The bus ride to Vihn Phuc province was 2 hours long. We passed by many agricultural plantations and the roads got bumpy-ier and narrower as we travelled further from the Capital. We arrived at a grand governmental building. To be honest, it looked a little war torn and bare. Perhaps they have not finished renovating it yet. We were ushered into the conference room where it was really grand. Power suits, microphones and Caahng as our professional translator, I must admit I was a little nervous when giving my first official introduction of our Ngee Ann Delegation. Speaking to the Vice Chairman of the province was a huge honour.
I understand that the province is looking to tourism and manufacturing to improve the province's economy. A Genting theme resort style hotel cum gaming centre is being mooted to the east of Vihn Phuc province where it overlooks scenic mountains and lakes. According to the Vice-Chairman, the province is undergoing tremendous improvements to the economy, growing at 17-20% per year and is the fastest growing province in Vietnam. In fact the reason for the bumpy roads leading to Vhin Phuc is that land is being reclaimed to build newer and better roads. Construction is a big opportunity in this province.
He spoke of the needs to further improve the infrastructure as quality has still much to be desired. Vihn Phuc has undergone tremendous change over the past 10 years. From 90% agriculture based economy to 85% manufacturing now. Average annual income has increased nearly seven-fold, from $US 160 to $US 730. This breakneck pace of development is expected to continue until 2020. I think this truly highlights the persistence of the Vietnamese to improve their standard of living. They are prepared to leave their homes on the farm to work in towns and manufacturing plants to earn a better income.
Problems faced by the governors of Vihn Phuc include clearing agricultural land to build infrastructure. Farmers are still struggling to adapt to a new way of life in urban areas. Services such as financial banks and human resource is also lacking. Besides improving the economy, environmental protection remains an area for concern too.
Clearly planning for the future, the Vice Chairman has bigger plans for Vihn Phuc, which he hopes that in 10 years time, his province will be the IT Hub of Vietnam. I think that this highlights the ambition and foresight of the Vietnamese.
From the Vice Chairman's comments, I can sense that the Vietnamese government is actively encouraging foreigners to invest in Vietnam, since he was strongly encouraging us to come back to Vietnam after our studies to invest in his country.
He ended of by giving a very good quote, about the problems of balancing the backbone of Vietnam which is agriculture, and yet promoting business.
"With no business, there can be no money, and with no money there can be no happiness. Yet without rice, the people will be hungry and will not be prosperous either."
After that we went straight to Honda manufacturing plant, which took another good 45 mins. We got delayed a further 10 minutes because of a road block. Apparently, our bus was going against the traffic on the same dirt path. I was truly amazed that our tour bus managed to get us into the compound as the dirt path is only big enough for 2 motorbikes to travel on by Singapore road safety standards.
We were briefed in class that Vietnamese can transport anything on their tiny mopeds. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see this man squeeze in a dozen dogs into a metal basket and load it at the back of the motorcycle. I feel really sorry for the dogs.
We arrived at the Honda factory and were given a short presentation by the CFO. He is a very detailed person. He prepared charts of his company's growth, and even sized up his competition by charting themselves against their competitors.
One problem that he highlighted was that the government sometimes can be quite interfering with their regulations. Such changes in their polices have included caps on production and imposing a Special Consumption Tax, SCT, (similar to our COE) on cars, which makes it less viable for consumers to purchase motor vehicles. However, it still is viable to produce vehicles in Vietnam since the government imposes an 85% tax on importing vehicles and Honda can save on these import duties.
Honda have played their part well in CSR. They have participated in charity shows, traffic awareness programs and even come up with a "cooler" design for motorcycle helmets to encourage Vietnames to wear their helmets after conducting a survey which found out that the number one reason why Vietnamese people do not wear helmets is because it is unfashionable.
We then toured the factory, seeing how many bikes were being produced. Around 900 motorbikes are produced daily, which is quite remarkable.
Everything snowballed and by the time we finished lunch, it was nearly 3 O'clock. We drove back to Yahama which took another 45 mins. Our meeting with the Yahama director was at 1:30, and being 2 hours late, the production manager clearly wasn't too impressed. We had a quick 15 min tour of the production facilities.
I was so exhausted that I was quite relieved to reach the end of the day.
After that we went straight to Honda manufacturing plant, which took another good 45 mins. We got delayed a further 10 minutes because of a road block. Apparently, our bus was going against the traffic on the same dirt path. I was truly amazed that our tour bus managed to get us into the compound as the dirt path is only big enough for 2 motorbikes to travel on by Singapore road safety standards.
We were briefed in class that Vietnamese can transport anything on their tiny mopeds. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see this man squeeze in a dozen dogs into a metal basket and load it at the back of the motorcycle. I feel really sorry for the dogs.
We arrived at the Honda factory and were given a short presentation by the CFO. He is a very detailed person. He prepared charts of his company's growth, and even sized up his competition by charting themselves against their competitors.
One problem that he highlighted was that the government sometimes can be quite interfering with their regulations. Such changes in their polices have included caps on production and imposing a Special Consumption Tax, SCT, (similar to our COE) on cars, which makes it less viable for consumers to purchase motor vehicles. However, it still is viable to produce vehicles in Vietnam since the government imposes an 85% tax on importing vehicles and Honda can save on these import duties.
Honda have played their part well in CSR. They have participated in charity shows, traffic awareness programs and even come up with a "cooler" design for motorcycle helmets to encourage Vietnames to wear their helmets after conducting a survey which found out that the number one reason why Vietnamese people do not wear helmets is because it is unfashionable.
We then toured the factory, seeing how many bikes were being produced. Around 900 motorbikes are produced daily, which is quite remarkable.
Everything snowballed and by the time we finished lunch, it was nearly 3 O'clock. We drove back to Yahama which took another 45 mins. Our meeting with the Yahama director was at 1:30, and being 2 hours late, the production manager clearly wasn't too impressed. We had a quick 15 min tour of the production facilities.
I was so exhausted that I was quite relieved to reach the end of the day.
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