Comfortable with leader’s baton

Active participation in constructing the ASEAN has given big opportunities to Vietnam

What have been Vietnam’s difficulties and successes of its ASEAN chairmanship in 2010?

Doan Xuan Hung

Vietnam took over the ASEAN Chairmanship 2010 when the association was shifting to a new development stage, in which the association headed towards establishing the ASEAN Community by 2015 and its operations based on the ASEAN Charter.

The roadmap building the community has been ongoing in an environment with both advantages and challenges. The ASEAN has become a combined political and economic entity greatly important to ensuring peace, security and cooperation for the region’s development.

The bloc has become an indispensable partner of many powerful countries and organisations in the world. However, the ASEAN itself and each of its member states are all making their greatest efforts in overcoming heavy aftermaths of the global economic – financial crisis and coping with global looming challenges such as climate change, natural calamities and epidemics.

Based on its accurate assessment of ASEAN cooperation and the regional and global developments, Vietnam tabled the ASEAN’s theme of “Towards the ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action” for 2010, which was then agreed by other ASEAN member states. In which, priorities were focused on accelerating the construction of the ASEAN Community, intensifying the bloc’s external relations and ensure its centrality in the region, boosting the region’s relations for ensured regional peace and security, sustainable development, while coping with global challenges.

With its activeness and responsibility, Vietnam has advanced effective initiatives and measures to fruitfully implement the ASEAN Charter and the Roadmap to build the ASEAN Community by 2015 on its three major pillars.

In terms of political-security cooperation, Vietnam has joined hands with ASEAN members in boosting the implementation of 14 prioritised sectors, fully enhancing the effectiveness of mechanisms and cooperation tools for the regional peace and security.

As for economic cooperation, Vietnam has combined with other ASEAN member states to push forwards the implementation of programmes and norms in the process of linking and constructing an economic community, at both the national and regional levels. The ASEAN has been fruitfully carrying out the roadmaps on facilitating commerce, services and investment and reducing the region’s tariffs to between zero and 5 per cent.

The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) has also been consolidated and developed along with the signing and implementation of the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) instead of the Agreement on the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme, the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA) and the Eighth Package of Commitments under the Service Cooperation Framework.

Regarding socio-cultural cooperation, Vietnam has taken the initiative in boosting the effective implementation of the bloc’s socio-cultural community. The country has also advanced many proposals and initiatives in solving the region’s most necessary issues such as the Declaration on Economic Resilience and Sustainable Growth, the Declaration on Coping with Climate Change, the Hanoi Declaration on the Enhancement of Welfare and Development of ASEAN Women and Children.

Vietnam’s success as ASEAN Chairmanship 2010 is that the country has contributed to rivetting solidarity and unanimity within the ASEAN, intensifying the relations between the bloc and its partners, while leaving Vietnam-based fine imprints in the mind of ASEAN member states and the bloc’s partners.

With the ASEAN Chairmanship 2010, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the G-20 summit in 2010. How significant are these events to enhancing Vietnam’s role and position globally?

Vietnam was invited by G-20 member states to attend the two G-20 summits in Toronto and Seoul. The country made good contributions clearly reflecting its active role as ASEAN chairmanship, which is representative of dynamically developing economies.

Prime Minister Dung has put forwards many important initiatives and proposals. For example, besides recommending that the G-20 attach importance to supporting new-developing countries in escaping from a low-income status, he also tabled initiatives in strengthening mechanisms on consultancy and policy combination between G-20 and the region’s groups of countries and organisations, in organising a forum on coastal countries coping with climate change. Vietnam’s such initiatives have been lauded by countries and recognised in the summits’ joint documents.

Vietnam has also brilliantly accomplished its ASEAN representative role in participating in G-20 summits. This has been demonstrated via the country’s initiatives and proposals stemming from ASEAN member states’ common interests and concerns, via many consulting meetings with the states each time the summit took place. Generally speaking, ASEAN member states have highly valued Vietnam’s results in attending the G20 process in 2010, while lauding the country’s activeness in and responsibility for seeking their advice.

Vietnam has also taken advantage of partaking in G-20 summits to boost its relations with G-20 member states.

On the sidelines of the summits in Toronto and Seoul, Prime Minister Dung met with many leaders from G-20 member states in search of measures to boost the multi-faceted cooperation between Vietnam and those states.

Particularly, on the sidelines of the Seoul G20 Summit, the Vietnamese prime minister was the only ASEAN leader invited by the United Nations Secretary-General to participate in and make a speech together with some countries’ leaders at the Millennium Development Goals forum. This has reflected the fact that the United Nations and the international community have highly valued Vietnam’s development experience and active role in contributing to solving global issues.

I can say that Vietnam’s active and responsible participation in the G20 summit has contributed to affirming its capacity in undertaking international responsibilities. It has also helped enhance the country’s prestige and position in international forums, while boosting the relations between Vietnam and its partners and important international organisations in the world.

What are Vietnam’s opportunities and challenges in revving up its commercial relations with ASEAN’s intra-markets and non-ASEAN markets, after agreements such as ATIGA, ACIA and Eighth Package of Commitments under the Service Cooperation Framework are clinched?

Active participation in constructing the ASEAN Community has given big opportunities to Vietnam. If the country effectively enhances its strong points in the bloc, it can have a large foreign potential market with a population of 580 million people of all ages and from different cultures.

Also, Vietnam has faced many challenges. The completion of constructing the ASEAN Community by 2015 will drive the ASEAN into a common economic space which will have no chasms in goods, services, labour and capital. Domestic production will have to compete with cheap-price goods waves from ASEAN member states. The local labour market will also have to strongly compete with high-quality and cheap labour from these states. All of these factors will be visible challenges in the coming years.

Besides, Vietnam’s macro policies will also have to be changed in a manner suitable to the region’s common policies. The country will be greatly pressurised about the speed in implementing agreements, because the time from now until 2015 when the ASEAN Community is created is very short.

What advice can you give to Vietnam’s enterprises in maximising advantages brought in by the country’s open-door policy?

International economic integration can give advantages and opportunities and challenges to enterprises. If enterprises fail to overcome such challenges, the challenges will become bigger and bigger. As a result, the aftermaths will become all the more serious.

In fact, Vietnamese enterprises’ competitiveness remains limited. But competition is inevitable in the current market mechanism. Only with their strong determination and efforts in coping with difficulties can enterprises’ leadership firmly drive their own boats forwards.

While understanding themselves and their rivals, enterprises need to find their own way to keep themselves afloat amid strong competition at home and abroad. It is difficult to give specialised advice to each enterprise. But I think that enterprises, once joining the international market, have to accept the common rules and expand their markets with specific roadmaps.

Enterprises should strengthen their competitiveness via actively constructing and promoting their trademark, their long-term business strategy, while discerning their own strong points and the rules of the world market.

They also should develop new and high-tech products to improve their added values. At the same time, it is necessary for them to link with one another via enterprise-oriented associations for strengthened information exchanged, expanded business networks and to create confidence for customers and partners.

The government also needs to boost human resource training and development, while creating the best conditions for workers to enhance their strong points and devising special mechanisms for coaxing talents in management and hi-tech development. All of these are long-term solutions for enterprises to sustainably develop.