~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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New lives link U.S. to Vietnam

WESTMINSTER -Three decades ago immigrants from Vietnam started coming in sizable numbers to the United States, fleeing the rule of the Communist government after the Vietnam War. The newcomers arrived with little money or possessions, but they have built a beehive of commerce bridging two cities in Orange County, California - Westminster and Garden Grove. The two cities are home today to more than 150,000 Vietnamese-Americans and more than 5,000 Vietnamese-owned businesses.

Yet there was no Vietnamese-owned bank in the community - known today as Little Saigon - until last year. The banking needs of the immigrant companies were served by major institutions, like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, or by banks run by ethnic Chinese or Koreans. But now, two new banks with investors and owners from the Vietnamese community have opened, indicating the rising prosperity of Vietnamese businesses in America and growing economic connections with a vibrant entrepreneurial sector back in Vietnam. First Vietnamese American Bank raised more than $11 million in capital and opened in May.

"We can provide leadership to this community," said Hieu Nguyen, the bank's president. "When Vietnamese businesspeople come to this bank, they can deal with the bank president personally. They can come home," said Nguyen, who has worked for banks in California and Asia since immigrating to the United States in 1980. More than pride is at stake for ethnic groups in having banks of their own, said John Kennedy, president of the other new institution, Saigon National Bank, which opened in November. "When the local people put money in a bank like this, they know that it understands their community and its opportunities," Kennedy said. "Its loans and activities, in turn, help to further the community's economy."

Kennedy, who has 31 years of experience leading small banks in California and other states, was hired to get Saigon National going by its founding investors, led by Kiem Nguyen, owner of one of the largest supermarkets in Little Saigon, as well as fertilizer and plastics businesses in Vietnam. The new banks answer a need for California's Vietnamese population, which numbers close to half a million people - 55 percent of total in the United States. An estimated $8 billion a year in cash remittances and trade in goods and services flow between ethnic Vietnamese in America and relatives and business partners in Vietnam. Sending cash to relatives through informal transfer agencies can be expensive for the families and a source of concern for bank regulators worried about irregularities. That is one reason California and U.S. authorities have welcomed the new banks. "At the very least, we can handle those money transfers more efficiently and at a lower cost to the families," said Walter Hannen Sr., a director of First Vietnamese American Bank.

Also, there is plenty of business to do. The economy of Vietnam, a country of 83.5 million people, has been growing at 7 percent to 8 percent a year for almost a decade. A bilateral trade agreement with the United States in 2001 has helped accelerate that expansion, according to George Baker, who opened a branch 13 months ago in Ho Chi Minh City for Far East National Bank, a Los Angeles institution that is owned by a Taiwanese banking company. Vietnamese immigrants also found work in California's Silicon Valley in the 1980s and '90s and now are employing their skills in both the old country and the new. Thinh Nguyen, for example, founded Pyramid Development Software in 2001 after working for 20 years for start-ups in California. The company has its headquarters and a small marketing staff in Milpitas, California, about 45 miles, or 70 kilometers, south of San Francisco, while 60 engineers in Ho Chi Minh City do software support for American companies including Novellus Systems and Motorola. Similarly, Nguyen Huu Le, who worked for 22 years in research and development for Nortel Networks, is now chairman of TMA Solutions, a company in Ho Chi Minh City that does software engineering for such clients as Lucent Technologies, NTT Data of Japan.

Non-Vietnamese American entrepreneurs, too, see a lot of potential. Rick Bakanoff, of Capitola, California, on Monterey Bay, has built Machinery Corp. of America over three decades by buying up cannery equipment, refurbishing it and selling it to the Thai food processing industry. Now Bakanoff is expanding operations in Vietnam. Vietnam "could be big in fruit and vegetable processing if its small farmers formed cooperatives to combine crops and feed a processing plant," Bakanoff said. Walter Blocker, formerly of Louisville, Kentucky, has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for 12 years, representing global consumer product companies, including L'Oréal and Walt Disney. His company, Gannon Group, has built a beverage processing plant and now is organizing the construction of an electric power plant.

Vietnam's economic progress is cheered these days in California. To be sure, the bitterness of immigrants who fled the aftermath of the war in the mid-1970s has not entirely faded; one still sees Republic of Vietnam flags - three red stripes on a yellow field - waving in some front yards in Orange County. But business beckons. "I want our bank to serve all the Vietnamese communities in America and one day serve business in Vietnam, as well," Nguyen of First Vietnamese American Bank said. "It is great that we have First Vietnamese Bank for our community," said Paul Nguyen, owner of Pacific Machinery, an airplane parts supplier in Garden Grove. The success of Pacific Machinery exemplifies the spirit that enabled penniless immigrants from Vietnam to build prosperous communities in America - and undoubtedly is helping other Vietnamese to build entrepreneurial companies in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam today.

A former first lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army who was educated in the United States, Nguyen was imprisoned in Vietnam for 10 years when Hanoi won control of the Southeast Asian country. He returned to America in 1985 at age 37. While working in machine shops, Nguyen taught himself computer-aided design and manufacturing. In 1992, he opened his company and qualified as a minority contractor supplying parts to Boeing. "I work hard, 12, 13 hours a day," Nguyen said. Today, he owns three buildings and a company employing 70 people with annual revenue of $10 million, supplying Northrop Grumman and Raytheon as well as Boeing.

"I can raise $5 million," he said. "Bankers are happy to lend to me. The people from Boeing say, 'Paul, you are the American dream.' I say, 'Thank you, America."'

By James Flanigan - The New York Times - January 19, 2006