Reforms help Vietnam take advantage of our skills and technology
HANOI - Hanoi's old quarter reverberated to the strains of Men at Work and AC/DC
last Saturday night as the Australia Vietnam Business Council held its annual
Australia Day celebrations.
The event attracted almost 1000 people, many from Vietnam's business and
political elite, reflecting Australia's importance as Vietnam's second-largest
export destination after Japan. Bilateral trade between the countries reached
more than $2.6billion in 2000-01, including almost $500 million exports from
Australia, a 29 per cent increase from the previous year. But Austrade's senior
trade commissioner for Vietnam, Elizabeth Masamune, said there was potential
for much stronger growth as business reforms gradually took hold in this highly
regulated economy.
Ms Masamune said the outlook for Australian exports to Vietnam was
particularly bright given the recent signing of a bilateral trade agreement
between the United States and Vietnam. Ms Masamune said the agreement,
which is being progressively enacted in legislation by the Vietnamese
government, should usher in much-needed reforms that would make for a far
surer environment for all foreign firms.
The reforms come on top of the introduction of Vietnam's Enterprise Law,
passed in 1999, which has triggered a private-enterprise boom in the
South-East Asian country. Since the law was passed more than 35,000
enterprises have been created, generating a million jobs and business worth
almost $US4 billion ($A7.74 billion). Ms Masamune said Australian businesses
were particularly well placed to take advantage of the improving business
environment because of the country's good standing in Vietnam. She said
Australia was one of the first developed countries to invest in Vietnam following
the war, and investments now exceeded $1 billion and involved more than 70
projects across the country.
Australia's ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Mann, said the relationship
between the two countries was set to grow given that 70 per cent of
Vietnamese students abroad attended Australian universities.
Ms Masamune said such
strong ties gave Australian
businesses a great advantage
when moving into the
Vietnamese market: "We
have the political clout to
make things happen for
Australian companies".
She said there was a
considerable number of
similari ties between the
countries, which made
Vietnam an ideal export
market for Australian
business. Both countries were well endowed with natural resources and had
large agricultural sectors.
She said this meant Vietnam could use Australian skills and technological
innovations in areas such as agriculture, the oil and gas industry,
telecommunications, information technology, financial management and mining.
"Australia is seen very much as a friendly ally which is technologically advanced
but not big enough to be threatening in a geo-political sense," she said.
While improvements had been made in the Vietnamese business environment,
Ms Masamune warned that considerable hazards and challenges remain.
"It is a complex and emerging market and they don't always do what we would
expect of a business," she said.
Key problems for many Vietnamese businesses are obtaining hard currency,
weak intellectual property protections, unreliable infrastructure and low English
language skills.
By Adrian Rollins - The Age (Australia) - January 28, 2002.
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