What is the solution for an open business environment in Vietnam?

The International Business Colloquium entitled International business environment in Vietnam: opportunities, challenges and how to move forward at RMIT Vietnam’s Hanoi campus

“Which country based on the human resource would be more successful (such as Japan and South Korea) than the one only relied on natural resources for development,” Dr Tran Du Lich, the main speaker said at an event organized at RMIT Vietnam’s Saigon South campus last month.

RMIT Vietnam’s Discipline Lead for the International Business program Dr Nguyen Quang Trung

Dr Nguyen Quang Trung, RMIT Vietnam’s Discipline Lead for the International Business program, speaker and organiser of the event said that there is a need from the strong collaboration of the education and training system to develop the human resources.

“In order to create a strong economy by its own human resources, local and international universities operating in Vietnam should have their plans to equip students for the 21^stcentury skills and knowledge, as well as insights into business trends in the world,” Dr Trung said.

“An international business program should look at developing management skills through real-life business situations and analysis of global business trends.”

“RMIT Vietnam’s Bachelor of Business (International Business) program focuses on the study of international law, global marketing, entrepreneurship, macroeconomics, finance, management and economics.” Dr Trung said.

Dr Trung provided the statistics that Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with the growth rate forecast for 2017 at 6.7%.

However, the international business environment in Vietnam still has many barriers and needs more improvements from now to 2035 year to catch up with the trend of globalisation and information age.

Advisor to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc Dr Tran Du Lich

Dr Du Lich agreed with this idea, highlighting a number of such improvements to successfully integrate into the global economy: Vietnam’s government should support the development of private enterprises, equitize state-own enterprises, improve the public investment management mechanism, speed up the process of handling bad debts, focus on expanding the economic scale and improve the quality of stock market, bonds and insurance.

Dr Nguyen Si Dung, former Deputy Head of the Office of National Assembly said Vietnam has to build a new business culture, business philosophy for the country and enterprises as well as ethics in doing business.

“In order to develop a good international business environment, we must immediately remove the short-term vision, eliminate the lack of linkage of the economy and the lack of transparency in business relations.” Dr Dung said.

The International Business Colloquium entitled International business environment in Vietnam: opportunities, challenges and how to move forward for the first time run by RMIT Vietnam’s School of Business and Management saw the attendance of many international and local company leaders, policymakers, experts, scholars and students.

The event aimed to explore the views from industry experts, policy makers and academics on the issues and challenges of international business in Vietnam.