Vietnamese Businesswomen Affirming Important Role in Vietnam's Economy

Vietnamese Businesswomen Affirming Important Role in Vietnam's Economy

Vietnamese women are affirming their talents and importance day by day in all economic fields. Regarding the business sector, businesswomen have achieved lots of remarkable successes. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, March 8, VIB Forum introduces the points of view of businesswomen toward their responsibilities, role and contributions to Vietnam’s economic development.

Combining meticulousness and ambition to be successful (Nguyen Thi Thien Huong, deputy director of Techcombank)

Ambition is considered a male attribute. If a woman is said to be ambitious, she is being criticised rather than praised. In recent years, women have played a more important role in social, educational, scientific research, and economic work. More concretely, women have a better position in the market, which used to be referred to as man’s work. This has come about thanks to the success of women, who have made great efforts to achieve their strong ambitions and aspirations.

Women are constrained by their meticulousness. As a result, they often concentrate on details or phenomena, or short-term benefits, failing to be aware of long-term harm. This is popular among women who work as staff members, secretaries or intermediary managers. However, many women have become successful business people with their starting point as shop owners. These women, apart from their thoroughness, have ambitions and have striven to achieve them. Their success is formed with the combination between their exactness and ambitions.

Apart from maintaining their meticulousness, women, who are leaders, should learn from their staff members or colleagues with sincerity. In all cases, women should show their womanliness via their clothes and their behaviour towards their relatives, colleagues and staff members.    

The State should give more priorities to businesswomen (Lawyer Le Thi Thu Huong, director of the Cong Ly Consultancy Company)

I run a company specialising in providing consultancy services to enterprises of all economic sectors and work as a lawyer to protect the interests of organisations, enterprises, individuals. This is quite a new and male dominated profession. From the point of view of many Vietnamese people, there is yet to be the concept of a woman lawyer.

So far, the State has yet to issue any single policy on giving priorities to businesswomen. I think that gender equality issues should be included in economic policies to create favourable conditions for businesswomen and raise their position. This will help them overcome gender barriers enabling them to contribute further to society. Also, concrete measures should be taken for this purpose. For example, gender issues should be taken into account when any policy on enterprise development is issued. In addition, specific support, including financial, market, technology, and management support, should be given to businesswomen. The capability of organisations representing businesswomen, such as the businesswomen’s association should be improved. Also, forums should be created for businesswomen, so their voice is heard more in society.

Self-confident before business challenges (Phan Thi Quynh Hoa, deputy director of the MK Company)

Women have become more active and dynamic in their daily lives and economic activities. Apart from taking care of families, we have paid more attention to social and economic issues. This can be seen via the success of many women in business. Apart from great love and kindness as wives and mothers, we are self-confident before the challenges in business.

Different from men, women must know how to arrange their work to ensure that they can also take care of their families. Housework seems unfamiliar to a business person. However, a prominent attribute of Asian women is their pride to care for their families.

Because of this specific feature, businesswomen need support from their families to become more successful in their work.