Word: vietnamize
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...What could be bad for domestic businesses is welcomed by many Vietnamese consumers. Le To Nga, 65, lived through the Vietnam War and stood in line for ration cards in the 1980s. Today, she's happily filling her shopping cart at Big C, a vast new supermarket on Hanoi's outskirts run by France's Casino Group in a joint venture with a local company. Shopping "is not a matter of patriotism at all," Nga says. "These days, we just buy what we like." Foreign giants entering Vietnam will likely create as many or more jobs than they'll destroy...
...While local businesses gear up for the fight, Vietnam's government will have to move fast to bring its legal system and infrastructure up to speed if the country hopes to attract more multinationals. Running a factory in Vietnam can be a frustrating proposition. Electricity production is barely meeting demand, which is growing at 15% per year. Roads and ports are increasingly congested. Nike Vietnam's general manager Amanda Tucker says the company's containers sometimes sit on the dock for 24 hours before shipping out. Because Vietnam has no deep-water port to handle the new larger "super-container...
...Perhaps Vietnam's biggest adjustment in joining the global economy will be changing its ingrained culture of corruption, secrecy and state intervention. The government recently enacted extensive new laws covering enterprise, investment and securities, which would boost protection for private businesses and increase transparency. Still, it will take time to train thousands of bureaucrats to apply rules fairly. The country ranks in the bottom third of Transparency International's corruption index; a recent government inspection of state ministries uncovered 1,700 graft cases in the first nine months of this year. Some investors grumble the government is still...
...wrong. Incombank won't comment, and Vietnamese authorities haven't said exactly which banking regulations have been broken. But what has sent a chill through the foreign investment community is that local Hanoi police?not state banking regulators?are running the investigation. "The rule of law is manipulated in Vietnam to serve interests rather than as an objective force," Thayer says. If foreign companies can't be confident they'll get fair treatment, "it will make people more hesitant to invest...
...Vietnamese leaders must be asking a similar question: now that the country is a WTO member, will it be treated with fairness by the international trading community? By joining the WTO, Vietnam hopes to become free from trade restrictions such as garment quotas that in the past have constrained its exports to the U.S. and Europe. Textile manufacturing employs 2 million Vietnamese and is the country's largest export earner after crude oil. But Vietnam's trade relations with the West have sometimes been prickly. The U.S. in recent years has imposed antidumping tariffs on Vietnamese shrimp and catfish...