China-based Japanese firms eye opportunities in Ho Chi Minh City
China-based Japanese firms eye opportunities in Ho Chi Minh City
A delegation of Japanese businesses paid a visit to Ho Chi Minh City on Friday to look for opportunities in the Vietnamese market, after 20 years of successful investment in China.
The business group was led by Amano Shinya, director of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in the Chinese city of Guangzhou.
At a meeting with Ho Chi Minh City deputy chairman Le Thanh Liem, Shinya said the market study trip will help Japanese companies find new investment chances in Vietnam to balance their business in China.
There are now some 3,000 Japanese businesses in Guangzhou, similar to the number in Vietnam, according to the JETRO official.
However, those companies in China began experience hardship when labor cost started to rise following the amendment of the Chinese labor law in 2008, Shinya added.
The China-based Japanese businesses have therefore started to study the investment environment in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City since last year for production relocation and risk spreading.
In response, deputy chairman Liem said that as Vietnam’s southern economic hub Ho Chi Minh City always welcomes foreign investors, including those from Japan.
He added that the municipal authorities have already facilitated Japanese enterprises in the city for many years.
Liem also underlined that the city’s administration has enacted numerous measures to improve administrative procedure in licensing investment projects and to boost the municipal economy’s competitiveness.
Many industrial parks in Ho Chi Minh City currently have readily available premises to welcome Japanese businesses, according to the deputy chairman.
Japan is the sixth largest foreign investor in the southern metropolis, with 900 projects worth a total of US$3 billion.
