Taiwan to Continue to Invest More

Mr Albert K.Ting, Director of Phu My Hung Corporation, talks with the Vietnam Business Forum about the investment environment and the Phu My Hung project in Vietnam

 

In my own experience, Vietnam has made a significant progress in terms of its investment environment. I believe the Taiwanese business community will continue to invest more in this country and to participate in Vietnam’s successful economic development.   As a participant in Vietnam’s economy, we all are responsible to ensure further progress is achieved here in Vietnam.

 

I have a long-term view on how to encourage the development of SME in Vietnam. 

Taiwan has successfully set up 1.1 million SMEs that employ over 70 per cent of Taiwan’s labor force. Allow me to paint you a mental image; a typical example of a Taiwanese SME in the early days is a small family based factory where the father goes abroad to sell the products while the mother and other relatives make sure production runs smoothly. From this we can derive three key long term ingredients for SME development. First is focus on higher education. The strengthening of the higher education programs (high school and college) will produce the key success factor in SMEs; namely the small business entrepreneurs. Second is the ability to travel. Since Taiwan had a very small domestic market, all the businessmen had to travel extensively to the rest of the world to sell his products face to face. Travel to abroad also brought back key market information and trends. Lastly, faster access to the internet. Internet is the equivalent of the overseas trips of the 20^th century. The 21^st century SMEs will need the internet to access information and gain a competitive edge. Broader access to the internet at much higher speeds will empower Vietnamese SMEs.  

 

On your WTO question, I believe SMEs are very agile and adaptive, so the entry to WTO will only be a very positive force for Vietnamese SMEs.       

 

I believe most of our customers are satisfied with our progress. We do work very hard at achieving customer satisfaction. As a developer of large projects, we would continue to seek support, advice and guidance from the government. The overall objective for Tan Thuan and Phu My Hung has always being about the creation of jobs. In the last 17 years, we have, with the support of the government, directly and indirectly created over 100,000 job opportunities. This has benefited the local economy significantly. We hope to and we are confident that we can create more in the future. 

 

Contrary to what the question may suggest, I do not think it is wise to use the public sector resources for real estate development. The real estate market is best kept in a moderate condition. A heating up of this market is not good for the economy overall. The Chinese government, for example, has successfully managed a deflation of real estate prices recently in the major urban centers. The public sector resources can be carefully used in ensuring urban planning is properly and uniformly carried out. For example, new roads are wide enough not just for the next 5-10 years but for the next 20 to 30 years. There is a strong need to consider things for the long term, for the next generations to come. On this front, we are trying to contribute more. 

 

With the establishment of the Lawrence S. Ting Memorial Foundation, we are focusing our attention on education. We are in the processing of setting a brand new junior high / senior high school and are working with the Ministry of Education in the “Walk with IT” project to donate and to set up an IT classroom in a chosen high school in each of the 64 provinces and major cities in Vietnam. The youth of Vietnam ensures the success of this country. Through education, not only will they be owners of Vietnamese SMEs but will have control of even more prosperous destinies in their hands.