|
Clear laws a great help for business: Mayor
The clarity and reliability of Viet Nam's legal system including its framework for resolving disputes is crucial to meeting challenges currently facing the country, Alderman Michael Bear, Mayor of the City of London, told Viet Nam News reporter Xuan Hiep. Bear was on an official visit to Viet Nam last week.
What special characteristics does Viet Nam have – compared to other emerging economies – that the UK finds attractive for investment and other commercial activities?
Viet Nam is a very vibrant country. You have a very impressive growth – 7 per cent. I read on the newspaper today that a new stabilisation programme is addressing the high inflation, which is very admirable. And that gives confidence to the international market, because stability is very important.
From an investment point of view, the level of literacy among your people – 95 per cent – is hugely important. The thirst for knowledge and education – we have 7,000 students who've come to England to study – is fantastic. And we have links with schools. So really there is a huge pool of talent waiting to realise that potential. That is something that we are very excited about.
And we (the UK and Viet Nam) have a very strong relationship, as you know, from the strategic partnership agreement and the action plan that was signed in January this year.
So I think that the relationship has a very strong foundation that is very important for doing business.
What, in your opinion, should Viet Nam do in response to the challenges currently facing the country?
I think the opportunities are enormous, but like every country that's going through the growth that you have, there are lessons from countries that have been through that period like in London. And we have found one of the lessons for improving business confidence is to have a policy of predictability, stability and clarity of all regulations and laws. That is what we found help us enormously, that businesses know where they stand within the justice system and contract system.
And should there be any disputes, there is a mechanism for resolving them. The ownership of land and property is enshrined in law so that when you invest, you are protected because if there isn't that protection, then it makes investors feel less confident. So the most important building block is to invest in the confidence. And the messages that I have brought from London on my visit is really to underline those basic business model philosophies to make sure that there is that predictability and transparency.
One of the most exciting things that is clear to me is what you call equitisation of your State-owned enterprises. I think that is a very interesting stage. If you have a clear roadmap toward unlocking the potential of the private sector in helping to develop your economy and your country, I think you will have a very promising future.
During your visit, a lot of discussion has focused on financial services. What does Viet Nam need to become a financial hub in the region?
There are five reasons I always give, which are fundamental to achieving a status as a financial centre.
The first thing is you need to have a very large pool of talented people. You need to have the skills across all the financial disciplines. You wouldn't necessarily find them all locally to start with. You need to attract skills from all over the world. So for the first phase, you need to attract people as we did in London. In London, we have people who speak 300 different languages.
When you attract talented or skilled people from all over the world, they need to have good places to work, good places to live and even good schools for their children. So you have to go through that thinking. So the first thing is skilled people.
The second thing is you need to have a business friendly environment, which I was referring to before – good regulations, good laws, favourable taxes, and transparency, all of the things that make businesses really comfortable.
The third thing is you need to have infrastructure, which is the barrier in most developing economies. But that's got to be done. You should have policies and confidence to take them forward. You have to have the legal infrastructure, not only physical infrastructure, but regulatory infrastructure to make businesses really flourish. It means the best building, the best infrastructure to get to work.
The fourth one is communication. You need to communicate well with the whole world 24/7. Your city never sleeps – a very energetic and exciting 24/7 city, not only through the internet communication, but also through airports and ports because you are exporting things. You need to bring people into communication.
The fifth criterion is what we call a cluster. So you have everybody cluster together. Within a square mile we have in the city the best businesses. We have the best cluster all together. So within the square mile cluster, you can walk to the best lawyers, the best accountants, the best financiers, the best marketers, and the best designers, all within a cluster. Everybody wants to be together in the cluster. That is called the financial district or central business district. And the cluster is very strong. So people know when they come to the city, they have got everything they need. You need a total of 18 different disciplines.
Those are the five criteria that make the City of London so great. Those are also criteria for Viet Nam to be successfully developed into a financial centre. I hope Viet Nam can learn from the experience and become a financial hub in the region and the world in the future.
How can Viet Nam improve its education system?
We have had a lot of discussions with the business community here and also with your politicians. And it's quite clear that one of the best ways is to have a lot of training here in your city rather than to take people to London.
So we need to help you identify those skills that are essential in administration, regulation and taxation. And we can bring the best practice by ways of seminars, training here in Viet Nam. And that is something that the consul general and ambassadors through the embassy can help with our business community to arrange because knowledge transfer is very important. And we can bring those essential disciplines here.
We also have a Bank of London and other institutions in the city. We hold courses regularly as well, so your senior officers can go over to the city of London for specific training in state bank governance or auditing. There are lots of ways we can help in that respect. We do it a lot in our country, and we more than welcome you to join our programmes there.
And the third thing is as your universities develop, and they develop more specific courses that are very relevant to the stage of growth you are at. We want to create a formal link between your universities and our universities, and have a knowledge transfer that way. That is a very successful formula that we can start with.
vietnamnews
|
