Thursday, November 16, 2006

Getting caught in the stream of things...

Sorry for this post being late, but last night was a late one...

Yesterday we began our real business in Vietnam. We made our first tripto the Convention Center and attended the "Doing Business with Vietnam" forum. It was an opportunity for business leaders in Vietnam to advertise to the world as well as foreign investors to network. Vietnam's recent growth is staggering, and we saw much of that on ourvisit to the industrial zone Wednesday. There are so many changes, but it leaves so much to be desired, as it is impossible to ignore the stunning economic gap between those that have caught up with the international economy and those that have not. But much of the purpose of the Doing Business with Vietnam Forum was to bring exposure to these issues as investors consider coming into Vietnam and Vietnamese business peoplec onsider expanding their markets.





The assembly opened with an address from the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung, and he expressed the desire for Vietnam to become truly engaged in the Asian, APEC, and world economies. Following his speech, we listened to some other speeches and panel discussions, including representatives from BP, Intel, the UNDP, GE, the EC, and Oracle. They expressed their perspectives on the current state of the Vietnamese economy and the possibilities for further expansion in the future.



Later that morning I had the opportunity to listen to an interiew between Bloomberg TV and Susan Schwab, the U.S. Trade Representative. It was interesting to hear her optimism on the restarting of the Doha talks and the concern that the U.S. is not moving on granting PNTR with Viet Nam as quickly as APEC would like. Our group was able to interview a Vietnamese farmer-turned-businessman that exports food to Asia, North America, and Europe. It was a different perspective on Viet Nam joining the world market than we had seen the entire conference as the company was Vietnamese, not a foreign industry coming in and setting up shop. He works with peasant farmers in rural areas of the nation and helps to include them in the global market.

Later last night we participated and watched the Cultural Night put on by the students of Hanoi University. We heard a few speakers including Mrs. Fulbright and watched a concert and other cultural demonstrations by the Vietnamese students. I was interviewed for Vietnamese television (who knows how it will turn out). We did not return to the hotels until almost midnight, so this post is just not being finished.

Today so far I have seen the Vietnamese and Chinese Presidents speak and are looking forward to getting even busier...and seeing Sec. Rice...

Later today we will be posting some more pictures to catch you all up with the visual experience.

Webb

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