Vietnam will see fastest economic growth in Southeast Asia: US-ASEAN Business Council chief

Vietnam will be a country with the fastest economic growth in Southeast Asia, said Ted Osius, former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam and now president cum CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council (USABC).

Osius made the statement at a meeting on Tuesday between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, a delegation of the USABC, and leaders of about 60 major U.S. companies on working visits to Vietnam, including Boeing, Apple, Intel, Coca-Cola, Nike, Amazon, Bell Textron, and Excelerate Energy.

At the event, Osius expressed his honor to lead the largest delegation, including U.S. corporate executives, in the USABC's 41-year history to a country in Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese government's news portal reported.

According to Osius, Vietnam is currently entering an era of economic and political transformation. The country's recent reforms not only promote long-term economic reforms but also reduce barriers to the import of U.S. goods, strengthening Vietnam's position in the global trade. This creates a more attractive environment for expanding investment and business activities.

He said the USABC is always willing to contribute to Vietnam's policy activities and highly appreciates the openness of the Vietnamese Government.

It can be said that the current restructuring efforts are directly addressing many long-standing issues, paving the way for deeper cooperation and stronger two-way investment, he added.

In particular, Osius noted, Vietnam's reforms are in line with the priorities of the U.S. administration, including strengthening the sustainable supply chains, further opening the market for U.S. products, and creating a level playing field for American businesses, the USABC chairman emphasized.

U.S and Vietnamese energy companies on Thursday last week signed agreements worth $4.15 billion during a working trip of Vietnamese Special Envoy of the Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien to the United States.

Osius said the USABC supports these Vietnamese and US investments, including those in the gas sector, ensuring long-term stable supplies of LNG to Vietnam, and Vietnam's efforts to improve the bilateral trade balance.

Looking back at the significant progress the two countries have made, he expressed his impression of the important steps forward in diplomacy, trade, investment, culture, education, national security, and bilateral relations.

Stronger administrative reforms, preferential policies recommended

The companies in the delegation include those in the fields where the United States has leading strengths globally such as information technology, financial services, logistics, energy, aerospace, defense, healthcare, consumer products, and food.

The U.S. businesses said they want and are ready to make new or additional investments in Vietnam in such fields as green transformation, digital transformation, circular economy, energy, high technology, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, data, aviation, logistics, finance, telecommunications, healthcare, food processing, consumer goods manufacturing, tourism, education, and agriculture.

They noted that they hope Vietnam will continue to reform administrative procedures, shorten decision-making time, ensure consistency and stability of legal regulations, and have preferential policies to encourage investment in a number of specific projects and products in which the US has strengths and Vietnam has needs.

A Citibank representative said the bank commits to supporting the digital economy and the capital market in Vietnam, and hopes that the Vietnamese Government will have mechanisms to support cross-border data exchange.

The rep said Citibank strongly believes that upgrading the stock market from a frontier market to an emerging market will be a key factor in attracting investors and large international organizations to Vietnam in the coming time.

Building Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City into regional and global financial centers is a top priority of the Vietnamese Government. US financial companies said they want to know more about the development of these schemes.

In the tourism sector, hotel group Marriott International said it will support the development of Vietnam's tourism industry by promoting the country to 228 members of the Marriott Bonvoy program. Marriott is operating 26 hotels in Vietnam and 50 more are under construction and development.

In the agricultural sector, a representative of Bayer, one of the world's leading plant science companies, said that the firm is committed to developing sustainable agriculture through innovations and improving the capacity of farmers in Vietnam.

Bayer will further propose initiatives related to sustainable agriculture to help farmers increase productivity and protect the environment, contributing to ensuring food security in Vietnam and promoting the country's food exports to the world market, the rep added.

Partner of strategic importance

In response, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that Vietnam always considers the U.S. a partmer of leading and strategic importance, especially in terms of trade and investment.

He noted that the bilateral relationship has made remarkable progress in recent times, but there is still a lot of room for U.S. investment in Vietnam. "The two economies complement and support each other, not compete with each other."

The Prime Minister stressed that Vietnam wishes and is making efforts to promote the bilateral economic relationship to develop in a balanced, harmonious and sustainable manner, through specific action programs.

"Relevant ministries and agencies of Vietnam are actively reviewing import tariffs on goods from the U.S., encouraging increased imports of U.S. products that Vietnam needs, especially agricultural products, LNG and high-tech products, while strictly controlling the origin of goods from abroad," he highlighed.

Chinh also stressed that he wishes to see U.S. investors continue to make new and additional investments in Vietnam, especially in important fields such as energy, high technology, semiconductors, AI, aviation, aerospace, and climate change response.

The Prime Minister also suggested that U.S. businesses participate in Vietnam’s railway, aviation, waterway, sea and road projects, including researching the construction of aircraft maintenance and repair centers at the Long Thanh International Airport (Dong Nai province) and Gia Binh Airport (Bac Ninh province), both under construction.

U.S. businesses should also support and cooperate with Vietnam in building and developing synchronous and modern digital infrastructure; commercializing 5G networks; researching 6G technology; and improving capacity and transferring technology to manufacture medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

The Vietnamese leader suggested that U.S. businesses have a voice with the Trump administration to strengthen sustainable trade and investment cooperation; consider promoting the establishment of a new bilateral trade framework that is more suitable to the actual needs and situations; not use trade defense measures against Vietnam; promptly recognize Vietnam's market economy status; and remove Vietnam from the U.S. Department of Commerce's list of high-tech export restrictions.