Enterprises seek overseas foothold

In early 2010, the military telecom group Viettel announced that it had bought a 60 per cent stake in the Haiti telecom company, Natcom, and jointly with other foreign investors won a US$29 million contract to provide mobile phone services in Mozambique.

The company expected the two projects to help promote the image of Viettel as well as other Vietnamese businesses in the local markets.

Viettel has also enjoyed success with Metfone in Cambodia and Unitel in Laos.

Meanwhile, national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines entered a joint venture with the Cambodian Royal Government to establish Cambodia Angkor Air with $51 million in investment capital.

National oil and gas group PetroVietnam is pouring $2.35 billion into 25 oil and gas exploration and development projects in Russia, Venezuela and other countries in Latin America and North Africa.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, since 1998 Vietnamese enterprises have invested in 558 projects in “strange” and “difficult” markets with a combined registered capital of over $7.56 billion.

However, small scale investment by these companies brought few benefits. The benefits and capital recovery in many of the projects have been low, averaging just 0.46 per cent in the 1989-2010 period.

Viettel only announced its benefits in 2010, four years after first investing in Laos and Cambodia.

Phan Huu Thang, former director of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that all investment projects needed time, especially those in oil and gas, hydro-power, telecoms and forestry. Benefits depended on the scale of investment, project duration and the local investment environment, he said.

Thang expressed optimism that together with the development of businesses, overseas investment from Viet Nam would certainly be more eventful and effective in the future. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam companies, Vietnam enterprises