Taking the CBI industry in Vietnam to new heights
Taking the CBI industry in Vietnam to new heights
Harvey Law Group (HLG), a leading multinational immigration and business law firm, is diversifying its activities in Vietnam. On the occasion of the company’s 10th anniversary in August, VIR’s Bich Ngoc spoke to Jean-François Harvey, managing partner and founder of HLG, about the firm’s achievement and its future development strategy in Vietnam.
HLG has spent 10 years in Vietnam; what do you think about HLG’s position in the Citizenship By Investment (CBI) industry, which is increasing rapidly in Vietnam?
HLG was the first law firm to truly open the CBI industry in Vietnam, with full-time locally based lawyers able to provide on-demand services to our clients. As such, we have been able to establish a solid reputation founded upon our commitment to legal excellence, professional integrity, and transparency in working with our clients.
Although we have always been very selective about the clients we choose to represent, our long history of delivering successful outcomes speaks for itself. We are absolutely grateful to our clients for their ongoing trust and support that has allowed HLG to take the lion’s share of the market, but we also recognise that we must continually fight to maintain our position at the top. Unfortunately, the absence of standardised regulations in Vietnam and the abundance of pseudo-professionals in the field (including many self-proclaimed “experts”) have caused real damage to clients and the greater CBI industry.
What were some milestones and key achievements in HLG’s 10 years in Vietnam?
While HLG has been privileged to work with both foreign and local companies on some of the country’s most significant commercial mandates, what we consider to be one of our most important achievements is raising and setting the bar on how professional services for CBI are rendered in Vietnam.
We believe that a big part of our success comes from combining international expertise with local insight, and it has always been an important part of our practices to respect Vietnamese culture and customs. In each of our three Vietnam offices, 95 per cent of the HLG teams are local employees, which have greatly contributed to our overall strength in Vietnam.
Did the potential and growth of the market live up to what HLG expected when you decided to do business in Vietnam 10 years ago?
Indeed, the potential and growth of the Vietnamese market have followed our predictions from 10 years ago, when we first started our business in Vietnam. As a matter of fact, the growth has been so strong that Vietnam is one of our top markets in Southeast Asia.
We continue to be optimistic that the CBI industry will soon be regulated and legitimised in Vietnam so that our projection for the next 10 years will be reached.
In the current CBI industry, how is HLG supporting the Vietnamese business community? What are key programmes on which HLG is consulting for Vietnamese investors?
The choice of CBI programmes is a deeply personal and subjective process, so we cannot simply highlight just one or two programmes. While our clients’ main objectives are often to use CBI to expand their business opportunities, ease travel restrictions, and/or improve their standard of living, ultimately, each of our clients have different desires and objectives and the best CBI programme is the programme that fits their needs.
At HLG, we do not stop at only helping clients with obtaining their CBI product, but we will also work with our clients on meeting their business goals to ensure that they are ready to face the business environment outside of Vietnam.
Could you tell us about HLG’s plans for the next five years?
Having just spent 10 years in Vietnam, we have been deeply appreciative of the warm reception we have been given by Vietnam and we hope to be here for as long as possible. We intend to continue to develop our practice in Vietnam and, if all goes well, we look forward to sharing our reflections again 10 years from now.
For HLG globally, we are continuing our efforts to expand in Asia and have our sights set on other continents as well.
