As many as 18 enterprises have registered to lease over 100 hectares of land at Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) Can Tho in the namesake southern city, making up over one-third of the area of the industrial park, VSIP Can Tho JSC said on Monday.

Site clearance for the industrial park has yet to finish, the firm noted.

Land will be handed over to these enterprises in the second quarter of next year.

Nguyen Thanh Tao, director of the Can Tho Land Fund Development Center, said the city had paid 561 out of the 602 households affected by the industrial park project over VND1.1 trillion (US$43.7 million) in compensation to take back nearly 262 hectares of land.

The city has also approved resettlement policies for the affected households, with 70 receiving resettlement land lots and 167 others eligible to purchase them.

Tao affirmed the city's commitment to handing over the entire cleared site for the project by September this year.

Work on the VSIP Can Tho project began on September 9 last year, making it the first VSIP to be built in the Mekong Delta.

The first phase of the project covers more than 293 hectares of land in Vinh Thanh District and carry a price tag of over VND3.717 trillion ($147.4 million).

Once completed, it will provide employment for around 20,000-30,000 workers in Can Tho and neighboring provinces.

VSIP is a joint venture between Becamex IDC Corporation, under the People’s Committee of southern Binh Duong Province, and Sembcorp Development Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries, a leading energy and urban solution provider.

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