Vietnam, a promising country of 84 million people, has becomes a magnet for the foreign investors and becomes the second fast growing market in Asia. It gained a high GDP growth rate of 8.5% in 2007 according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Apart from this remarkable figure, Vietnamese manufacturing sectors and exports have gradually reached better figures of 15% and 25% per year respectively.
Development of Industry Zones (IZ’s) is one of the key instruments for accelerating industrialization and modernization as well as transforming the economic structure of Ho Chi Ming City in particular. As the result, high-tech manufacturing and high-value services, state-owned factories, auto-parts manufacturing plants particularly are willing to invest in newly developed machinery and technologies. This is why one realized that over 3 billion US dollars of machinery and equipment purchase has been spent annually, and is expected to be doubled in next few years.
United state and Vietnam signed up a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) that keynotes the economic take off in Vietnam. In addition, Vietnam enters Asia Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), granting of preferential duties, lowering or cancellation of non-preferential duties that facilitate easier flow of goods within amongst ASEAN countries, the export increase also speeds up foreign investment.
After becoming the WTO member in 207, Vietnam starts to enjoy access to all WTO members’ goods and service markets on lower tariffs or so on, Vietnam’s goods export revenue climb to more than US$39 billion in the first ten months of 2007, up 18.6% on year, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
In 2007 Vietnam attracted record Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of US$10.2 billion, and it has chance to reach 20% growth in 2008. It shows that more and more foreigners consider Vietnam as an emerging market with great potential as well as a perfect marketplace in industrial machinery and equipment. In the mean time, Vietnam has become a manufacturing hub in Asia, facing numerous opportunities & challenges of globalization.
Certainly it’s the best time and platform for global machinery and equipment manufacturers and suppliers to penetrate into Vietnam market.
