Fostering Vietnam - Shanghai Business Cooperation

On the occasion that the Chinese Shanghai Federation of Economic Organisations (SFEO) and Shanghai businesses pay a working visit to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Vietnam Business Forum has an interview with Mr Yu Guang Jiang, Executive Vice President of Shanghai Federation of Economic Organisations. Quynh Chi reports.

While the Shanghai Trade Promotion Agency led a delegation of 20 businesses to attend the International Livestock, Dairy, Meat Processing, and Aquaculture Exhibition (ILDEX Vietnam 2012) in Ho Chi Minh City, we also paid a courtesy visit to VCCI with the aim of learning about its performance, functions and tasks and to invite its leaders to visit Shanghai at an appropriate time. On that basis, we sought to boost relationships and mutual understanding and looked to sign a memorandum on cooperation between the two sides. Besides, we hope the two sides will exchange support measures for Vietnamese companies to do business in Shanghai and Shanghai enterprises to conduct business in Vietnam. Then, we will help businesses of both sides to improve product quality and service quality, and produce competitive goods. Last but not least, we also want to learn about preferential policies of Vietnamese industrial zones for foreign investors.

 

The Shanghai Federation of Economic Organisations is a professional association with 300,000 members operating in a variety of industries like steel, shipbuilding, light industry, building material and finance.

 

When the two parties sign cooperation agreements, Vietnamese businesses will be facilitated to attend our exhibitions, not only in Beijing and Shanghai, but also in other cities. Apart from hosting meetings for Vietnamese and Chinese businesses, we will send delegations on market surveys for Chinese firms to explore the Vietnamese market. Attending our exhibitions, Vietnamese businesses can organise events to introduce their industrial parks to Chinese businesses. We can also support Vietnamese enterprises to organise industry-specific trade fairs and exhibitions in China. We can invite Chinese infrastructure companies to Vietnam because its highways and traffic infrastructures are limited and undeveloped, while we are strong at this.

 

However, this cooperation must be based on mutual understanding and appropriate business cooperation mechanisms and policies. Some Chinese companies have arrived and stayed in Vietnam some years but they have not found the right partners because they did not understand much about your country. They lost hope, and when they met us to talk about their situations, we explained to them more about your policies.

 

We have organised Shanghai business delegations to Vietnam since the 1990s, but we have not been very successful. We hope this time will have better mutual understanding. We believe that cooperation with VCCI will bring in the best results.

 

Vietnam has quickly entered the opening market economy. However, Vietnam needs good planning, policymaking and better foreign investment attraction. Then, more foreign investors will come to Vietnam to do business.