UK eyes Vietnam as an important emerging market

CA - UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, said Vietnam is one of the important emerging markets that the UK wants to build long-term relationships with in different fields, especially in trade and investment.

Cable highlighted the message at a meeting with reporters in HCMC on Thursday afternoon before he completed the HCMC leg of his visit to Vietnam. He is now in Hanoi to explore opportunities to deepen the strategic partnership between the UK and Vietnam through scheduled meetings with senior Government officials.

The UK recognizes that the growth and the dynamism of the world’s economy are coming from emerging markets, particularly in Asia, where there are India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Cable said these were among the countries especially important and that the UK would be taking “a lot of time and energy” to build long-term relationships with.

The UK is optimistic about its trade with Vietnam growing to a new level.

“We have set a target of US$4 billion for trade in both directions in 2014. That’s our objective and we are on track to achieve that…,” Cable responded to a relevant question raised by the Daily.

Last year, the UK-Vietnam trade broke the US$2 billion mark and is projected to reach US$3 billion within next year, according to the UK Trade and Investment in Vietnam.

Cable said the two-way trade was expanding rapidly and that Vietnam exported to Britain five times as much as that country’s exports to Vietnam. He noted this trade gap was not a problem but urged the European country to increase its exports to Vietnam.

Financial, educational and consulting services as well as high-tech manufacturing and services in the transport sector are among the fields that British companies seek to cash in on because of high demand in this country of more than 86 million people.

An example is the British Vietnamese International School (BVIS) in HCMC’s Binh Chanh District. Cable, HCMC Vice Chairman Hua Ngoc Thuan and other British and Vietnamese officials on Thursday participated in the official opening ceremony of this school.

Teachers at the school have been trained to UK standards and will teach curricula based on the British education system, but with due attention to the Vietnamese language, literature, history and geography.

BVIS principal Michael Deveney told reporter after the opening ceremony that the school had enrolled some 350 students aged from two to 14 for its first academic year. The school will be able to admit up to 2,000 students.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Cable said British companies in Vietnam were looking for more employees with international qualifications and competence in English and Vietnamese languages.

At the press conference, Cable said a lot of British companies that he met said they were generally operating very well, appreciated Vietnam for its fast growth and good talented people, and wanted to expand in this market. Therefore, Cable said the message he received from British companies in Vietnam was “very positive.”

The UK and Vietnam signed a strategic partnership agreement in September last year with an aim to elevate bilateral relationships in areas of trade and investment, sustainable socio-economic development, education and training, science and technology, security and defense, and people-to-people links among others.

Cable said there had been specific steps already taken since the agreement and Vietnam Airlines’ launch of its direct flights to London this December was one of the direct results.

Now, the UK is trying to build up trade and investment relationships with Vietnam in the areas where British companies had advantages in financial services, know-how and capital for the public-private partnership projects (PPP), oil exploration and drilling.

At a meeting with reporters last month, British Consul General Tim Brownbill said the UK investment in Vietnam stood at US$2 billion and expected the number to exceed US$3 billion by the end of next year.