What do US corporate giants want in Vietnam?

Vietnam has every reason to attract US investment capital, which has great influence on other investors as American companies are known as choosy.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam has every reason to attract US investment capital, which has great influence on other investors as American companies are known as choosy.

Intel, Microsoft and other big US investors, who understand their advantages, tend to be very demanding when negotiating their investments.

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In 2014, after taking over Nokia’s smartphone production division, Microsoft decided to relocate its 39 smartphone production lines from China, Hungary and Mexico to Vietnam.

However, the giant company met difficulties in implementing the plan.

A Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) circular was released at that time, saying that used production lines can be imported to Vietnam if they have had usage time of no longer than five years, and their remaining quality was at least at a 80 percent level.

At the last minute, the ministry unexpectedly decided to delay the implementation of the legal document, a move which analysts said was just for Microsoft’s sake.

In return for this, Microsoft increased its investment capital in Vietnam, from $150 million to $300 million in 2014, while the figure is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2016.

The giant has announced a plan to set up its largest smartphone production base in Vietnam.

In another case, a US billionaire well known to many Vietnamese is the Las Vegas Sand casino baron. The group once visited Vietnam to seek opportunities to set up casinos here.

While government agencies were busy arguing how much capital casinos need to get licensed, $4 billion or $6 billion, the baron stated that the required capital of $4 billion or $6 billion doesn’t matter.

The most important things are a good legal framework and a policy that allows Vietnam to go to casinos.

The billionaire still cannot invest in Vietnam because he wants to set up a casino in HCM City instead of Van Don Economic Zone or Phu Quoc Island, as Vietnam wants.

However, Las Vegas Sand is still a name mentioned in conversations about the current US investment wave in Vietnam.

Analysts noted that US investment in Vietnam after the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) was signed in 2001 did not increase as much as Vietnam’s exports to the US did.

However, counting US investment to Vietnam through third countries, the real figure far exceeds the reported $11 billion.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), with $11 billion worth of registered foreign direct investment, the US ranks seventh among 101 foreign investors in Vietnam.

Pham Huyen