Entrepreneur and Labour Hero Le Van Kiem: Bold in Business, Big-hearted in Life

Entrepreneur Le Van Kiem - a man who has become a role model for new businesspeople and an example for humanitarians across the nation - was named Labour Hero by the State of Vietnam. Praise for his vision, courage and compassion are fully deserved without any doubt. But from another more sincere and simple perspective, he redrew the portrait of his life featuring arduous hallmarks to inspire those who have known him, and those who only know him from this austere narrative.

“Big brother” of the reformed private economy
Although he is a very successful businessman, Kiem has never forgotten that he used to be a warrior. On April 15, 1975, he was ordered by the Central Command to join in a special mission to survey the route for our troops to launch assaults from Tay Ninh to Long An, interrupt National Road 4 to prevent the Military Forces of the Republic of Vietnam moving from southwest provinces to rescue the Republican regime in Saigon during historic Ho Chi Minh Operation.

The mission was composed of leader Vo Thoi Trung, Chief Engineer and Deputy Director of Communications Works Committee under the Central Command, and three engineers (Kiem was an irrigation engineer). After only two days, the mission completed the task. On April 27, he was ordered to take over Saigon. And on historic April 30, he was in Saigon to take over the Ministry of Public Transport and Communications of the former regime, and worked at the Military Management Committee of Saigon Gia Dinh City.

He surely never forgot these memories. After the takeover, he was appointed the Deputy Director of Southern Road and Bridge Design and Construction Board. With his excellent leadership capacity and bold decisions of guaranteeing engineers of the old regime to work, within one year, he and intellects and engineers of the old regime completed the restoration of 14 concrete bridges on National Road 1 from Cam Ranh to Saigon, as well as roads and bridges on other national roads and provincial roads in the south.

Once when road and bridge construction and restoration was underway, a bulldozer broke down, resulting in a work stoppage. It would take at least five days to bring the bulldozer to Saigon from Phan Thiet for service. At this decisive moment, the owner of Mai Ha Company called up workers and paid money for them to encourage them to repair the bulldozer that night. Fortunately, the machine was fixed when the dawn broke and the work continued as usual. Since then, he understood the advantage of the flexible private mechanism, especially more timely and effective rewards for outstanding staffs than State-owned enterprises. In 1978, he started to realise his dream of running a private business. He sold his Honda motorcycle for a tael of gold to purchase motors for fabricating animal feed grinders. Following that success, his wife Tran Cam Nhung, a chemical engineer, took the initiative to squeeze dry rubber particles for oil to use for painting. The new product helped him replace imported oil and dregs were used as very effective fertiliser in agriculture (previously rubber particles were simply deserted in forests). He collected rubber seed particles for oil extraction to supply paint manufacturers. With a unique business, he reaped lofty profits until 1981 when more competitors stepped into this market. When his business was no longer highly profitable, he immediately shifted business and managed to work out formulas for construction pigment production. With his proprietary non-fading pigment technologies, his fortunes equalled to half a tonne of gold.

His business career did not stop there. His most memorable milestone was probably the cooperation with Huy Hoang Garment Company. He was considered the first businessman in the garment and textile sector to boldly import synchronous modern equipment from Japan and Italy to make luxury goods for export to capitalist countries and Eastern Europe. His company was the biggest private garment company in Vietnam at that time.

The regional economic crisis in 1997 sent his company to the brink of bankruptcy. To overcome hardships, apart from selling his gold in safe to continue the business, he also wrote a letter to the Government and the Party Central Committee to present objective reasons that caused hardships to his company and propose delaying loan repayment to 3-5 years to consolidate production and maintain employment for over 2,000 workers and 20,000 workers its partner companies.

After carrying out careful examinations and meetings, the Politburo and the Government decided to reschedule the company’s debt repayment by three more years. With the effort and the consensus of his family and associates, Huy Hoang Company paid off all debts to banks before time. Then, he and his wife continued to expand their business to date. For the time being, they have 10 companies in Vietnam and a special economic zone in Laos. In addition to paying taxes to the State, they also donated a handsome sum of money to social charity.

Big-hearted
Not only being well-known and well-respected for his successful business career, Mr Le Van Kiem and his wife are seen as the biggest philanthropists in Vietnam. To date, they have donated over VND700 billion to social charity. He said: “I live by to this day thanks to the grace of the Party, State and people, to the sacrifice of many people like my beloved father and his teammates. Therefore, for me, doing charity is a responsibility and my willingness.”

He built a VND10-billion scholarship fund to help poor studious students at the University of Water Resources and another VND10-billion fund for the offspring of Vietnamese veterans. He also signed the agreement with a pledge of contributing US$5 million to Vietnam Health Fund with US billionaire Bill Gates to help and provide care for the poor in Vietnam. He has also taken part in many social charity works in Vietnam and in foreign countries.

While having a successful business career, Le Van Kiem has a happy family - the foundation for his success today. He has an intelligent wife who always gives a helpful hand to his company and takes care of family affairs. After graduating from a South Korean university, his son, Le Huy Hoang, is dedicated to his job and he often works in the special economic zone company and runs a gold exploration and mining company. And, his daughter, Le Nu Thuy Duong, is also a successful businesswoman. After completing her master’s degree in business administration in Australia, she is running 10 companies in Vietnam. With that happiness, Le Van Kiem, 72, and his wife Tran Cam Nhung, 71, are still devoted to their business careers and always share the fruits of their labour with the society and the poor. That is more happiness for them.

With their contributions to the country at the wartime and in the peacetime as well as their contributions to Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and other international friends, they were awarded many orders and medals from Vietnam and other countries.

Van Luong