ABAC Vietnam - A Bridge for Enterprises with Governments

We urged APEC leaders to resume negotiations to complete the Doha Round and to find common ground on outstanding issues. If the Doha Round fails to be completed in 2006, enterprises and consumers in the world will not be able to enjoy the advantage of trade liberalisation. ABAC supports the completion of the round and believes it is a good opportunity for the continuity to promote the trade liberalisation.

 

The fact that there are too many free trade areas and agreements will make trade and investment issues more complicated. Therefore, ABAC encourages the application of some standard samples as mentioned in the Busan roadmap. At the same time, governments should take stronger measures to improve transparency and policy environment for enterprises.

 

ABAC called for regional leaders to take measures to cope with energy imbalance and oil price instability by diversifying energy supply sources. Also, measures should be taken to deal with risks and to improve management activities in the banking and financial sectors. Furthermore, policy barriers should be removed with small and medium-sized enterprises having more opportunities to get access to the financial and technology markets.

 

ABAC and PECC (Pacific Economic Co-operation Council) have jointly conducted a feasibility study of the Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific (FTAAP), to learn further about the possibility of promoting the liberalisation of trade and investment in the region. ABAC called for leaders to propose initiatives for an agreement for the existing treaties and treaties under negotiation.

 

At present, according to researchers, many APEC member countries do not support the programme because of interests and the gap among APEC economies. Such developed countries as the US and the Republic of Korea want to protect their agricultural markets while developing countries want to promote their export of farm-produce. That is why developed countries still hesitate. Also, some countries have signed their own bilateral agreements, which have different requirements and targets.

According to ABAC, if a free trade area is built in the region throughout 2020, it will facilitate the trade and economic liberalisation. However, in the context, there should be a frame agreement based on WTO standard to be applied in the region to help enterprises to do business.

 

The programme has been implemented since 1997 to simplify immigration and emigration and facilitate travel of businessmen in APEC, which has been highly appreciated by APEC enterprises. However, there are still outstanding issues, such as long time (six months on average) for card grant and short validity time (three years) of the card. ABAC has called economies which have not joined the programme yet to participate in to facilitate businessmen’s travel within the region. At the same time to support businessmen from four economies, including the US, Canada, Mexico and Russia, which have not joined the programme yet, to enjoy the comfort of the programme, ABAC has proposed a two-phase mechanism. Accordingly, in the first phase, immigration visa application should be kept but specific corridor should be created for businessmen to compete immigration procedures easily and quickly.

 

Vietnam officially joined the programme in September 2005, but has not yet to be able to carry out it. So far, APEC businessmen visa grant agency has been established. We will strive to accelerate the operation of the agency with support from the Philippines and Australia, in charge of the issue. We hope that we will grant cards from 2007.

 

There is great workload. ABAC Vietnam preparing inputs and comments for the Financial Ministerial Meeting in Hanoi from September 5-8, attending the third APEC Senior Official Meeting (SOM III) in Da Nang.

 

We are preparing for a seminar of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hanoi in September, which will see the participation of foreign experts, to introduce policies and legal environment, competitiveness improvement for enterprises. APEC asked Vietnam to reduce input costs by five per cent throughout 2010. According to ABAC’s statistics, transportation cost of a container from Vietnam to Japan is US$500 higher than from Thailand to Japan. Also, it takes seven days for customs clearance. This has made a negative impact on Vietnamese enterprises’ competitiveness. At the same time, Vietnam should improve the transparency of customs procedures. Under the initiative of ABAC, Fedex of the US, the biggest express transportation in the world, and the US government will help Vietnam reform its customs procedures for shortening clearance time. The programme will be implemented on a trial basis in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

ABAC Vietnam is preparing comments to the SMEs ministerial meeting. Accordingly, business environment should be improved for SMEs, which account for 90 per cent in the world and 96 per cent in Vietnam.

 

In addition, we will organise a conference of presidents of chambers of commerce in October in Ho Chi Minh City and conference for calling for investment in Vietnam in November to introduce potential and opportunities in Vietnam. It is expected that around 800 leading enterprises in the world will join the seminar. A CEO conference with 15 symposiums with the participation of ten heads of the State of countries, 600 leaders of foreign companies and 200 Vietnamese entrepreneurs will be held.