On the occasion APEC 2006 to be held in Vietnam, Mr. Hoang Van Dung, First Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), had a talk with a reporter from VIB Forum Magazine about VCCI’s preparations for the Summit and major activities related to the event.
Can you give details about the programmes that VCCI will cooperate with other organisations within the framework of the APEC 2006 to be held in Vietnam?
In May 2005, the Vietnamese Government assigned VCCI to chair the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), and in November 2005, VCCI took over the presidency of the ABAC 2006 in Bussan, South Korea.
The ABAC was set up by APEC Leaders in 1995 to provide, consult and implement plans related to the regional economic and investment development and other fields.
To realise these targets, VCCI has set up a concrete strategy and presented the theme for the 2006 meeting “Progressing to a Prosperous and Harmonious Region” with four sub-themes, namely, (1) implementing the Busan roadmap to reach the Bogor objective; (2) building a common wealth region by boosting economic, financial and technological cooperation for reciprocal development; (3) building a favourable and safe environment to develop trade, investment and finance; and (4) linking APEC member nations. The 2006 programme is to liberalise and support trade and investment in the region, cooperate in the competence construction and the financial system consolidation in the region, and focus on the technical fields.
The top priorities of Vietnam in 2006 are to progress to the signing of free trade agreements in the WTO; liberalise and support investment, transfer technologies and develop small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); intensify investment attraction system and fight against corruption; cooperate in epidemic prevention, including avian flu and SARS; cooperate in public and private sectors; reform administrative formalities and others.
Can you reveal VCCI’s preparations for these important events?
Right after the Prime Minister’s designation, VCCI set up the ABAC Secretariat Committee to prepare contents and attract contributions from enterprises to outline policies and carry out common activity programmes. VCCI also established the Organising Committee for the CEO-Summit
VCCI successfully organised the first ABAC meeting in Singapore from January 22 to 25, 2006 and the avian flu prevention conference later. In a short time to come, VCCI will arrange the second ABAC meeting in Montreal, Canada. VCCI is also hosting the workshop on solutions to simplify business procedures and reduce transactional fees by five per cent from now until 2010 in Canada. The third ABAC is scheduled to open in Se Bu, the Philippines from August 12 to 15, 2006, and the fourth ABAC meeting is set to open in Hanoi from November 14 to 16.
Along with these events, VCCI will also organise several conferences like Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) conference in Hanoi on August 8, 2006, conference on building capital sources and proposing mechanisms and policies for SMES (expected for opening in September 2006), and APEC’s Chambers of Commerce conference in Ho Chi Minh City in early October 2006. Asia-Pacific
Notably, VCCI will organise the CEO SUMMIT 2006. The expected top discussion points are to promote innovations to develop economies; overcome challenges to reform economies; develop information technology and communication applications and create favourable conditions for the SME development. The discussions are also expected to cover “Good company administration: opportunities, challenges, foreign investment attraction and lessons from APEC members” and “Vietnam: an investment destination.”
Under the programme, the CEO SUMMIT will last four days from November 16 to 19, 2006, with 600 delegates. Invited guests and delegates are the head of states (The United States, Japan, China, the Republic of Korea, Russia and others), scholars, world and regional economists, policy analysts, and CEOs of regional groups. Attendants are enterprise leaders from 21 membership economies. The Organising Committee has opened two websites
www.ABAConline.org.com and
www.ceosummit2006.org for interested persons to find more information about the APEC programmes.
How about cooperation between VCCI with foreign groups and enterprises on the occasion of these events?
VCCI has received immeasurable support from enterprises from APEC member countries to organise, learn experience and call sponsorship (US$2 million). With this support, the Organising Committee has joined hands with Time Warner Group and some other communication groups to air APEC 2006 events on the domestic and foreign mass media.
VCCI has called for contributions from other countries in presiding over working teams because the working teams are divided into a Joint Coordination Committee and five activity groups, namely the competence enhancement group, the finance group, the trade liberalisation group, the investment group and the technical group.
In addition, VCCI will create cooperation with regional entrepreneurs to seek financial sources to develop Vietnamese SMEs.
Does VCCI support Vietnamese enterprises in joining these conferences?
With State support, VCCI has helped enterprises with IT application, training and foreign trade promotion programmes. Typically, the APEC Card programme has facilitated Vietnamese enterprises to promote trade. Businesspeople with APEC cards can travel to 17 APEC countries in three years. Enterprises can also gain easy access to information sources and new technologies for production and cooperation.
Before the Summit, we will organise a large-scale conferences to introduce potential and business opportunities in Vietnam. This is a rare chance for Vietnamese enterprises to contact leading firms in the region.
Lan Anh
Vietnamese
