Greater Seattle Viet Nam Association

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GSVA Newsletters

The Greater Seattle Viet Nam Association
UPDATE - First Quarter 2003

 

Rotary International Exchange Program with Viet Nam

Since its inception in 1965, the Group Study Exchange (GSE) program by Rotary International has provided grants for countless teams of men and women in the early stages of their business and professional careers to travel abroad and share vocational information with the representatives of their respective professions in another country.

Team members spend four to six weeks studying the host country's institutions, economy and culture, while observing how their own professions are practiced abroad. More than 500 exchanges between paired Rotary districts occur each year, advancing the program's ultimate goal of promoting international understanding and goodwill.

Rotary districts select teams comprising of four non-Rotarians and one Rotarian leader, engaged in different business and professions. Each of two paired districts sends and receives a team for a four-week study program.

While visiting abroad, GSE team members follow a carefully planned itinerary, including visits to government and cultural institutions, schools, religious and historic sites and other points of interest. In addition, each member spends at least three days studying and observing the practice of his or her profession in the host district.

The Rotary International foundation grant funds round-trip air transportation for each team member. Rotarians provide lodging in their homes, meals and group travel, allowing the opportunity for participants to become acquainted with the customs and culture of the people in their host districts.
In recent years, the Rotary District 5030 from the Greater Seattle-King County area has sent exchange teams to Japan and Germany (1997), Israel (1998), India (1999), Brazil (2000), Thailand (2001) and Turkey (2002).

The 2003 GSE program with Vietnam was a unique exchange with special requirements. The district participated in the exchange with three other districts from California. Each district's team had a professional focus. The team from the district 5030 consisted of professional involved with health care and public health. Since Vietnam is a non-Rotary country (Rotary was in South Viet Nam until 1975), the program in Vietnam required many extra efforts to accommodate the U.S team.

The five members selected for the outgoing U.S team traveled to Viet Nam in March 2003, they were: Sally Mackle, team leader and member of the Seattle #4 Rotary Club. Joy Beatty, Physical Therapist – University of Washington Sports Medicine Clinic. Tell Bennett, MD Resident Pediatrician – Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center.

Kathleen Larkin, MD Anesthesiologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center. Jennifer Lavine, MSW Prenatal Social Worker – University of Washington Medical Center.

The five members of the Viet Nam team, travled to Seattle in April 2003, were: Đš Thị Hoąi Nam, Dentist & Head of Odonto-Faciomaxcillo - Danang General Hospital. Đš Thị Ngọc Diệp, MD Vice Director of Pediatrics – Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital HCMC. Võ Đức Chiến, MD Pneumological Department – Nguyen tri Phuong Hospital HCMC. Ngō Thanh Bģnh, MD Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital HCMC. Nguyễn Thanh Nghi, Dentist – Unilever Viet Nam.

The exchange program with Viet Nam was very successful and many friendships were developed. Even though Rotary International left Viet Nam at the end of the war in 1975, there are many humanitarians throughout the country that have been supported and funded by Rotary clubs around the world. Rotary clubs in the clubs from Edmonds to Auburn, Seattle to Enumclaw) have supported several Viet Nam projects of the GSVA.

Farewell letter from the Viet Nam team:
    Dear Rotarians-District 5030 and the Host Family Members:
    We’d like to take this unique moment, for all the Vietnam GSE Inbound team members, to express our heartfelt gratitude and the sincere appreciation to all of you, our host family members, who have greatly shared your valuable time and also offered profound hospitality to accommodate us in the past four weeks.
    Your touching courtesy is unspeakably indescribable. Your insightful dedication to this Rotary Club Program is impressively enormous. We feel that our memory is unforgettable.
    Before leaving Vietnam for the trip, we thought that the four-week time would be endless and we would be really homesick. But with your diligent courtesy and enthusiasm have made us felt greatly at home. And, of course, this supportive fact has helped us tremendously to focus our energy and to quickly learn a lot of new things.
    We think that the first trip to a foreign country is extremely hard on everyone. Everything is freshly new and alien. The differences in culture, language and ways of perceiving things around us are inundated. In this regard, we might have possibly made some unintentional mistakes during our short stay with you. Please forgive us, should there were any.
    We’ve also been very impressed to see many various beautiful ,scenic natural landmarks of the State of Washington; all the high-tech industrial facilities, the extraordinary freeway systems, bridges and many more. But the most profoundly impressive thing is the people. Their helpfulness, kindness and technical knowledge are highly admirable.
    We would also like to extend the special gratitude to the Rotary International-District 5030 Staffs who have made a remarkably successful achievement to efficiently organize this program with the excellent trip arrangement, the fruitful vocational seminars and the productive training for all of us. Your leadership, commitment, and great work will always remain in our hearts. In such a short time, we have certainly learned a lot of activities, on both a professional and a personal level, from this program and from your dedication as well. Your program is greatly meaningful to us now and it will also be beneficial to the next Vietnam GSE team members in the future. We will definitely carry this learned experience and your valued ideal of services to serve our needy people at home.
    Last but not least, we would like to wish all of you great health and much success. We are also looking forward to meeting you again and to serving all of you in the near future as you have the opportunity to visit Vietnam.
    Thank you very much .
    Sincerely,
Vietnam GSE Inbound Team: Dr. Nam, Dr. Chien, Dr. Binh, Dr. Nghi, Dr. Diep.

