VCCI Highlights in 2006

Chairmanship of APEC CEO Summit 2006 and Doing Business with Vietnam Forum
VCCI was designated by the Prime Minister to organise the APEC CEO Summit 2006 and the Doing Business with Vietnam Forum. The APEC CEO Summit 2006 was attended by nearly 1,000 delegates who were leaders of corporations and organisations from 21 APEC member economies. Besides, the Doing Business with Vietnam Forum generated a lot of exchanges, meetings and business cooperation opportunities for Vietnamese companies and those from other APEC member economies.

Organisation of Vietnam Days in Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK
Based on the success of the Vietnam Days Programmes in the US, Germany and Singapore in 2005, the Prime Minister assigned VCCI to instruct and cooperate with relevant bodies to organise the Vietnam Days in the UK, Belgium and Luxembourg in 2006. The main topics of these programmes were trade, investment and tourism promotion forums for companies of Vietnam and those countries; seminars on foreign direct investment into Vietnam; meetings for companies of Vietnam and those countries; market surveys in those countries; and photo exhibitions to introduce the land and people of Vietnam. These programmes generated many valuable contracts for companies between Vietnam and these countries.

Organisation of ABAC 2006 meetings
The APEC Business Advisory Council 2006 (ABAC), chaired by First Deputy Chairman of VCCI and Chairman of ABAC Vietnam Hoang Van Dung, hosted many meetings and discussions to put forth recommendations and cooperation of businesses, which were sent to the governments of the APEC member economies. The ABAC's recommendations were highly appreciated by APEC economic leaders. The highlight of the ABAC efforts was the appeal for the successful conclusion of Doha negotiation round of the WTO. At the same time, the ABAC also urged governments to increase transparency and improve the policy environment for businesses.

Honour to businesses and businesspeople
In 2006, the VCCI organised a ceremony to pay a compliment to 100 outstanding entrepreneurs and "golden lotuses" of Vietnam. Within the framework of the ceremony were the meetings to exchange management experience and corporate culture building. The VCCI also carried out the programme "Offering suggestions for the strategy and target of development of 500,000 enterprises."

In addition, the VCCI organised many cultural exchange activities for entrepreneurs, such as Golf VCCI Tournament and Tennis Tournament for businesspeople. These activities not only helped tighten the close relation between the VCCI and the business community but also generated many chances for businesspeople to exchange and study mutual experience.

Organisation of Summit on Creativity
This was a programme under the framework of the APEC activities. The initiative of organising the summit was originated from the common declaration of the 13th APEC Summit which took place in Busan, South Korea in 2005 and emphasised the importance of creativity and modern technology sharing among member economies in the following years. Therefore, the Government designated the VCCI to work with relevant ministries and branches to host this event.

The very national creativity strategy was the groundwork for Vietnam's successful implementation of these targets. Vietnam was also regarded as a country with numerous advantages to boost up creativeness, in which the six most outstanding advantages were high learning standard, high skill, creativity, competitive price structure, young population and strategic geographic location.

Survey in business licence situation
The Prime Minister always emphasises the importance of the administrative procedure reform, especially requiring relevant bodies to quickly check the entire licence system and submit the result to the Government and the National Assembly. The VCCI joined hands with competent organs to carry many programmes to study and examine the licence system and submit the result to the Government. Particularly, the VCCI cooperated with the Central Institute of Economic Management to build and collect opinions from specialists and companies about the Decree on Management of Business Licence System. Recently, the VCCI together with other units to check 37 types of valid business licences in the country. The examination was mainly aimed to detect shortcomings of the valid licenses and propose suitable solutions.

Publication of Integration Manual
After more than one year's study and compilation cooperation with relevant bodies and experts, the VCCI introduced the Integration Manual to the business community in February 2006. This manual provided necessary knowledge of the integrating economy.

With the cooperation of senior experts in various fields, the manual with more than 30,000 pages is a useful and updated source of information featuring with typical pictures. The content of the manual comprises of five parts covering five fields of information; namely, Integration - the basic knowledge, business suitcase, Vietnamese trade laws an international trade practices, integration and intellectual property issue, and market profile. The five contents are available in CD-ROM and on website at http://www.hoinhap.com.vn.

Implementation of IT application project for enterprises
The Project 191 "Assisting businesses to apply IT to serve the integration and development in the 2005-2010 period" was approved by the Government in July 2005, which assigned the VCCI to work with relevant bodies to implement the project. A lot of business-assisted IT application activities, especially activities related to information support, IT training and ecommerce training were frequently organised by the VCCI.

Apart from the Project 191, the VCCI was also designated by the Government to carry out the "project to implement the master plan for ecommerce development in the 2006-2010 period," which features the target of dissemination of ecommerce to the business community and gradual provision of assistance and training of ecommerce knowledge and application to businesses.

Investigation and ratings of provincial competitiveness index
To promote the successful results in 2005, the VCCI continued coordinating with VNCI to investigate and rate the provincial competitiveness index (PCI) in 2006 - a yardstick for business environment. The PCI assesses and rates provincial and municipal authorities in building a favourable business environment to develop the private economic sector. The index is the mirror for the local authorities and the comparative database for investors to pick up investment locations.

With 6,300 private enterprises in all 64 provinces and cities attending the poll, the PCI is a gauge of business environment and a tool for local governments to improve themselves.

Launching of the VN-EU Business Forum
Under the instruction of the Prime Minister to the establishment of the Vietnam-European Union Business Forum to boost mutual economic and commercial ties, the VCCI joined hands with the EuroCham in Vietnam to organise the launching of the Vietnam-EU Business Forum and Conference in May 2005 in Hanoi.

This event generated opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises to contact and explore cooperation chances with more than 100 EU companies operating in Vietnam. In addition, businesses also had direct talks with representatives from the Government, the National Assembly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade as well as diplomatic and commercial representatives from 25 EU member countries.

• N.Thoa - L.Anh