In the 1990s, many Taiwanese business delegations arrived in Vietnam to seek investment opportunity. They became the first FDI enterprises in Mekong Delta provinces, including the Lelong plant in Long An Province.
Le Long Vietnam Limited Company, the wholly Taiwan-invested company, was set up in 1996 with total investment capital of US$3.6 million. The firm officially started operation in 1998, specialising in production, assembling outwork, maintenance and repair of household and industrial pile and battery equipment, industrial plastic products, and metal patterns.
Since early in the operation, the company applied the quality management system ISO: 9001- 2000, constantly renovated the technology, and applied scientific and technical advances into production and business. Le Long Vietnam had also paid great attention to training professional and skilful human resource, boosting trade promotion activities, and building a product distribution system with more than 300 agents nationwide. It has operated with the guideline “Product quality is the competitive element”.
In 12 years of development, Le Long has obtained impressive results. Customer trust in Le Long’s products is proved by growth figures despite severe competition from products of other firms.
The company has an annual growth rate of over 30 per cent. As a result, the firm’s chartered capital was increased to US$42.6 million in 2007 from US$25.5 million in 2003.
In 2006, Le Long obtained total revenues of US$44.5 million, 58 per cent of which came from export value. In 2007, its revenues reached nearly US$70 million, 71 per cent of which came from exports. The firm expects to gain US$81 million in revenues this year.
Customers have highly appreciated Le Long Company products for quality and design, as well as price and durability. Among products made by the company, GLOBE-labelled batteries are now most used by Vietnamese consumers in vehicles such as cars, boats, motorbikes and power bicycles. In addition, the company has also exported its products to difficult markets such as the U.S., EU and Japan, which have always made up a high proportion of the company’s exports.
In order to further expand production scale, Le Long Vietnam Company Ltd. opened another plant in Duc My Industrial Complex, Duc Hoa District of Long An Province in 2007. The plant was built on 35 hectares, with total investment capital of up to US$15 million in the factory and equipment.
Currently, Le Long Vietnam has 3,000 officials and workers. Le Long Vietnam always paid attention to the health of its staff, apart from the satisfactory salary and bonus policy for them. Annually, Le Long Vietnam holds periodical medical examinations for workers, provides mid-shift meals and transport to work, holds monthly birthday parties and many other activities in production. Along with the above activities, the firm has also taken an interest in social activities, such as granting scholarships to Nguyen Huu Tho Upper Secondary School, financing Le Quy Don learning promotion fund, Long An’s former teachers’ association, funding to build houses of gratitude and supplying rice to poor households.
Current difficulties that the company is facing include counterfeit goods flooding the globe and Vietnam. They are becoming a great threat for the world trade sector, having a great impact on all business aspects and the production activities of enterprises. Facing such big challenge, I think that Vietnam should build necessary basic technical standards to prevent the flooding of low-quality and low-technical qualification products, establish tools to verify the standards of industrial products, consumer goods, and facilities for production. The country should also strengthen the staff of market management officials and impose strict sanctions on violators of intellectual property rights. By doing so, domestic enterprises and foreign investors will feel secure and do business more effectively.
With the great effort of the company’s staff, Le Long Vietnam Limited Company has received a lot of certificates of merit and titles from local authorities. It has been honourably selected as one of the 500 biggest enterprises in Vietnam in terms of revenues (VNR 500) under the model of Fortune. In the coming time when the pressure of competition is bigger, the company will continue facing and overcoming difficulties to deserve the achievements and titles it has obtained.
By Yu Qing
Vietnamese
