Vietnam advocates cooperating with foreign investors: President
Bangkok (VNA) – Vietnam
advocates switching from attracting FDI to cooperating with foreign investors
in the spirit of equality for mutual benefits and development, with priority
given to hi-tech and eco-friendly projects, said President Nguyen Xuan Phuc at
a high-level seminar with the US-APEC Business Alliance for Competitive SMEs in
Bangkok on November 17.
President Phuc said with macro-economic
stability and controlled inflation, Vietnam has been named among the world’s top
20 economies in terms of trade, with GDP growing by 8.83% in the first nine months of
this year. International organisations like the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund predicted the growth at about 7.5-8.2% this year.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development listed Vietnam among the top 20 FDI
destinations globally.
He suggested US firms enhance
connectivity, make it easier for Vietnamese enterprises to join their manufacturing
supply chain, thus turning Vietnam into one of the value chain hubs in the region
and the world.
Representatives from US firms and economic groups spoke
highly of Vietnam’s economic growth in recent years, especially FDI attraction
policy, COVID-19 response, and political and economic stability.
Michael Michalak, Senior Vice President and Regional Managing
Director of the US-ASEAN Business Council and former US Ambassador to Vietnam, recalled
that the US firms and investors always receive support from President Phuc in
his different positions as well as relevant Vietnamese agencies.
Quint Simon, representative of Amazon Web Services, said he hopes Vietnam will offer more incentives to develop digital economic services
such as cloud computing and cyber security. He also committed to partnering
with Vietnam in digital transformation process.
Representatives from US firms and corporations vowed to
continue expanding investment in Vietnam and bring new products and modern
technology to the country in health care, population, digital transformation in
finance-banking, smart agriculture, renewable energy, infrastructure building,
hi-tech, information technology, and research and development.
The Vietnamese leader stressed that Vietnam will step up
green growth, digital economy, sci-tech, innovation and deeply join the global investment
structure, trade order and supply chain.
Vietnam will further open its economy, switch to quality and
focused FDI cooperation; help domestic enterprises improve production capacity
to join the supply chains of foreign-invested firms, he said, adding that the
country will also strive to create a transparent and favourable business
environment in line with new-generation free trade agreements and toward practices
of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
These include maintaining
socio-political and macroeconomic stability; removing economic bottlenecks related
to legal institutions, infrastructure and human resources; develop supply
chains, reduce transaction costs, especially logistics and administrative
costs; and building an environment with stable policies, transparency and
accountability.
He wished that with their pioneering roles, US firms
will expand their operations in Vietnam to contribute to its socio-economic
development in the near future./.