BW aspiring to become country’s top developer

How did you start off with BW Industrial Development?

CEO C. K. Tong

I began working in Vietnam in 1996 and have a strong connection with Vietnamese culture through my wife. When the opportunity of BW Industrial Development came up, it was like a pronounced fate for me after ten years of logistics experience in China. I wanted to make things happen here in Vietnam.

BW is absolutely the most interesting company I have been with so far. I am astonishingly thrilled that we were able to build everything from scratch with only five employees at the beginning.

After nearly two years of operation, we have a team of more than 120 talented employees. I strongly believe this number will increase rapidly in the near future as the business expands accordingly.

Over the past 18 months, it has been a very challenging yet rewarding journey. BW has gained many milestones despite the ups and downs of the market. Above all, we strive to build an international standard warehouse and factory platform to facilitate foreign investors.

Our ready-built factories are flexible in size, helping investors to quickly set up production, while built-to-suit factories and warehouses are tailor-made to fit with business plans and budgets, while balancing design and function elements.

What do you think about young Vietnamese professionals today?

My life aphorism is “follow your heart”. That is why when I look at the qualifications, instead of only looking for experienced people, I also look at the energies and passion they have. For BW, the working culture that we have cultivated is the one that is driven by the heart.

On the other hand, Vietnam is one of a very few places that can still keep differentially heritable personality traits. Vietnamese people are open-hearted, sincere and kind – they embrace new innovations and technologies while maintaining traditional features.

What can you say about the Vietnamese industrial landscape in 2020 and beyond?

The US-China trade dispute has seen Vietnam benefit economically. A trade dispute impacts the global economy as a whole. For many investors, uncertainty is a crucial factor as they need to plan ahead for the next five years for their business strategies, and therefore Vietnam is certainly among the top considerations.

The World Bank has revised most GDP growth rates of other Asia countries downward but has kept Vietnam’s GDP growth rate relatively high in 2020. Vietnam has shifted from an agricultural industry to light textile and apparel, jumping straight to electronics and automotive sectors.

We have bypassed a lot of steps in between and attracted significant increases in foreign direct investment and domestic consumer spending. Therefore, Vietnam will continue to be favourable in the next few years.

Where is BW in Vietnam’s booming manufacturing sector?

It’s undeniable that the market presents to BW a tremendous opportunity to play the role as facilitator to foreign investment by building substantial models of assets such as factories and warehouses across the country.

The geopolitical situation, the cycle of manufacturing movement, the effort of the government to open up for Vietnam-based production, competitive labour costs, and a willing-to-learn attitude of the people – all these things have presented us with the correct set of circumstances.

BW’s vision is to be the leading industrial for-rent platform in Vietnam. As a matter of fact, we are already known and acknowledged by most investors and clients who want to set up their business here.

We have established ourselves as a premium developer for high quality factories and warehouses, and our next step is to let the market recognise us as the largest for-rent supplier in 2020.