The EuroCham Viet Nam Business Forum recently took place at the Da Nang Administrative Centre to introduce the EuroCham Whitebook 2017 entitled ‘EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement Prospects’.

The event in progress (Photo: ictdanang.vn)

The event had been co-organised by European Business Association (EuroCham) and the Da Nang Investment Promotion and Support Board.

At the event, representatives from EuroCham’s editors pointed out the difficulties faced by foreign businesses when they invest into Viet Nam’s central region, and gave detailed recommendations for handling the problems.

One of the difficulties is that foreign investors are now not allowed to develop bilingual education programmes in Viet Nam, and they have to offer international training courses instead.  In addition, there are numerous barriers that prevent regional localities from entering the high-quality international educational market.

In addition, the country is now seeing high population growth and a significant increase in the number of cars, whilst the existing infrastructure system, including parking areas and roads, has yet to meet the increasing demands from road users.

Speaking at the event, municipal People’s Committee Vice Chairman Tran Van Mien spoke highly of the usefulness of the information offered by EuroCham in helping the city authorities understand the aspirations and desires of foreign investors into Da Nang, and into the central region as a whole.

Vice Chairman Mien said he would like EuroCham to encourage more European businesses to invest in such local aspects as hi-tech industry, healthcare and education.  He pledged that the local authorities would create very favourable conditions for them to operate effectively in the city.