Vietnam Currency Discussion Board

[Rasica]

US commerce secretary urges Vietnam to foster investment -
Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:59:03 GMT


Hanoi - US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez praised Vietnam's fast-growing economy on Monday but urged the government to streamline investment to accommodate companies eager to enter the marketGutierrez, who is leading a three-day trade mission along with representatives from 22 US companies, said the main concern of investors is regulatory delays.

"The big issue that companies have brought forward is that they would like things to move faster. They want to invest and sometimes things don't move as quickly as they'd like," Gutierrez said.

"Vietnam is competing with countries around the world for capital and anything that the government of Vietnam can do to make it easier to bring capital here, that would be for the advantage of Vietnam," he said.

The communist country, where American soldiers fought a bloody war more than 30 years ago, is now allies with the US, which is one of its top export markets.

Vietnam has already recorded a record year of foreign investment, with 11.2 billion dollars pledged through October, up 35 per cent for that time last year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Gutierrez met Monday morning with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and President Nguyen Minh Triet in Hanoi and was scheduled to speak with members of the American Chamber of Commerce later in the day.

More than 30 years after the Vietnam War in which more than 58,000 US soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese died, the two countries are allies and the US is one of Vietnam's largest trading partners and export markets.

Last year, Vietnam exported some 8.6 billion dollars to the US, up sharply from the 1.1 billion dollars of 2001, when the two countries signed a historic bilateral trade agreement.

Gutierrez, who led a delegation of US companies including Ford Motor Co, Northwest Airlines, 3M Co, Dow Chemical and Marriott International, will likely be looking to seek new opportunities for American goods, which have been slower to increase sales in Vietnam.

Last year, the US exported only 1.1 billion dollars in goods and services to Vietnam, double the amount of five years ago but still leaving the country with a 7.5-billion-dollar trade deficit with Vietnam.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/136493.html