US firms expected to help Vietnamese companies join supply chains: state president

Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc suggested Thursday that U.S. firms assist Vietnamese enterprises in joining their manufacturing supply chains to help the country’s fast-growing economy better access global value chains.

The President made the suggestion at a high-level seminar with the U.S.-APEC Business Alliance for Competitive SMEs in Bangkok, where he is attending the 2022 APEC Summit. (APEC - the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum).

Several major American corporations are investing big bucks in Vietnam like Apple, Intel, Dell, Microsoft, and Nike. Therefore, if U.S. companies support Vietnamese enterprises to join production supply chains, it would help turn Vietnam into one of the value chain hubs in the region and the world, President Phuc said.

He stressed Vietnam would step up green growth, digital economy, sci-tech, and innovation and deeply join the global investment structure, trade order, and supply chains.

"Vietnam would like American businesses to pay attention to and invest in such fields as digital economy, finance, banking, smart agriculture, and renewable energy," he said.

The leader added the Southeast Asian country would also strive to create a transparent and favorable business environment in line with new-generation free trade agreements and toward practices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Michael Michalak, senior vice president and regional managing director of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council and former U.S. ambassador to Hanoi, recalled that U.S. firms and investors regularly received support from the Vietnamese leader in his different positions, as well as from Vietnamese State agencies.

Quint Simon, a representative of Amazon Web Services, said he hoped Vietnam would offer more incentives to develop digital economic services like cloud computing and cyber security. He also committed to partnering with Vietnam in the digital transformation process.