in master planning and designing of Nhon Hoi EZ and Binh Dinh Province. Finally, the advice given by the CG to those who deal with investment promotion in Binh Dinh was that investment only comes after attention paid, so just start with attracting the attention of as many potential investors as possible. The US consulting companies could help not only in investment attraction but in trade promotion as well and the Vietnamese should contact them in stead of making self effort, the CG suggested.