The school focuses on business and IT. Operations began in 2001, they enroll up to 400 students a year and have 3000 students under the school. The school follows the American system of education, after all, they are linked to the HCCS system or the Houston Community College System. Like our local polytechnics, the school is project based, and encourage their students to learn through hands on projects and industry attachment programs.
The school has a very high selection criteria for the students. Students are evaluated by taking several tests. They have to first take a Vietnamese equivalent of the SATs paper, then go for an interview. They would also have to take a Mathematics SAT paper before taking an English written test. The students would also have to pass their TOFEL with 550 points or more.
Such is the dedication to equip their students with the English Language that if students are caught speaking Vietnamese or any language besides English, they would have 2% of their GPA cut off! In fact they have signage everywhere along the corridors which reminds students to speak English.
On the way to our next destination, Carh was telling us that the Vietnamese government have changed their labour laws to decrease working hours. This is to encourage the Vietnamese to go out and spend more. They also have 3 to 6 months of parental leave to encourage further spending.
Besides that, the Vietnamese government has also relaxed the laws pertaining to the stock market. In fact now the government is encouraging its people to invest in local firms to help them grow. Exciting times for Vietnamese I must say.
Next we went to the Ho Chi Minh Wholesale Centre. It is a show room which displays products manufactured by local producers. According to Carh, the tenants of the wholesale Centre only have to pay a nominal fee for them to print out the advertisement. This is an effort by the government to help its people out. Those tenants are producers with needs. For example the handicrafts are produced by the disabled. However, there are quality control measures as well. Those who want to apply for a display lot in the wholesale centre must meet certain quality standards. All items on display must be ordered in bulk.
We had some time to spare to visit the Reunification Palace today. It was really interesting to be at a place which holds such great historical significance. We stood at the gates where the tanks crashed through, which forced the President to surrender. The palace itself was grand with many rooms, even underground bunkers to protect the president from bombings. We watched a 45 minute video of the coup before we went back to the hotel to prepare for the networking dinner with the Singapore Business Group.
It is an informal business group formed 10 years ago, to foster a home-away-from-home and to help Singaporean businessmen learn from past experiences. They are actively involved in charity work too.
Those present were Mr. Goh Boon Keen, Mr. Benjamin Yap, Mr. Kim Kian Tat, Mr. S K Niar and Mr. Peter Chong. My group was joined by Mr. Yap for dinner. He's a lawyer from a Singapore law firm and he gave us many practical advise on investing in Vietnam.
We were told to have an open mind about Vietnam and not come with any preconceived ideas. We must learn how to take calculated risks too, but first we must understand the environment and culture of Vietnam. It helps greatly to understand the laws and regulations pertaining to the industries too.
One thing about the Vietnamese is that they are genuinely nice people, and they don't like to disappoint people, therefore they may say "yes" to demands which they know can't be met. And it may cause some problems when it comes to deadlines and the projects are left unfinished.
One piece of advise I would take with me is that things do not work the same way as back in Singapore. And doing business overseas is even harder because the parent company does not understand the constraints and situations faced by those in the foreign company.
I personally am interested in law, and it was a pleasure to listen to Mr. Yap tell us his stories on how the legal system works here and how does international law work in general. I learnt that the Vietnamese adopted their legal system from the French, Chinese and the Soviets. They do not practice the law of precedence and go by a case by case basis. It was interesting to note that foreigners are not allowed to attend court, so Mr. Yap has his assistant to represent him.
Dinner for once was superb. We had Chinese food!
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