Vietnamese businesses fall into traps in South Asia, Africa
Vietnamese businesses fall into traps in South Asia, Africa
Vietnamese businesses have been heading towards South Asia and Africa in an effort to expand their markets. However, a lot of them have become moneyless after some business deals.
A HCM City-based company signed a contract on buying 150 tons of scrap cotton from Pakistani SG Trading Corporation.
The company accepted the seller’s requirement on the payment method, under which it would pay for the products through a bank in Pakistan.
After remitting money to the Pakistani bank, the buyer received the import consignment. However, instead of cotton, it received only stone and waste. The company then failed to contact the seller and asked for the help from the commercial division under the Vietnamese Embassy in Pakistan.
The answer the company got was that the buyer was just a “bogus” company which did not exist in reality, while the remitted money was appropriated.
The commercial divisions in African countries have repeatedly given warnings about the high risks when doing businesses with local businesses. However, the number of victims in swindling cases still has been increasing rapidly.
A Vietnamese business signed a $400,000 contract on buying Tali logs from Cameroon’s Woodventure Group via www.ceblaza.net. The buyer paid 10 percent of the contract value as required, but did not receive the delivery as scheduled and could not contact the seller.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam and Cameroon’s chamber of commerce later found out that it was a bogus company with “fabricated” address.
In August 2012, a Hanoi-based enterprise signed a contract on importing $12 million worth of scrap iron from Doctors John Metal Refinery Scrapyard (South Africa).
After that, the foreign partner, through a South African bank which issued a letter of guarantee worth $20,000, urged the Vietnamese company to remit $20,000 to it. The Vietnamese commercial division in South Africa luckily found abnormal things in the request and came to the conclusion that the foreign partner showed a falsified letter of guarantee.
Prior to that, a Vietnamese company ignored the warning by the Vietnamese commercial division in Morocco against the wood import from Savanna Wood and lost $11,000 in deposit money.
A report showed that the trade turnover between Vietnam and African markets has been increasing rapidly. In the first six months of the year, Vietnam’s exports to the markets increased by 41.7 percent over the same period of the last year, the highest growth rate among the export markets.
Vietnamese businesses have been cheated not only in unfamiliar and far markets like Africa, but also in the near and familiar ones.
According to Vu Thinh Cuong, Trade Counselor to Cambodia, Vietnamese enterprises have been invited to work as contractors or sub-contractors for infrastructure projects (hospitals, schools, roads, afforestation) in Cambodia.
In most of cases, the projects had not got capital allocated, or had been given to local businesses already. However, foreign “brokers” still worked out with Vietnamese businesses on the projects with an aim to appropriate the money the Vietnamese pay to “lobby for the projects.”
Even Vietnamese businesses sent their staff to Cambodia on field trips and also fell into the traps.
Vietnam is the fifth biggest foreign investor in Cambodia and the second biggest trade partner.
vietnamnet