 

Good Bye Viet Nam     by Meredith Smith

It’s 8 am, already, so hot, so wet, my fingers stick to the computer keys as I hammer out my thoughts. Across the street, there is a football game going on. Downstairs, right outside the door, the girls at the restaurant have already been awake for hours, couched low on the sidewalk, cooking and preparing for the breakfast rush. Horns are honking, dust flying through the air. On the whole, it is a glorious morning in Hanoi... My home for the last four months.

This morning was good bye to some friends, tomorrow a few more. Tomorrow, I will go, board my plane for home, happy, excited, sad, and anxious. In the time I’ve traveled, I’ve experienced the mixed emotions of leaving a place that has become a part of you, over and over, and it is always difficult to put my finger on exactly what I want to say or feel about it. Here, I am more at a loss than ever. In an hour or two, I will walk downstairs and out the front gate, and it will be like every other day in Hanoi, I will be stared at, and kids and teenage boys and girls will shout hello as I walk by. Those who study their English so diligently, in hopes that it will lead to a brighter future for them.

There will be the street kids, who many of us have fed and played with for the last four months. I know they will be taken care of by the next group of people living in A2, and all the girls downstairs. The sweat will pour down my face as I walk out the front gate, and the heat rises off the pavement. The xe om driver across the street will wave, hoping for a fare. My bike was stolen last night, so this time, he will get my 6000 dong. I will hop on the back, and feel the wind against my face as we race down to Ho Guom... weaving in and out of cars, trucks, and buses. The bus is the scariest of all, looming inches behind you as the driver leans on his horn, wanting you to move over. It doesn’t scare me as much as it once did, now I just choose not to look at it. As we head down the street, we’ll pass the basket ladies carrying fruit, vegetables, pots of pho, even bras and underwear. We’ll pass the old men in pajamas sitting on the sidewalk, little kids peeing in the gutters, boys spinning tops in the road, and girls, two and sometimes three to a bike. One perched on the handlebars, one on the seat, and the one sitting over the wheel, pedaling for all three. There’ll be the old ladies, smiling toothless smiles, hunched over, sweeping the sidewalk, or maybe begging for money.

We’ll almost get sideswiped by an SUV driven by some embassy employee ... of course it’ll be moving down the street at a perpetual 10 miles an hour, no hope of competing with the agility of the motorbike. When I arrive in the Old Quarter, I’ll be greeted by book boys, selling photocopied books and postcards, who will become frustrated when I say I do not want to buy a book or a postcard. Times are hard they will tell me, there are no tourists in Hanoi anymore. SARS has kept them all away. They’re right of course, the Old Quarter is quiet, the Westerners on the street are mostly ex-pats... people who find the slow pace of life in Hanoi, and the ease of living on their foreign dollars, or their earnings from teaching English, to be preferable to the rat race world of their own home country. There are the street kids, a five year old walking around with a one year old strapped to his back. If I’m standing here, if I’m not standing here, the rhythm of life in Hanoi will go on... I will fly away tomorrow. And I will look back on my time here as something like a dream sequence. So vastly different from the life at home, it’s hard to fathom having actually lived it. Not unlike Alice and the hole in the center of the earth, what had at first seemed so alien, and at times antagonistic to me, now feels like a part of me, a place where I will leave a little of myself, that will always call me back. For me, it will remain shrouded in mystery, feeling as though I’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding what this place is truly about.

