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In a recent survey, conducted by Vietnam Works a leading on line job search and recruitment website, it was noted that the demand for employees in the Information Technology (IT) sector has doubled in the last 3 years.

The number of new SME’s continues to grow at a healthy rate with approximately 14,500 new enterprises established in the first 2 months of 2017, a year on year growth of 3.9%. In this period the registered capital of these newly established firms was US$ 6.7 billion an increase of 35% against the same period as last year. With over 600,000 registered SME’s and growing at over 100,000 per annum SME’s are an important sector of the economy. However the number of firms ceasing operations or closing has not been insignificant but over the last 12-18 months the number resuming operations has been increasing.

On Friday, last week, I attended a meeting between Dr Liam Fox the UK Secretary of State for International Trade and the Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong. The Secretary of State was also accompanied by HMA Giles Lever and The Consul General Ian Gibbons.

ASEAN was in itself a US$ 2.4 trillion economy in 2015 making it the 5th largest in the world. The Asian Economic Community (“AEC”) came into being at the end of 2015/start of 2016 but seems to have been overshadowed by all the talk of TPP and EU Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh recently commented Vietnam is currently trying to direct foreign investor interest to innovative, environmentally projects. The focus is now shifting away from labour intensive industries that use a lot of natural resources to more high tech sectors and looking to foreign firms working more closely with local firms to build higher value chains

With the likely demise of the Trans Pacific Partnership (“TPP”), following g the withdrawal by the USA, the big question is how will this impact Vietnam and what it means for the bi-lateral Vietnam –USA relationship. Whether or not Vietnam will lose its attraction in terms of FDI, is not in my opinion directly related to TPP, although we did see some US investment on the back of the expected TPP, but more to do with how foreign investors perceive the investment environment in Vietnam and the ease of doing business.

Mergers and Acquisitions continue to be buoyant Vietnam continues to see foreign interest in the M & A market, with significant interest and completed deals in 2016, from Thai firms, in particular. Of the US$24.4 billion committed last year in Foreign Direct Investment US$ 3.4 billion was from M & A, according to the General Statistics Office.

If you live in Vietnam or visit the country, particularly the major cities, have you ever wondered about the apparent level of disposable income relative to the reported average per capita income of US$ 2,200 per annum or less than US$ 200 per month. The average figures for Hanoi and HCMC are over US$ 5,000 per annum. Overseas remittances to Vietnam are running at a level of US$ 12-13 billion per annum or about 80-90% of the remitted foreign direct investment. This is also equivalent to more than 7% of GDP.

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