A city in a great big hurry

HO CHI MINH CITY – It is a classic case of "we are number 2 and we try harder." That’s how banker Edward Go, chairman of UCPB summed up his first impressions of the Vietnamese as we rounded up a weekend visit to this city. I can only agree.

You can feel the "can do" attitude strongly as a swarm of motorcycles race your van as signal lights turn green in any of this city’s busy intersections. You feel a kind of energy from a people whose last great achievement was to humble a superpower not too long ago. It is a kind of no nonsense approach to the business at hand.

To the Vietnamese today, nothing seems more urgent as the task of joining the ranks of Southeast Asia’s tiger economies. The war may have set them back somewhat, a distant memory, even if its lessons are something that shouldn’t be forgotten. But life must go on and there is a lot of catching up to do.

Well, catching up is something the Vietnamese people seem to be doing rather well. While it is true that we are still somewhat ahead of them now, I have no doubts that they are catching up fast and could very well be ahead of us in no time at all.

For one thing, the city once known as Saigon and now named after their number one national hero, Ho Chi Minh, is definitely back on track. It may not have an Ayala Ave. with its line of high rise buildings nor do they have a Rockwell Center type of development, but the investors are coming in fast and the highly entrepreneurial Vietnamese seems concentrated on just one thing: developing capitalism to its limit.

It is as if the Vietnamese people have a compact with their government that they can be as entrepreneurial as they want, make as much money as they want, so long as they stay out of politics. The Vietnamse communist party leaders in Hanoi are very supportive of the local business sector, they are known to go out of their way to bag a foreign investment.

For example, an article in Monday’s Vietnam News reports an agreement with a British group to send English teachers to help young Vietnamese enhance their English proficiency. The Vietnamese Deputy Education Minister was quoted as saying "Viet Nam is in urgent need of English teachers in the globalization process." He estimated that 23 million more Vietnamese must learn English. In a few years, they could be speaking English better than us.

One thing the Vietnamese have going for them is that they are not distracted by the things that consume us. They don’t have an Abu Sayyaf or an MILF or a CPP-NPA to worry about and eat resources that could be used for development. They may not have the democratic space we take for granted but even taipan Al Yuchengco was once quoted to have yearned for a rule by a benevolent dictator instead of our fratricidal politicians.

I still believe democracy isn’t anathema to economic development as the example of Europe and North America demonstrated. But one wonders if we could use some of the political discipline of the Vietnamese to help us get out of our economic and governance crisis today.

It also helps that the Vietnamese seem to have taken to capitalism like duck to water, as the Chinese did. Brian Cua, a Filipino expat running the Oiishi operations here for the last five years pointed out the micro-business phenomenon in this city. "Observe," he said, "how every street is lined with small businesses selling anything and everything."

In fact, all those thousands, maybe millions of motorcycles in Vietnamese streets are a good measure of a strongly rising middle class. Look at the faces of those dare devils who weave in and out of traffic and don’t even wear a protective helmet and you will see the face of young, upwardly mobile Vietnam. I don’t think a vast majority of these motorcycle riders were born when the last American fled Saigon from atop the US Embassy building. To them, the new Vietnam is a free Vietnam, an aspiring dragon eager to take its place among the region’s powerhouses.

Pinoy business

Pinoys are among the leading investors in Vietnam’s economic growth. Three Filipino companies are big in Vietnam today: San Miguel, United Laboratories and Liwayway Marketing, makers of the Oiishi brand of snack food. San Miguel, which has a brewery some distance from this city, is said to be looking for at least 30 hectares in an economic processing zone run by Singaporeans.

The Singaporean EPZ is also the location of Liwayway’s five-hectare factory for Oiishi brand snack food that is sold not just in Vietnam but also exported to the Middle East. Carlos Chan, the low key taipan who has established about a dozen Oiishi manufacturing plants in China, is bullish about Vietnam. They have signed up about 120 dealers to sell their brand of snack food all over Vietnam.

Oiishi’s Vietnam is now doing so well, it has been repatriating profits to Manila. They have also established a beachhead in Myanmar and is in the process of putting up a factory in Bangkok. Last I heard, Mr. Chan is also trying to organize a mission to explore the potentials of Russia.

You simply have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of a man who goes into a foreign land with nothing more than a basic knowledge of the place and pours in good money to sell a product that is almost totally unheard of. Yet, today, Oiishi is a market leader in Vietnam, fighting for its share of the market with local and foreign competitors.

But don’t worry that Mr. Chan is investing in foreign lands resources that should have been invested at home. His Manila operations are still the largest and he exports a lot too from the Philippines. And as we mentioned, profits from his overseas operations are repatriated to the Philippines, helping boost our forex reserves. It is also a thrill to see the Philippine flag flying high from atop Mr. Chan’s factory in Vietnam, as in China.

Oh, if only we can have a hundred Carlos Chans, we would be known abroad not only as reliable workers but successful job creating investors as well.

Politicians

Dr. Ernie E e-mailed us a couple of Will Rogers quotations on government and politics.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch government and report the facts.

Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they can be dangerous.

(Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected])