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| Vietnamese and Singaporean businesses at the networking luncheon in HCMC on Monday - Photo: Mong Binh |
Jason Lim, HCMC Center Director of IE Singapore, said IE Singapore was leading the largest mission in the sectors to Vietnam to study the business environment and to explore opportunities for Singapore companies to join hands with Vietnamese partners.
“Singapore has a strong pool of service providers in the offshore and marine sectors that can provide support for the whole sector such as in offshore construction, ship building, repair and fabrication works,” Lim said.
Lim told the Daily that as for the downstream sub-segment, Singapore companies offered services in plant design, construction, and maintenance amongst various other engineering works.
One of the most recent oil and gas ventures in Vietnam is between Singapore’s EOC Group and Vietnam’s PV Trans for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel project, which materialized in January 2010.
IE Singapore invited speakers from Mayer Brown, Ernst & Young and Indo-Trans Keppel Logistics to share their expertise and experiences in doing business in Vietnam at a networking luncheon in HCMC on Monday.
During the three-day trip, the delegates will also attend meetings with prominent Vietnamese enterprises and visit a foreign-invested project, Strategic Marine in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, to get first-hand knowledge of the operating environment in Vietnam.
Asked whether the major delegation will signal significant shift of Singaporean firms’ investments in Vietnam, Lim confirmed that Singapore companies would continue to invest in Vietnam’s property and infrastructure development.
“There is a good match between Singapore’s expertise in urban and infrastructure development and Vietnam’s rising demand for quality housing and infrastructure,” Lim said.
He said IE Singapore as a government agency tasked with helping Singapore companies invest in overseas markets and promote international trade, would work harder to facilitate more collaboration between Singapore and Vietnam businesses.
“Such partnerships can be in the sectors where there has traditionally been strong engagement, as well as in upcoming sectors such as oil and gas where we see growing interest,” Lim said.
“Vietnam expects to see strong economic growth estimated to reach 6.5 to 7% in 2010. Along with this, growth typically results in an increase in cargo movements, be it domestic or international,” he added.
Singapore’s cumulative projects and registered investment capital in Vietnam stood at 832 and US$17.795 billion respectively as of August 20, 2010. Vietnam was Singapore’s 14th largest trading partner, with bilateral trade expanding at a stable compound annual growth rate of 6.6% over the past five years to reach S$13.4 billion last year.
Bilateral trade between the two countries in the first seven months of this year was S$7.6 billion over the S$7.2 billion in the same period last year. Singapore exports petroleum products, civil engineering equipment parts among other to Vietnam.
