US firms keen on firm footholds in Vietnam

The dialogue was hosted by Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyen Quoc Cuong in Washington DC on January 28, with the participation of members of the US Chamber of Commerce and the US-ASEAN Business Council as well as representatives from 30 US leading corporations such as Boeing, IBM, Microsoft, Google, DHL, KPMG, and Lockheed Martin.

It was the first activity held within the framework of the 2013 Vietnam Forum Initiative, which is designed to create a platform for regular talks between the Vietnam embassy in the US and local businesspeople to boost the two countries’ trade ties in a more effective manner.

The US businesses’ representatives said they believed that the Vietnamese Government’s efforts in the recent time have stabilised the macro-economy, contained inflation and pushed economic restructuring.

They also spoke of the Vietnamese Government’s willingness to seek ways to remove difficulties in the business environment through dialogue.

They said that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which are expected to be completed in 2013, will be of special importance in paving the way for them to deploy their investment and business expansion strategies in Vietnam in particular and in Southeast Asia in general.

Ambassador Cuong briefed the US side on Vietnam’s initial achievements in maintaining socio-economic stability and inflation in early 2013.

He shared his views on the prospect of development of the bilateral ties, including the TPP negotiations, the Lower Mekong Initiative and other initiatives to accelerate US-ASEAN cooperation during 2013.

He also thanked for support and contributions made by the US companies and noted down their opinions on Vietnam’s business environment and policies.

In 2013, the Embassy plans to dialogue about human resources training, business-investment environment improvement, trade cooperation promotion, development of sub-Mekong region and public-private partnership model.