A place like this, forces you to reconcile with yourself. Forces a reflection in which you must examine the things you most wish to ignore. A person could become very hardened, very cynical spending too much time here, but they could also become softer, kinder, more grateful for the things they’ve been given in life. Certainly I’ve seen both. A place like this shows you true humanity, in all it’s vivid glory. Here, you can sit down on the street next to the man with the mangled legs, and he’ll tell you what happened. Maybe it was the war, maybe it was Agent Orange, but he doesn’t hold it against you, he just needs a little help, and when you walk away, he will smile and wish you and all your family the best of luck and health.

The kids on the street, will ask for money, but they’ll also talk and play games with you. They’re just like kids everywhere, and even with their lot in life, they too delight in the simplest of games. And you’ll look up, and a motorbike will wizz past you with 30 or 40 live chickens turned upside down hanging from the handlebars, the back of the bike, everywhere. A well dressed doctor or lawyer will fly past you on his motorbike. A sleek black Mercedes slides by, with it’s windows tinted, behind it, a water buffalo pulling an ox cart. A cyclo will pedal past, carrying a casket. Then there’ll be a wedding procession, cars decorated in flowers, women in ao dai’s, a beautiful young couple in wedding attire... And you’ll be reminded that along side poverty, alongside the pain and suffering, there is beauty in the world. There is hope and there is joy, even in the saddest and the hardest of hearts.

So I go, leave Hanoi, and Vietnam, knowing that I will see it again. This place has a hold on me that I can’t explain, and don’t quite understand. Though I have not changed it, it has changed me. The people, the air, the sounds, the landscape, the history, the future, and right now... as I sit outside my room in the wet, heavy air. Tomorrow, I go, and for me, the world changes again. I return to a world that possesses an order more familiar to me, more sanitary conditions, less rats, and more McDonalds. I return to the love of my family and friends. I return to the desert sunsets and the “dry heat.” I return to washing machines, cars, major intersections with actual traffic lights, police that don’t need to be bribed, school and work. The air will be cleaner and people will not stare at me everywhere I go, difference will again be celebrated.

And I will return with more hope, more optimism about the world, even my country. If a place like Vietnam can find happiness, peace, and prosperity in the aftermath of of such pain and atrocity... then so can the rest of the world.. and I think, just maybe, the world won’t all fall apart after all...

To my friends in Vietnam, and those who have come and gone from Hanoi, “xin cam on nhieu” for being a part of my life, making this time so special... to my friends and family that I will see in a few short days, I can’t wait!!!

All the love in the world... Hen gap lai... of that I’m sure ...

Meredith (Hoa Mai My)

Meredith Smith is from Arizona. She lived in Viet Nam for 4 months as part of her study for her Master degree.

 

HUMANITOUR© October/November 2003

Join us … A project in partnership by the GSVA, Kids Without Borders and the Rotary Club of the University District

Back from our recent HumaniTour in March, here is the trip report filed by Son Michael Pham:

I was in Viet Nam from March 11th to March 29th. It was a strange time to be away from home, as we first learned of the beginning of the war in Iraq via a phone text message from one of my associates in Saigon. Then the SARS episode started in Hanoi and Hong Kong, two of the cities that our small group visited at the very beginning of the trip and planned to travel through on our way back to Seattle. I am happy to report that all of us are still healthy since we returned from our trip, and we accomplished many good deeds in Viet Nam on behalf of KWB.

The HumaniTour March 2003 was much smaller than the October 2002 trip. Our group met up in Hanoi with another group from our area, the Group Study Exchange (GSE) sponsored by Rotary International. The GSE group has four physicians from our area and is led by a fellow Rotarian from the Seattle Downtown Club. As with the last HumaniTour, our group spent part of our trip visiting several programs in Viet Nam supported by KWB, the Greater Seattle Viet Nam Association, Rotary, and other U.S based non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

- The Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Hanoi: over 150 disabled children are served by this center. These children are identified by the government as victims of the dioxin from Agent Orange. This was used in the war and is still in the landscape and food supply in some areas in central and south Viet Nam. This is our third visit in one year to this village. KWB is in the process of procuring wheelchairs from Rotary International for the village. Our group was able to deliver another large donation of new children’s clothes from KWB worth approximately US$3,000.

