Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Phan Huu Thang, director of the Department of Foreign Investment at the Ministry of Planning and Investment, discussed investment promotion strategies with Quoc Te (International Affairs Review) newspaper.

Q: The promotion of investment does not seem to be as much of a priority as the promotion of trade. Why is that?

A: It’s true investment promotion has not been made a key national programme with the Government’s financial backing. However, investment promotion has always been considered an important initiative by both central and local governments.

For example, in 2003, we rolled out the red carpet for investors with many conferences designed to attract investment to the country.

Q: What do you think about our investment promotion abroad?

A: Our investment promotion abroad is still weak in general, except for the investors themselves who come to Viet Nam on their own.

Foreign investors lack a great deal of information about Viet Nam, possibly because our small overseas networks have not worked efficiently.

Q: Why doesn’t the ministry use Viet Nam’s representative offices abroad as networks for investment promotion?

A: We do. In fact, Vietnamese embassies and trade representatives have been actively taking part in investment promotion.

Meanwhile, our promotion budget is still limited. We need more money to popularise Viet Nam’s image, policies and investment environment.

An efficient promotion needs a budget just as we need bait when we go fishing.

Q: Does the ministry have plans for a specific budget?

A: The ministry will ask for establishment of a budget this year.

We’re suggesting that in the future, foreign-invested enterprises be taxed 1 per cent to go toward the budget.

The ministry is also planning a main programme for investment promotion from now to 2010 to submit to the government.

That will let domestic businesses know what our plans are, just as we did with trade promotion initiatives.

A key national programme and a budget will help create not only a legal framework for promotion, they will also increase public awareness about investment, which will help people understand more about investors and protecting our investment environment.

Q: Which markets will the ministry concentrate on in the future?

A: We have planned to concentrate on countries with financial and technological resources such as the US, Japan, Republic of Korea and European countries.

We will also concentrate on wealthy and transnational corporations to advance our technology by leaps and bounds.

However, we can’t forget other partners such as medium and small enterprises which are suitable with many Vietnamese enterprises.

Q: What is the foreign investment department’s specific plan this year?

A: We will organise many programmes to promote investment in our main markets such as inviting foreign organisations to Viet Nam to survey our investment environment or organising conferences during leadership visits.

We will also host conferences to promote investment for some localities – for example, a conference to promote investment for central Nghe An Province this month – and help train officials to promote investment.

Whenever foreign investors come to Viet Nam, we will inform localities and invite them to join conferences.

Foreign direct investment this year has shown many promising signs — in the first two months of this year, investment has doubled over the same period last year.

Many potential investors such as Japan and the US have paid much attention to Viet Nam. The problem now is how to implement our plans and make them more than just empty words.

Q: How will the ministry co-ordinate with other ministries in investment promotion?

A: We will have to co-ordinate closely with other ministries, branches and localities. For example, in promoting investment abroad, we can’t establish our own network in each area, so we highly appreciate our co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the moment, we’ve had close co-operation with the Department of Economic Affairs and Centre for Economic Information under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as our embassies abroad, especially in popularising and organising conferences to invite foreign investment. — VNS