After nearly 10 years doing business in Hoa Binh province, An Thinh Hoa Binh Real Estate Joint Stock Company has left remarkable imprints in urban and industrial infrastructure construction. Its Luong Son Industrial Park is a bright spot in investment attraction in Hoa Binh province. But for more than a year now, An Thinh Hoa Binh decided to invest in a new trend. Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Mr Vu Duy Bong, Chairman of An Thinh Hoa Binh Real Estate Joint Stock Company and Member of VCCI Executive Committee of the sixth term. Nguyet Tham reports.
As a business leader, how do you assess VCCI’s positions and roles in business support and development promotion in the past term?
VCCI has an important role in the business community, which is convincingly evidenced by its gathering of over 110,000 direct and indirect members. Remarkably, top companies of different economic sectors are VCCI members.
The 5th VCCI term (2008-2013) is a testing period of the Vietnamese economy and particularly Vietnamese businesses. However, this tough period has become an accurate measure of business performances in general and of VCCI in particular. VCCI is the voice representing rights and interests of businesses and connecting the business community.
Amidst economic downturn, operating budgets for associations shrank, including VCCI. But, VCCI still successfully organised many programmes and events like the Prime Minister’s Meeting with Businesses, the Vietnam Economic Forum, the Vietnam Business Forum, the Vietnam Entrepreneurs Day and hosted many prestigious awards and votes like Thanh Giong Cup, Golden Rose Cup, CSR Award, and Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI). These activities supported and encouraged businesses nationwide to overcome difficulties.
What do you think about the current development of Vietnamese business community? What are the largest challenges of Vietnamese companies when they join international integration?
In the current context of deeper and broader integration into regional and global economies, competitiveness and connectivity are vital for any Vietnamese company. To survive and develop, they must have good competitiveness. However, national competitiveness indices are still inadequate.
Pro-community activities of Vietnamese companies are now mostly superficial rather than in nature. Therefore, we are witnessing a wave of foreign takeovers of famous Vietnamese brands while we hardly see successful M&A deals among Vietnamese companies. Besides, a weak point and a challenge to Vietnam are weak resources, low-quality human resources, and limited access science and technology. This is also a reason why Vietnam is likely to become a dumpsite of backward technologies.
In my opinion, they need to define their own core values to build development and competitiveness strategies based on their core values. That is the foundation for sustainable development. Besides, they also need to invest to build high-quality human resources to meet their development needs. Especially, they need to cooperate with each other to raise their position and competitiveness and boost their business efficiency.
Recently, innovation and creativity are common terms on media. Many businesses have chosen this path to reach sustainable development and overcome crisis. How are the “innovation and creativity” of An Thinh Hoa Binh?
When we started to do business related to real estate, specifically Luong Son Industrial Park, I realised that, to be successful, I had to pursue sustainable values created from real elements. Specifically, the company created a highly professional workforce, defined right investment schemes, and exercised corporate social responsibility (CSR). Above all, we must always be innovative and creative in our ways of thinking and doing. In my opinion, to be innovative must be creative. And here, creativity needs to be understood in an open concept. Creativity does not necessarily result in the making of something new. I think that creative is that we make new things from old times.
I decided to invest in tourism in Hoa Binh province more than a year ago. This decision not only came from our commitments to the local government in creating high-quality tourism and travel products but also realises my aspiration of introducing unique captivating Muong culture. Hoa Binh is beautiful province with rich tradition, diverse terrain, mighty mountains, primeval forests, rivers, lakes, caves and villages. Tourism is not a new field of An Thinh but its return to the old one with higher, more professional standards.
In 2014, An Thinh Hoa Binh successfully transferred 99 percent of stake in Hoa Binh Tourism Joint Stock Company, including three hotels (Hoa Binh 1, Hoa Binh 2 and Song Da) and upgraded Hoa Binh 1 into a three-star hotel by investing VND65 billion. At the same time, the company invested VND47 billion to purchase two 3-star luxury liners (with 120-180 seats). In 2016, the firm targets to build four new small modern ships 30-50 seats to serve tourism services on the Da River Lake. An Thinh Hoa Binh also had plans to upgrade Hoa Binh 2 into a 3-star hotel in May 2015. In March 2014, the firm set up An Thinh Tourism Joint Stock Company in Hanoi to provide travel products in Hoa Binh for customers.
Currently, the company plans to apply for permit to operate two caves to serve tourists, cooperates with villagers to build pro-community tourism, and pilots connecting Hoa Binh tourism with other localities in the region. These are just the starting high-grade products studied and invested by An Thinh Hoa Binh. The firm is considering more services to serve discovery demands like paragliding, hot air balloon, parachuting, jet skiing and boating. Tourists not only stay in high-grade 3-star hotels and travel on 3-star boats but also enjoy unique, high-quality sporting tourism on the Hoa Binh Reservoir.
To enable VCCI to renovate operating contents and methods and promote its roles of gathering and bridge in the coming time, do you have any sharing or suggestion?
The Vietnamese economy and business community are stepping into a new stage of development - Full integration with the regional and global economies. This requires businesses to be creative and innovative towards modern and sustainable administration and business to survive and develop.
As a national agency representing the voice of business community, VCCI must be stronger and more effective to raise its voice of the business community to policymaking bodies, perfect market economic institution, and ensure a fair and transparent business environment.
VCCI also needs to enhance its creativity in organising trade promotion activities and business supports, especially SME support. Particularly, VCCI needs to make a greater effort to connect businesses and entrepreneurs, and build a network of strong business associations and business communities. By doing this, VCCI will definitely attract more businesses and raise the prestige and status of VCCI in the heart of entrepreneur, businesses and the society.
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