VietNamNet Bridge - Local planning and investment departments have released a series of warrants looking for foreign investors after discovering that they had disappeared from their given addresses.

The Hung Yen provincial Industrial Zone (IZ) Board of Management in early August released a notice looking for the investor of Dos-Tex Vietnam, and requested that the Spanish investor turn up to follow procedures to terminate the project in Vietnam.

Dos-Tex Vietnam was granted an investment license in 2009 with registered capital of $2.75 million. 

The investor set up a cloth weaving factory on the land plot belonging to Vinatex Knitting Corporation in Pho Noi IZ in Hung Yen province. However, in May 2011, the project stopped operation.

Pham Thai Son, head of the Hung Yen provincial IZ Board of Management, confirmed that the project’s investor stopped its operation a long time ago because of repeatedly taking losses.

Relevant agencies are working on the money the investor owes to customs agencies and commercial banks. However, Son has no information about the total debts.

Dos-Tex is not alone. On the official website of the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), a series of warrants to look for missing investors have been published by local authorities.

Local planning and investment departments have released a series of warrants looking for foreign investors after discovering that they had disappeared from their given addresses.

The Hai Phong provincial Planning and Investment Department, for example, said that it was looking for a GNS Technology investor in mid-July. 

GNS registered to develop a multi-story apartment building for sale and an office building for lease in Hai Phong City. It got an investment license in 2008 and stopped operation in June 2013, but the procedures to stop the project have not been fulfilled.

Also in July, the Son La provincial Planning and Investment Department summoned the investor of Phu An Le Biotechnology & Science Company to turn up to deal with formalities to stop the operation of its investment project in the locality.

The legal representative of the company bears Chinese nationality. The project got the investment license in February 2013 and stopped operation in March 2015.

The Ha Tinh provincial authorities have been looking for the investors of Ha Tinh – Sao A Telecom JSC which registered its investment in July 2008 and stopped operation in November 2014. Though the project has eight investors, the local authorities can contact none of them.

A report of the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) showed that 518 ownerless foreign invested enterprises had been found by May 31, 2013 which had  total registered capital of $903 million. 

‘Ownerless’ means that the investors no longer operate at the addresses they had registered with management agencies. Many of them are believed to have left Vietnam.

Experts have expressed their concern about the problem, saying that the escape by foreign investors from given addresses, leaving big unpaid debts, have caused serious consequences to localities.

Dat Viet