- ‘Helmets for Kids’ program: we joined with the Rotary GSE team at a ceremony in Hanoi. 350 children’s safety helmets were given as scholarships to students in the first, second, and third grades at the Hanoi Children’s Palace. These helmets were funded by the Rotary Clubs of Seattle # 4 and Burien, and from KWB. The ‘Helmets for Kids’ program is a project of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, a U.S registered non-governmental organization based in Hanoi. (see photo on page 4).

- Hoa Phuong Village Orphanage in Hai Phong: our group brought along donations of children’s safety helmets, dental care supplies, and new children’s clothes for the 65 orphans. In addition, ‘Rewards for Excellent Students’ were given out on behalf of the Greater Seattle Viet Nam Association (GSVA) to the top five students in the orphanage.

- Go Vap Orphanage in Saigon: I visited my kids at Go Vap with two photographers from Rotary International when the rest of the group stayed in Danang. As usual, the kids were active and happy to see ‘Chu Son’ (Uncle Son), knowing that my backpack was full of goodies for them. I brought the Director, Madame Thao, our usual supplies of new children’s clothes and dental care supplies; and candy for the kids. During my visit, I discovered that the sewage system inside of the orphanage was broken and the condition it caused was extremely unhealthy for the 220+ orphans. After some research, it was determined that US$400 will repair the broken sewer line underground inside the orphanage. I asked Madame Thao to proceed with the repair and KWB/GSVA will manage the expenses. The kids in the English program, sponsored by the GSVA, bragged to me new English words they recently learned. Their reward was our walk to the nearby market for some delicious sweet dessert, lots of photos and laughter. Before I left, they showed me my chalk drawing of a colorful Christmas tree from my last visit in December (we were learning about Christmas in America) still on the blackboard in their classroom. The teacher told me that the kids wanted the drawing to be saved on the blackboard as their reminder of ‘Chu Son’.

- In between our many stops traveling through Hanoi, Ha Long City, Cat Ba Island, Hai Phong, Hue, Dong Ha, Quang Tri, Khe Sanh, Danang, Hoi An, and Saigon, we made time to visit the work of some other U.S NGOs throughout the country. We were able to visit the children living in the floating villages in Ha Long Bay and on the Perfume River in Hue. We gave away toothbrushes to shy, smiling kids from the hilltribe villages in the former DMZ, and near the Ho Chi Minh trail close to the Laos border. We also delivered medical supplies to doctors at the St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hanoi.

Twenty eight years ago on April 30, 1975, on the last day of the Viet Nam war I boarded a ship in Saigon heading out to the Pacific Ocean in search of freedom and peace. Last year, as I was walking alone along the streets in Saigon on April 30, 2002 watching the country celebrate what they called Reunification Day (marking the end of what is known as the American War in Viet Nam), I thought of the main reason that brings me back to my motherland again and again. It is the kids in the orphanages, the street children working in the garbage field, and the two little girls and one boy selling roses at the corner near the Rex Hotel.

Chu Son

Sign-up now for on the upcoming HumaniTour, departing Seattle late October or early November 2003, space is limited. The current itinerary includes the following visits: Hanoi, Hai Phong, Ha Long Bay (Cat Ba and Ha Long City), Hue, Quang Tri, DMZ, Khe Sanh, Saigon, and Tay Ninh. Some of the projects on the itinerary: Thanh Xuan Peace Village (children victimized by Agent Orange), ‘Helmets for Kids’ by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, Hoa Phuong Orphanage in Hai Phong, landmine programs by Clear Path International, the Go Vap Orphanage in Saigon, and delivering wheelchairs to children in Viet Nam in partnership with the Wheelchair Foundation and VNHelp.

For more information on the HumaniTour, costs, special discounts for GSVA members and Rotarians, … please contact GSVA or email info@seattlevietnam.org. Deadline to sign up is August 14 based on space availability.

