Lang Son (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen XuanPhuc applauded the continually improved investment climate of Lang Son whileaddressing an investment promotion conference of this northern border provinceon September 30.

The Government leader highly valued the strongand comprehensive socio-economic development of Lang Son, with a GRDP growthrate of 8.6 percent, budget collection surpassing target and people’s improvedliving standards.

He highlighted that the province owns more than200km of borderline and has close trade links with the Chinese province ofGuangxi. Its investment climate has continually been bettered thanks to localofficials’ frequent dialogue with and settlement of obstacles facing investors.

Lang Son has certain advantages that cannot befound in other localities. Notably, it is adjacent to the big market of 50million people of China’s Guangxi province, and the Hanoi Capital Region.

With the annual import-export revenue via localborder gates topping 5 billion USD – 3.8-fold higher than the province’seconomy, Lang Son needs to keep good relations with China’s border localitieswhile ensuring the quality of goods, especially farm produce and consumergoods, destined for the neigbouring market, according to the PM.

He also highlighted famous tourist destinations inLang Son, including the Mau Son tourism site, Tam Thanh Cave, Nhi Thanh Caveand the Citadel of the Mac Dynasty, along with cultural identities of ethnicgroups, describing them as considerable tourism potential that should befurther tapped into.

At the conference, PM Phuc pointed out threedevelopment pillars that need to be promoted, namely border economy,sustainable tourism and smart agriculture associated with food processing.

He also told local authorities and people tostep up the fight against cross-border crimes, including smuggling, humantrafficking and drug crime, and coordinated with China in this work.

The PM requested Lang Son to push ahead withremoving difficulties and promoting the signed projects. He affirmed that theVietnamese Government will keep a peaceful environment, a stable macro-economyand optimal conditions for investors.

He also expressed his hope that investors willput words into action to realise their investment commitments.

At the conference, Lang Son presented and signedinvestment-related documents on over 100 projects worth about 105 trillion VND(4.5 billion USD) in total.

Lang Son is an important gateway linking Chinawith members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is alsothe first Vietnamese destination in the Nanning (China) – Lang Son – Hanoi –Hai Phong (Vietnam) economic corridor and next to the economic triangle ofHanoi – Hai Phong – Quang Ninh. It has a system of 12 international andnational border gates and several auxiliary ones.

As of the end of 2018, nearly 3,000 Vietnamese and foreign businesses hadcarried out export-import activities through the province with the totalturnover of nearly 5 billion USD. The figure reached 3.2 billion USD in thefirst nine months of 2019./.