An ASEAN market seminar “Capturing business opportunities in Vietnam’s third largest city: Haiphong” took place in Singapore on April 20, attracting more than 80 participants, mostly Singaporean businesses coming from diverse industries.
The seminar was held by the Singapore Business Federation in tandem with the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Vietnam Investment Promotion Centre, Deep C/Dinh Vu Industrial Zone, which is based in Vietnam’s northern port city Haiphong, consultancy firm Deloitte, and Vietcombank, a leading bank in Vietnam.
The seminar featured a presentation by Tran Thi Hue, a representative from the Vietnam Investment Promotion Centre (IPC), providing an insight into Vietnam’s economic situation and the potentials and business opportunities the country has to offer to investors.
Vietnam’s membership in a variety of international organisations, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the ASEAN, and the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), has made and will make trade between Vietnam and its key consumer markets more efficient.
The trade and business links between Singapore and Vietnam have grown significantly over the years, with Singapore becoming Vietnam’s second largest investor after Korea as of the end of 2016, Hue said.
Active economic integration together with strategic location, improved infrastructure, and business environment reforms have enabled Vietnam to establish itself as a topmost destination for foreign direct investment.
As the Vietnamese government’s investment promotion centre, IPC has committed to provide strong support to Singaporean investors during their survey process as well as in doing business in Vietnam.
Frank Wouters, general director of Dinh Vu Industrial Zone JSC, the central focus of the seminar, highlighted the efforts of the Vietnamese government and Haiphong city authorities to improve the existing and developing new key transportation infrastructure units, including a deep seaport, an international airport, and a road network heading north to China, south to other coastal provinces, and to Hanoi.
The combination of the deep seaport-expressway-airport-industrial zone cluster helps unlock the potential of a market brimming with opportunities and a skilled labour pool of 20 million northern Vietnamese people.
Haiphong’s excellent connection to key transport infrastructure affirms its premium location for investment. Looking at its geographical situation, the city is located at the very heart of the northern transportation hub: it lies adjacent to the deepest port in north Vietnam, which is accessible by fully-loaded 100,000DWT vessels, and is conveniently close to Cat Bi International Airport that offers both international and domestic connections. In addition, the city is only an hour drive by truck from Hanoi.
Located at the centre of these key infrastructure units, the Deep C cluster provides huge benefits to investors, leveraging its golden location, state-of-the art power and water utilities, and a wide range of associated services.
Participants at the seminar also gained a deeper insight into the practical banking and financing considerations for foreign businesses in Vietnam from the detailed presentations by Vietcombank and Deloitte.
The seminar has provided Singaporean businesses with a deeper understanding of the strengths and potentials of Vietnam in general and Haiphong city in particular, laying the groundwork for this prominent destination to come up more often in Singaporean investment strategies in the future.
By Anh Duc / VIR
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