 

IN THE NEWS

Vietnamese American Honored with the 2003 International Examiner Community Voice Award
Tuyet Nguyen, a vocational rehabilitation counselor for DSHS, was one of the four individuals who received the 2003 Community Voice Awards presented by the International Examiner. The awards were presented at the 13th Annual Asian Pacific American Community Voice Award Dinner on May 21, 2003. Tuyet Nguyen, who received a Martin Luther King Citizen Award in 1998, was recognized as an unsung hero of the Asian American community for her tireless work within the Vietnamese community in Tacoma and Pierce County. Tuyet Nguyen also serves on the board of the Asian Pacific Cultural Center and she is finishing her master’s degree program in rehabilitation counseling.
    Our CONGRATULATIONS to Tuyet Nguyen.

LANGUAGE ALERT
The American Red Cross, serving King & Kitsap Counties, are in great need of Vietnamese interpreters. If you know of anyone who would be interested in volunteering with the Language Bank, please refer them to:
American Red Cross
Language Bank
Phone (206) 726-3554
languagebank@seattleredcross.org
www.seattleredcross.org
Top languages requested are: Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Chinese (Cantonese & Mandarin).

Vietnamese Overseas - An Important Human Resource
    Ha Noi, April 3 (VNA)- The Government of Viet Nam has always considered Vietnamese Overseas (Viet Kieu) as an integral part of the nation. In the recent past, the Vietnamese intellectual community overseas has made considerable contributions to national development in many fields.
    Vietnamese intellectuals abroad have assisted with teaching, scientific research, providing consultations for foreign experts who wish to work in Viet Nam, raising scholarships for young talents and applying advanced technology in production. The country welcomes around 200 Vietnamese intellectuals from the United States, France, Japan and Thailand every year who come back to work as university lecturers, consultants and scientific researchers.
    Viet Nam has been working with the United Nations Development Program to implement the TOKTEN project, which encourages Vietnamese intellectuals overseas to work for fixed terms in their native land. The program was launched in 1989 and has received a positive response. So far, Vietnamese living overseas have invested in 610 projects worth an estimated 500 million USD and 850 billion VND.
    Around 300,000 Vietnamese intellectuals living overseas making up more than 20 percent of the Vietnamese community abroad. Many of them work in such areas as space research, nuclear energy and naval studies which Viet Nam is still weak. Many hold key positions in areas in giant multi-national companies, Governmental agencies or international organizations. Most have been ever-ready to contribute to the development of Viet Nam and many have returned home to work at the request of the Vietnamese Government.
    Information technology (IT) is an area in which overseas Vietnamese intellectuals excel. This can be seen in these intellectuals' creativity, in particular, in software technology and automated system management. In the world's largest international information network, Global Internet Working, there is a program called Vietnamese Social Culture, in which around 40,000 overseas Vietnamese intellectuals participate. Of them, 65 percent have computer skills, 15 percent are engineers and the remaining 20 percent operate in the areas of social sciences and humanities.
    According to the "information technology in Viet Nam, 2002" reports recently released by the Research Viet Nam Company and Andersen, an international business consulting corporation, of the 50 companies holding stakes in Viet Nam's IT industry, half are foreign-invested or have entered joint ventures with foreign partners. Many Vietnamese overseas hold key posts in these companies and act as a cultural and language bridge between customers and their companies in Viet Nam.

WHO Doctor Honored
    VNS - Viet Nam’s Health Ministry has conferred its ‘For Health Case Medal’ posthumously on Dr Carlo Urbani, a WHO expert, for his dedication to the health of the community, according to Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Thuong.
    Urbani, who died of SARS last March in Thailand, was the first to realize the unusual nature of the disease, and gave early warning to WHO and the Vietnamese authorities, enabling them to take rapid preventive measures.
    Thuong said the Ministry had also recommended to the Government to award the Friendship Medal to the 46-year-old Italian physician.

