Vietnam, Taiwan Seeking New Cooperation Opportunities

Last year, Taiwan topped the list of countries and territories pouring foreign direct investment (FDI) into Vietnam, showing the potential and the cooperative opportunity between Vietnam and Taiwan are huge.

 

Vietnam Business Forum reporter held an interview with Mr. Ying Ping Liang, Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hanoi, about investment activities as well as opportunities for the development of both Vietnamese and Taiwanese enterprises. 

 

Vietnam’s investment environment improves a lot. Vietnam has a commodious area of land and plentiful natural resources. Furthermore, Vietnamese people are very hard working and smart. Therefore, many foreign investors consider Vietnam as a destination for investment and they forecast that Vietnam will develop well in the future. Vietnam government has adopted many incentive policies and rolled out stimulus packages for local enterprises to develop the nation’s economy. I am confident that those policies and package will produce concrete results. However, Vietnam needs to boost its infrastructure, train human resources, and modernise administrative procedures in order to create favourable conditions for foreign investors to operate. Once Vietnam meets the aforementioned basic factors for economic take-off, Vietnam would be an attractive and competitive destination in the region.

 

Vietnam, a stable nation, has an impressive growth rate in the region and be a destination for many foreign investors including Taiwanese investors. Vietnam has adopted many flexible incentive policies, creating favourable conditions for investors. Taiwan’s investment in Vietnam began as early as in 1988. To date, Taiwan has become one of the largest foreign investors in Vietnam with 1,947 projects. Their combined investment amount totals USD19.6 billion, accounting for 13.14 percent of total FDI pumping into Vietnam. Despite global economic slowdown in 2008, Taiwan had 138 projects with a combined investment valued USD8.6 billion in Vietnam, accounting for 14.39 percent of total FDI injected into Vietnam in 2008. In the trade and investment field, two sides signed agreement for the avoidance of double taxation, agreement on the promotion and protection of investments, agreement on bilateral negotiations for Vietnam’s accession to the WTO…etc, .

 

Vietnam and Taiwan have a close relationship in culture and economy. They are partners in economic relationship and brothers and sisters in cultural relationship. I hope the relationships will be better and closer. I am very interested in maintaining Taiwan’s ranking in FDI. I earnestly hope both Vietnam and Taiwan closely work together to improve Vietnam’s investment climate. Taiwanese potential investors seek to study bilateral agreements and MOUs before making major investment decisions. The two sides are encouraged to undertake joint research in the field of closer economic relations in a bid to create the optimal conditions for Taiwanese enterprises in Vietnam. So far there have been many Taiwanese enterprises are operating successfully in Vietnam, such as Chinfon Group, CT&D Group, TECO Group, TaYa (Vietnam) Electric Wire & Cable, Formosa Group, Foxconn Group…etc.

 

The conference is an annual forum and receives much attention of Taiwanese investors both operating and seeking investment opportunities in Vietnam. Taiwan’s delegation will be headed by Dr. Shih H. Huang, Chairman of Vietnam Committee, CIECA. Dr. Huang is a very successful entrepreneur who has devoted himself to the Chinfon Group’s investment such as SYM and Chinfon Cement in Vietnam and has won high respect here in this socialist republic. During the Forum, the two sides will exchange opinions and ideas of how they can maximize their efforts and opportunities to promote investment in each other’s nations. In addition, through this forum, we also build up momentum for some Vietnamese business delegations to study Taiwan’s business models as well as seek investment opportunities between Vietnamese enterprises and their counterparts in Taiwan.