<< The provincial government of Quang Nam clearly wants us there. They are talking with more than just Kim about developing ways to revitalize their silk industry. In my opinion, the Vietnam central government has been incompetently slow in this entire process. I mean, you have a local province that is eager to move forward with their plans to improve their economy, provide jobs, and reduce poverty. >>
There are 1000s of counties across America that would love a big foreign company (Volkswagen, Toyota, Samsung, Sony, Honda, BMW, etc) to come in and revitalize their economy. But just because they want it to happen doesn't mean that the U.S. government is going to support every effort that comes around.
In the same light, I am sure that there are many provinces in Vietnam that would love to have their economy boosted. But it doesn't mean that the central government will support every one of them.
On top of that, KBLB has genetically modified animals. That is a HUGE deal with many foreign countries. There are LOTS of unknowns with genetically modified animals. Imagine that one of KBLBs silkworms makes it into the general Vietnam silkworm population. And imagine that it spreads a new disease that wipes out that said Vietnamese silkworm population. You don't just bring a new organism into an ecosystem without making sure that there are safety protocols in place. And that is why Vietnam requires certain documentation (to make sure that it is safe to import genetically modified silkworms).
All we know is that KBLB is now 4-5 years into trying to get into Vietnam and it doesn't seem any closer now than it did 4-5 years ago (unless you consider that an ant climbing a hill is getting closer to the moon).
KBLB still needs to provide MARD with 2 things: (1) a biosafety certificate from the U.S. State Dept AND (2) a certificate from the USDA. Both of those docs will take a LONG time to get (if they can EVER get them). It looks like KBLB has been trying to get #1 (the biosafety certificate) since May 2016, but I have never seen any information from KBLB on #2 yet.
