At a dialogue with Ambassador Nguyen Quoc Cuong in Washington DC on January 28, representatives of the US Chamber of Commerce (USCC), the US-ASEAN Business Council (USABC) and major US companies valued Vietnam’s willingness to hold dialogues to ease difficulties for a healthy and transparent business environment.
They said the expected conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) negotiations in 2013 is of paramount importance to their investment and business expansion strategies in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in general.
The dialogue attracted the participation of USABC President Alex Feldman, USCC Director for Asia Catherine Mellor, and representatives of more than 30 US companies, such as Boeing, IBM, Microsoft, Google, DHL, Fedex, UPS, BakerMcKenzie, KPMG, Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, John Deere and Caterpillar.
Ambassador Cuong briefed the participants on Vietnam’s initial results of the government’s efforts to stabilize the macroeconomy and contain inflation, as well as its policy in 2013.
He answered US businesses’ questions about the prospects of bilateral relations in 2013, in regard to TPP negotiations and the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), as well as US-ASEAN cooperation initiatives for 2013.
The dialogue is part of the Vietnam Dialogue Initiative launched by the Vietnamese Embassy aiming to create a channel of regular dialogues between the embassy and businesses, scholars, and experts of US agencies. It is expected to help promote economic and trade cooperation between Vietnam and the US.
This year, the initiative will be undertaken in the US, focusing on human resource training, improvements of the investment-business environment, high-tech attraction, trade cooperation promotion, development in the lower Mekong basin, the public-private partnership, as well as improving the role of the Vietnamese entrepreneurs community abroad.
VOV
