Vo Tan Thanh, Director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI)’s Ho Chi Minh City Branch, held that Vietnam and Hong Kong are key major trade partners of each other with bilateral trade reaching US$9.2 billion in 2017, up 22% from 2016. 

As of June 2018, Hong Kong was the sixth largest foreign investor in Vietnam with a total capital of nearly US$19 billion, he said.

With the ASEAN-Hong Kong free trade agreement, trade and investment between Vietnam and Hong Kong are both expected to grow fiercely in the near future. Vietnam is encouraging firms to expand investment abroad to popularise Vietnamese products across the world.

 

Thanh hailed Hong Kong as a free, developed economy with a strategic location, modern infrastructure, and large capital inflows. 
According to him, if Vietnamese enterprises venture onto this market, they could access a massive capital source and tap into one of the world’s busiest seaports, thereby bringing goods to even further markets. 

Stephen Phillips, General Director of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong (IK), said Hong Kong is calling for investment in the fields of financial services, consumer goods, transportation and industry, tourism-restaurant-hotels, technological innovation, and innovative industries. 

He lauded Hong Kong for its active international business environment, convenient business registration procedures, modern infrastructure, and low tariffs, adding that it now has a mechanism to provide support for newly-established and mature firms, from planning and opportunity evaluation to visa application and marketing. 

Phillips said business opportunities in Hong Kong are widespread for Vietnamese enterprises. However, other issues should be considered, including high office rent, workforce costs, and intense competition with other multinational corporations, he noted.

Therefore, the IK representative suggested opening sales, marketing, and financial offices in Hong Kong to tap into existing advantages in managing supply chains, while placing logistics facilities and warehouses elsewhere in order to save costs.

Source: vov.vn