Province-based businesses take proactive approach to the AEC

The formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will create great impacts on the Vietnamese business community in general and enterprises in Binh Duong in particular. Hence, according to province-based business community, taking proactive approach to the AEC is a key element for sustainable integration.

Production of a garment firm at Thuan An town-based VSIP I

Proactive to grasp opportunities

When the AEC is formed, Vietnam will also be one of countries enjoying huge benefits from economic integration compared to other countries as Vietnam’s economy heavily depends on foreign trade. But, the AEC will also create challenges for Vietnamese enterprises and industries.

Luong Hoang Thai, Director of the Multilateral Trade Policies Department under Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Vietnam’s industries will enjoy benefits while trade-services will be affected from the AEC. Noticeably, agriculture is the most affected sector.

According to experts, Vietnamese enterprises need to be flexible and grasp opportunities from the AEC for export growth, quickly make the most of advantages and preferences to promote exports into ASEAN market towards the trade balance among ASEAN member countries.

The AEC officially took effect, bringing more competitive opportunities to province-based enterprises. But, they have to innovate technologies, improving the quality of products for better competitiveness.

Nguyen Thanh Nghia, CEO of Dai Thien Loc Joint Stock Company said that the company last year mainly exported their products into Southeast Asian countries, so the formation of the AEC will create great influence on the company’s growth. Over the past years, the company also made efforts in modernizing production technologies, raising its localization rate to more than 40% in order to enjoy 0% tariff when exporting products into countries in the region. This is seen as one of major elements for the AEC integration. Therefore, the company’s workers are determined to well realize this.

Self-confident to enter the AEC

To Phan Le Diem Trang, Vice-Chairwoman of Binh Duong Textile and Apparel Association, domestic enterprises have to be proactive to raise their competitiveness, getting ready for the regional integration and combating a new trend for trade exchange.

As of late Dec.2015, Binh Duong realized the local targets on socio-economic development with results that were tens of times higher than 1997 when being reestablished. The economic scale of the whole province has so far reached more than VND142trillion, 36.4 times higher than 1997 with the annual growth of 14.8%. The local industrial production value secured VND216trillion; export turnover was 41.6 times higher than 1997.

Tran Ngoc Phu, General Director of Hoa Sen Group, the nation's leading steel and corrugated iron producer believed that with experience during the national process of admission to the WTO, province-based enterprises will have firm steps on the way of integration. They will also fully tap advantages and opportunities when joining the AEC.

The local administration has also always paid attention to enterprises’ evolution, helping them remove difficulties in business and production. This is seen as a great motivation for enterprises to be self-confident to enter the AEC.

The whole province has so far attracted 21,051 domestic projects with total registered capital of VND157trillion and 2,573 FDI ones capitalized at US$23.3bln. Among them, there are many international-scale projects, contributing to promoting the local modern industrial-urban development. Hence, possibly affirming, province-based enterprises will be self-confident to enter the AEC. They will also fully tap their potentials to take full of advantage of opportunities from the AEC.

Reported by Khanh Vinh-Translated by K.T