Singaporean businessmen see rosy future for Vietnam

"I believe that once Vietnam rides out this correction, the medium to long-term outlook is still excellent. While the current global financial crisis will bring about more uncertainties, certain fundamentals don't change", said VietnamWorks' Director of Operations, Lim Wee Tee.

VietnamWorks is a venture cap-funded company that specialises in recruitment and online branding, as well as online services such as job advertisements, banners and a resumè database.

Huang Ban Chin, Executive Director of Singapore’s Best World International, which specialises in the creation of health and wellness products, told the Business Times Singapore that Vietnam is poised to become the second-fastest growing economy in Asia, after China. "We expect demand from Vietnam to stay strong," he added.

George Tan, Managing Director of Asiatic Group, believes that it is a good time to expand on its marketing and development work. "In good times, people are too busy and hardly willing to open doors to alternative solutions. Buying power equals population; the potential is always there," he said.

Sharing this view, Stanchart's Ray Ferguson, who heads its Southeast Asian operations, said that "Vietnam is an attractive market as it has a sizeable young population and local demand is therefore likely to be strong. This is seen by the number of multinational consumer goods companies, like Unilever, Coke, Colgate and Nestle that have made or announced investments in Vietnam."

"The local demand will be accentuated by a shift of the rural population (currently 75 per cent of the total population) to the cities and children reaching their consumer years," he added.

Another Singaporean business, Bipin Jha, Managing Director of Motley Resources, said that, although Vietnam is not immune to the deepening global economic crisis, the effect is smaller than it is in some of the other countries in the region.

However, according to Singaporean businessmen, meeting the infrastructure needs of new investors will be a challenge to Vietnam, and road, rail, maritime and air travel facilities will have to be expanded in line with incremental trade flows./.