TUESDAY 6 JUNE 2006 This page is maintained for historic reference only
Location: Daiwa Japan House, 13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London, NW1 4QP
Time: 12.30 - 14.00
To register: please click here
Speaker: Miles Dodd, Research Associate, Doshisha University (Japan) "Vietnam - Four Cases from the Field: an MNC, (BP Vietnam) a Joint Venture (Sony Vietnam), a wholly owned foreign company (TCL Vietnam) , and an entrepreneurial Vietnamese company (Viet A)
Martyn Skinner, Trade & Investment Advisor – Vietnam, UK Trade & Investment "Vietnam – the country, people, opportunities"
Background
Historically Vietnam has been handicapped by several factors. First, years of war and economic isolation prevented the country from taking its natural place in the growth of the Asia-Pacific region. Second, government policies favouring state-owned enterprises and vacillation over the status of private business have been slow to retreat. Third, weak legal and financial systems and endemic corruption badly affect the business infrastructure. The government is now showing real determination to tackle these problems. The new Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung follows the liberal tradition of his predecessors, Vo Van Kiet and Pham Van Khai, while the hard-headed socialists are finally accepting the real implications of the market economy. Overtures to private businesses; an opening of the door to the Vietnamese diaspora; and other measures - for example of foreign investment in the banking sector, suggest that real progress is under way. WTO membership within 2006 is a real possibility, and will accelerate the country's emergence into the global community. The Vietnamese have consistently shown extraordinary capability, and ingenuity, foreign managers consistently praise their intelligence. With a population of 84 million, a median age of 25½, and its strategic geographical location, a more open Vietnam offers increasingly valuable opportunities to foreign investors and businesses.
Miles Dodd
Miles Dodd is a Research Associate at Doshisha University Kyoto and at Oxford Brookes University. He is a consultant to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce, Hanoi. He has a particular knowldege of Vietnam, where he has been visiting and teaching for 14 years. In 1993, while Regional Director at INSEAD, he organised a senior management programme in Vietnam which ran for several yars. He has publsihed several business case studies on China, Janan and Vietnam. As a businessman, he spent over 25 years in Japan and also worked in HK and Singapore. In 2000 he returned to Japan to teach at a number of universities there. He now lives in Cambridge in the UK but continues to travel frequently in the Asia Pacific region.
Martyn Skinner
Martyn first visited Vietnam in 1992 with Tate & Lyle when he developed their Nghe An investment project through to 2000 and has subsequently been working with UKTI as the Trade & Investment Advisor for Vietnam.
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