As Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization from January 2007, Danish shipbuilding companies are ready to jump on to a ship that is said to go far. The last week a large shipbuilding seminar in Vietnam was ‘a great success’, according to the Danish Ambassador to Vietnam.
Shipbuilders meet and greet
During the last week 24 Danish shipbuilding companies have visited Vietnam in an effort to gain value from Vietnam’s entry into the WTO. A seminar co-hosted by Vinashin – the public shipbuilding company of Vietnam, The Danish Marine Group under The Danish Export Credit Foundation and The Danish Embassy in Hanoi. The meetings and seminar took place in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with the participation of 135 representatives of the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry.
According to the Danish Ambassador to Vietnam Peter Lysholt Hansen, who has joined the seminar, the Danish companies were very keen on getting aboard the Vietnamese ship: “It has been a great success and with the new ‘shopping line’ and the foundation of the Danish Vietnamese Marine Club, I believe we will see a strengthening of the previous cooperation between the industries of our two countries”, the Ambassador says.
The shopping line that the Ambassador is referring to is the $ 40 million credit agreement between The Danish Marine Group and Vietnamese companies. It means that the Vietnamese can buy Danish goods for the shipbuilding industry with loans from the international bank HSBC which will be guaranteed by the Danes.
Vietnam joins the club of trade
From January 2007 Vietnam has joined the World Trade Organization which according to the Ambassador means that the Vietnamese have agreed to ‘play by the rules’. “But the business climate does not change over night”, says the Ambassador. “Vietnam is still a developing country and there are still barriers and bureaucracy in the country”, he says.
The country might have a BNP per capita of only $ 700 pr year, but what it lacks in purchasing power it gains in governmental ambition. Vietnam wants to be the world’s fourth biggest shipbuilding nation after China, Japan and Korea.
