Vietnam to Receive around 500 Enterprises to APEC Summit 2006

APEC 2006 themed ‘Towards a dynamic community for sustainable development and prosperity’ will have two main parts, consisting of the APEC CEO Summit and the meeting of APEC leaders with the participation of 21 representatives, who are leaders of economies in APEC. Sub-themes of APEC 2006 include ‘Enhancing Trade and Investment with the Busan Roadmap and the Doha Development Agenda,’ ‘Strengthening Economic and Technical Cooperation for Gap Bridging and Sustainable Development,’ ‘Improving Secure and Favourable Business Environment’ and ‘Promoting Community Linkages.’

Dung said that ABAC’s activities in 2006 would be themed ‘Driving towards a prosperous and harmonised APEC community.’ This would provide a good opportunity for Vietnamese enterprises to promote their international co-operation and integration. Also, Vietnamese enterprises would be able to voice their inputs and comments alongside the APEC business community to APEC leaders, helping them perfect and create a better business and investment environment. Dung went on to say that it would be a good opportunity for local enterprises to gain experience from foreign colleagues in managing and controlling environmental pollution, and developing technology, thus manufacturing products, capable of competing with other countries in the region.

Vu Viet Ngoan, general director of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam and a member of ABAC Vietnam, said that local enterprises should take the opportunity to contribute their inputs and comments to the perfection of tariffs or non-tariffs, and investment support policies. Ngoan stated that in the previous APEC meetings, leaders of small economies had asked leaders of powerful economies not to use anti-dumping tools to reduce export levels of small economies.

 

As the main basis and priority of APEC 2006, ABAC Vietnam and other members of ABAC have identified the theme and priorities of ABAC. ABAC’s main theme ‘Driving towards a prosperous and harmonised APEC community’ consists of the following sub-themes: ‘Advancing the Busan Roadmap - Practical Steps to Achieve the Bogor Goals,’ ‘Building Prosperity Together - Strengthening Economic and Technical Cooperation,’ ‘Fostering a Favourable Business Environment - Improving the Trade and Investment Environment’ and ‘Promoting APEC Linkage - Linking various APEC communities.’

ABAC is the official business advisory council of APEC leaders. ABAC members are appointed by APEC leaders. ABAC consists of representatives from 21 APEC member economies. Each APEC member can appoint a maximum of three representatives. The appointed members will represent the private sector at all levels. ABAC is a permanent agency, representing the independent voice of enterprises in APEC’s activities and playing an official role in the APEC economic leaders’ meeting via official dialogues. Also, ABAC will supervise activities of APEC in liberalising investment and trade via plans of action of each member economy, thus providing advices to APEC economic leaders about future activities. ABAC Vietnam has three members: 1.       Hoang Van Dung, permanent vice president of VCCI, president of ABAC Vietnam and chairman of ABAC 2006, 2.       Vu Viet Ngoan, general director of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, and 3.       Le Quoc An, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Association.

ABAC 2006’s priorities include the promotion of the Doha Round’s negotiations, the liberalisation and promotion of trade and investment, the promotion of co-operation between enterprises and governments, the acceleration of technology transfer; the support for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, the strengthening of financial systems and investment flows in the region, the fight against corruption and the creation of a favourable business environment, the prevention of epidemics and natural disasters, and the contribution to APEC’s renovation.

 

Members of ABAC Vietnam have proposed some co-operation projects and ideas. These include initiatives on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in getting access to capital and markets, promoting business credit rating, boosting regional co-operation among enterprises via digital equipment, and accelerating co-operation between small and medium-sized enterprises with trans-national and multinational corporations.

 

Apart from acting as the focal point in the organisation of meetings of ABAC 2006, VCCI will organise the APEC CEO Summit 2006 and the meeting of chambers of commerce and industry in APEC.

 

- The first meeting (January 22-25, 2006) in Singapore: working groups will agree on the agenda

- The second meeting (May 9-12, 2006) in Montreal, Canada, ABAC’s opinion will be unified, preliminary reports to APEC economic leaders

- The third meeting (August 14-17, 2006) in Cebu, the Philippines: ABAC’s reports to APEC ministers of finance and ministers in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises

- The fourth meeting (November 14-16, 2006) and a dialogue between ABAC and APEC senior leaders (November 18, 2006) in Hanoi: Vietnam will hand over the ABAC presidency to Australia

 

- The first APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM I) in Hanoi from February 20 to March 2,

- The second APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM II) in Ho Chi Minh City from May 22 to June 1,

- The meeting of APEC trade ministers in Ho Chi Minh City from June 3-4,

- The third APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM III) from September 3-14

- The APEC finance ministers’ meeting in Nha Trang from June 14-16

- The 13^th APEC finance ministers’ meeting in Hanoi from September 4-8

- The meeting of ministers in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises in Hanoi and Ha Long

- The APEC tourism ministers’ meeting in Hoi An

- The unofficial meeting of APEC leaders in Hanoi from November 18-19