Investors face bumpy ride but remain bullish on Vietnam

Although Vietnam investors face a bumpy ride, Thai and many foreign investors remain sanguine about the economic prospects for growth and are continuing to develop long-range goals and pump billions of US dollars into the nation’s buildings, roads and other infrastructure.

Deputy Secretary General, Board of Investment (BOI) Chokedee Kaewsang made the affirmation on November 27 at a seminar in Bangkok discussing opportunities and obstacles of investing in Vietnam.

The Deputy Secretary General said the Thai Government has implemented a number of policies and procedures that complement each other to facilitate Thai businesses expand their operations into Vietnam.

But it isn’t only Thai investors that are bullish on Vietnam. Foreign investors such as those from Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan and Singapore are among the top investors in Vietnam and are grouping and realigning themselves in various supply chain   configurations to get in on the action.

This, of course, is directly leading to tougher competition. Most of the larger projects that are on the drawing boards are designed to improve the country's poor basic infrastructure, and these are obviously aimed at multinational corporations with huge financial resources and technical know-how.

The big-league multinational corporations have all the advantages for these projects and smaller enterprises need not apply as they don’t have a chance to compete on any level. Therefore, to penetrate the Vietnamese market, Thai investors need to approach a project on a grand scale, Kaewsang said.

In recent years, Vietnam has attached high importance to reforming laws and streamlining the process to obtain an investment license, which has expedited foreign investment in the country, Kaewsang added.

For their part, Nguyen Ba Cuong, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and Nguyen Thanh Hai, trade counsellor of Vietnamese embassy in Thailand updated Thai businesses with useful information on Vietnam’s improved investment environment.

They also spoke at length about the existing policies and laws on economics, trade and investment as well as advantageous fields in which Thai businesses will have opportunities to reap success in Vietnam. Cuong added that Vietnam and Thailand see bright prospects for cooperation in such fields as agriculture, food processing, and automobile.

A number of leaders from Thai major businesses optimistically assessed the investment opportunities in Vietnam.  Chainan Nuphet, senior vice president of CP Vietnam Corporation said most of Thai businesses have reaped success when investing in Vietnam as the Government has provided active support to enterprises and created a healthy competitive opportunities for all enterprises.

Associate Director at Siam Makro Plc, Jirawat Daechasatien confirmed the group would continue to invest in Vietnam as the seminar has provided him with useful information on investment opportunities in Vietnam and the recently approved amended Foreign Investment Law.

Thailand now ranks 10th among nations investing in Vietnam with 371 projects capitalised at more than US$6.6 billion. Thai investors asserted Vietnam is a potential investment market of Thailand and they expressed hope that cooperation between the two nations would be further developed.

VOV