US firms at the right time

US investors are impressed with emerging opportunities in Vietnam

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung recently presided over a conference in New York to demonstrate the wealth of investment opportunities in Vietnam. Nearly 170 US investors, including large-scale organisations like JP Morgan Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management, as well as three US billionaires, were impressed by Vietnam’s rapid growth and abundance of prospects in the local financial market.

The raft of the US investors who attended the conference, according to AIA Vietnam general director Wayne Besant, illustrated the great interest of US investors in Vietnam.

In the last decade, Vietnam’s economy has reached an average growth rate of 6.4 per cent a year, putting it in the top three Asian countries in terms of growth. Inflation has been kept under control, and Vietnam is expected to accomplish a seven per cent growth rate once again.

What has impressed the US investors and other foreign investors even more is a new regulation that removes the cap on foreign ownership, allowing foreign investors to liberally buy stakes at all listed companies in Vietnam, with exceptions in some sectors restricting foreign investment.

Harbinger Group founder Philip Falcone, who has been investing in the $4 million Ho Tram project in Vung Tau province since 2007, said that despite his investment facing many ups and downs in the last eight years, he still had hope in the Vietnamese government’s efforts and believed that he chose the right opportunity, in the right place, at the right time for his investment here in Vietnam.

Marc Mealy, vice president for policy at the US-ASEAN Business Council, cited the Intel Corporation, which had invested in Vietnam and would invest more in the coming time, as the group expected to become a crucial partner for Vietnam through its global value-chain. Mealy said Intel proved that the country’s business environment was safe, convenient, and prospective.

According to Mealy, as a developing economy, Vietnam has opened up many opportunities for major investors in energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing as well as education and healthcare. Once the Tran-Pacific Partnership agreement is concluded, the country will not only benefit through VN-US trade relations, it will also become an important gateway for US investors to tap into the ASEAN market.

Billionaire Wilbur Ross, the 200th richest person in the US, stated his reasons why companies and investors should consider investing in Vietnam by lauding the country, in particular its stock market, as an attractive destination, thanks to the government’s determination to speed up the process of state-owned enterprise equitisation, the expansion in foreign ownership limit, and the efforts made to reduce the administration procedures. Ross said that Vietnam is at a turning point that has gradually improved the relationship between the government and the private sector with regard to the ownership issue.