A multi-criteria assessment of industrial zones’ attractiveness scores in Viet Nam

Abstract

Since the first industrial zones (IZ) was established more than two decades ago, the number of IZs in Viet Nam has mushroomed to meet the demand of national industrial development. However, it is challenging for enterprises, IZs’ infrastructure developers, policy-makers and other users to assess the competence of IZs for their location decisions due to the substantial number of IZs, the insufficiency of information of IZs, the lack of suitable and reliable ranking methods and the absence of a ready-made ranking of all IZs in Viet Nam. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify precisely the ‘attractiveness’ level of the existing IZs based on their own characteristics or in other words, to make a ranking of IZs nationwide. Toward this purpose, this study applied the multi-criteria analysis method to rank the IZs in Viet Nam. This paper is the first ever to successfully conduct a ranking of IZs in Viet Nam with a database constructed at both macro and micro levels, including local economic environment, accessibility, infrastructure, and financial expenses. The ranking is expected to be a useful instrument for enterprises to choose their locations as well as for IZs’ infrastructure developers to measure the attractiveness levels of their IZs to develop better business plans. Moreover, it can be used as a basis for policy makers in IZs planning in a more reasonable and scientific manner.