THE FIRST VIETNAMESE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (ViFF)
    Screenings hosted by UCI School of Humanities' Film & Video Center Irvine, CA: The Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) and the VietNamese Language and Culture (VNLC) at UCLA present the first-ever Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF).
    ViFF is the first film festival dedicated to filmmakers of the Vietnamese diaspora, Vietnamese outside of their homeland. The mission of ViFF is to stimulate, bring together, and make visible a body of diasporic work through the lens of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-diasporic directors; to inspire future filmmakers and recognize existing ones; to create an environment for the filmmakers to share their experiences in filmmaking with their colleagues
and audience.
    The festival will be held over two consecutive weekends in October 2003. The Film & Video Center on the University of California, Irvine campus will host most of the screenings.
    ViFF is accepting film and video submissions from Vietnamese-diasporic filmmakers. There is neither a time limit of when the film was made; no limit on content; nor any submission fees. We encourage submissions of narratives, documentaries, shorts, and music videos. The deadline for film entries will be June 30, 2003.
    Send completed entry materials to: Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association c/o Vietnamese International Film Festival, 14781 Moran Street, Westminster, CA 92683, U.S.A.
    VAALA is a community-based non-profit organization founded in 1991 by Vietnamese-American journalists, artists, and community activists in Orange County. VAALA promotes Vietnamese values in art, creates opportunities for artists and audiences to interact, and facilitates communication among different ethnic groups through various forms of art.
    VNLC was established in 1994 to maintain and promote Vietnamese culture within the UCLA academic community and the Vietnamese community in southern California through academic and cultural programs. Please visit VietFilmFest.com for more information.

Textile Agreement Signed Between U.S. And Viet Nam
    With immense surge in U.S.-bound Vietnamese textile exports, the United States and Vietnam signed a textile agreement to cope with domestic pressure from American manufacturers. The agreement was signed on April 25th in Washington between officials from the U.S. Trade Representative and Vietnam's trade ministry after intense negotiations that started on April 9th.
    The opening round of talks started last February, following the implementation of tariff reduction bilateral trade agreement (BTA), which came into effect in December 2001, resulting in an enormous increase in two-way trade.
    U.S. trade official David Spooner told journalists in a telephone conference call that "The agreement brings Vietnam into the global textile trading system, for as long at least as worldwide textile quotas are around".
    Under the agreement, which went into effect on May 1st, the total value of Vietnamese textile and clothing exports to the United States will be capped at around $1.65 to $1.7 dollars per year. The U.S.-bound Vietnamese textile shipments, comprising of everything from hosiery to trousers to sweaters, were expected to exceed the ceiling in 2003 without the quotas.
    Textile exports from Vietnam to the United States went up by 1,800 percent to $952 million dollars from $49 million dollars in 2001, resulting in numerous complaints from the small garment manufacturing industry in the United States over low cost imports. Due to low labor costs, Vietnamese textiles manufacturers have a huge advantage over American manufacturers.
    Government of Hanoi was reluctant in the negotiations as they voiced concerns over U.S. protectionism and the impact that the imposition of quotas would bring to Vietnam's textile industry, which employs two million people. Hanoi also argued that any cap on exports would prevent the nation's efforts to get itself out of poverty. The textile industry is now Vietnam's second largest source of foreign exchange next to crude oil.
    Meanwhile, Vietnam, as an important source of textile and counterpart of China, received support from 35 large U.S. retail and manufacturing giants, including Nike, Gap and K-Mart. They emphasized in their letter submitted to the U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick on February 6th that quotas could result in supply shortages.
    The agreement will be in effect until December 31st, 2004, but could continue on an annual basis until Vietnam joins the World Trade Organization(WTO). Hanoi has an ambitious target to join the WTO by 2005. When the 10 year agreement on textile and clothing expires at the end of 2004, WTO members have to eliminate textile quotas among themselves.
    The quotas signed between two countries for the list of 38 textile items will confine the growth of Vietnamese exports to 7 percent per year with the exception of wool products which will be restricted to 2 percent. The agents of the U.S. Customs are permitted by Hanoi to inspect Vietnamese factories to verify production claims. In addition, Hanoi has reassured its commitment to international rules protecting worker's rights and the abolition of sweatshops.
    The deal follows Washington's imposition of excessive anti-dumping tax on Vietnam's catfish exports to the U.S. in January, which infuriated Hanoi. Two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995.

Upcoming Events

Investment in Vietnam: Time for a Second Look? By Darryl Vhugen

Ten years ago, Vietnam was widely seen as the next “Asian Tiger”, the newest haven in Asia for foreign investors. Foreign direct investment (“FDI”) poured into the country. For a variety of reasons, however, that promise was not realized. Now, however, foreign investors, at least those from elsewhere in Asia, are showing renewed interest in Vietnam. Perhaps it is time for prospective investors in the United States to take another look.

Why the renewed interest in Vietnam? In several concrete ways, the Vietnamese government appears to have laid out the welcome mat for foreign investors. The processing of foreign investment license applications has been streamlined, although it is still more cumbersome than would be desirable. The licensing process has been decentralized somewhat, so that in many instances local officials can approve license applications without approval from Hanoi. Anecdotal reports suggest that officials charged with reviewing investment license applications have become far more helpful. Overall, the new system often results in license approvals in two weeks or less.

Infrastructure, such as telecommunications, electricity and transportation has been improved. More and better industrial parks have opened to serve foreign investment projects. Indeed, selecting a good industrial park is one of the most important decisions a foreign investor can make in Vietnam. While facilities vary widely, provincial officials compete hard to attract companies to their parks. Such competition can lead to tax breaks, reduced rent and subsidized worker training programs. For example, Haiphong, Seattle’s sister city, currently has three parks in operation, with twelve more under development. According to recent news reports, the three Haiphong parks are offering incentives such as fifteen years of free rent and reimbursement of up to 30% of the cost of training local workers.

In addition, the government has granted increased freedom to foreign investors to operate wholly foreign-owned businesses in a variety of business sectors. In many cases, this has eliminated the requirement that foreign investors form joint ventures with state-owned firms. (Certain important sectors, such as telecommunications, oil and gas, mining and transportation still require joint ventures, however.)

Needless to say, significant barriers remain to successful investment in Vietnam by foreigners. As Prime Minister Phan Van Khai recently acknowledged in an interview, the investment licensing process is not as efficient as it could be. Taxes are quite high. Telecom and electricity costs remain higher than in most of the rest of Asia and foreign businesses pay higher rates than their domestic counterparts. There is a shortage of skilled managerial and technical workers.

Another significant problem relates to the uneven application of the rule of law. As a lawyer, I advise my clients that one of the most important considerations in evaluating a foreign investment opportunity is the reliability of the dispute resolution process if the investment goes sour. In Vietnam, as in some neighboring countries, the domestic court system is often not where an investor wants to be to resolve a dispute. Accordingly, many investment-related contracts include a provision requiring arbitration before an independent arbitral body outside of Vietnam. A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Vietnam, however, has called into question the enforceability of foreign arbitration awards. Foreign investors would be well-advised to monitor this issue closely.

Is it time for American companies to look more closely at investing in Vietnam? I think the answer is “yes.” The overall performance of the Vietnamese economy has been quite strong recently. After enjoying GDP growth of 7.04% in 2002, the economy is projected by the World Bank to grow another 7% this year. Worker productivity is good, by some measures better than in China. And many companies are making money: 62% of Japanese companies operating in Vietnam report that their operations are profitable.

Since the implementation of the Bilateral Trade Agreement in December 2001, U.S. businesses are investing in Vietnam in increasing numbers. But the majority of the 669 foreign investment projects approved in Vietnam last year came from investors in other Asian countries. For example, of the 200 foreign representative offices licensed by Hanoi in 2002 (the highest number in recent years), 60% came from businesses in Northeast Asia. What do the Chinese, Korean and Japanese companies know that American businesses do not?

Prime Minister Phan Van Kai recently voiced his desire for increased investment in technology, basic infrastructure, the cement industry, oil and gas development and the production and processing of seafood and agricultural products for export. It is high time for U.S. investors to take a hard look at investing in these and perhaps other sectors so as not to be left behind.

Darryl Vhugen is a Seattle-based attorney whose practice emphasizes international and domestic business transactions and dispute resolution. He can be reached at 206-686-2884 or by e-mail at vhugen@msn.com.

 

Making A Difference
YOU CAN HELP US Making A Difference … Support our projects in Viet Nam

Y Teaching English program.
Y ‘Helmets for Kids’ program by Kids Without Borders. Email info@kidswithnoborders.org for additional information.
Y Contribute to our scholarship program for disadvantage students.
Y Bring clean water to Bru villagers near Khe Sanh (along the Laos border). Email board member Dick Hunter res032rn@gte.net.
Y Donate school supplies for children at the Nang Ren Hamlet in Bac Lieu.
Y Donate computer or electronic equipment (in good condition) to our orphanages.
Y Donate airline mileage.
Y Become a member of GSVA.
 

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Greater Seattle Viet Nam Association
P.O.Box 23282;  Seattle, WA 98102 USA
206-322-1178    *    Fax 206-374-2944    *     Email info@seattlevietnam.org