A businessman and CEO of a Vietnamese export company spent over ten years in Myanmar to witness the country’s lifestyle and live a normal life with locals. What he got out of this was the friendship and confidence of local friends.

This is the root to begin any relationship with Myanmarese people, and possibly anywhere in the world. From this base, he has taken over many projects that are developing Vietnam’s paddy grains in Myanmar and the first-ever license for mine exploitation.

He is Nguyen Van Thanh, chairman of the board of directors of the Viettranimex International Trading Company, based in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, Thanh is modest in talking about his business success in Myanmar, only describing his ‘perfect result in individual ties with Myanmarese friends’.

A meeting of destiny

Thanh called his meeting with the agriculture minister of Myanmar in 2010 ‘destiny’, though he had worked and lived in the Southeast Asian nation – which recently stepped out of 50 years of isolation from the world – for more than ten years beforehand.

After the meeting, his business in Myanmar reached new milestones and became well ‘attached’ to the nation, Thanh recalled.

Before leaving Vietnam following the 2010 visit, U Myint Hlaing, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, told Thanh in the waiting hall of Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport, “I do desire that the agricultural field of Myanmar can reap the same results as Vietnam’s has.”

Over ten years in Myanmar gives Thanh the knowledge that Vietnam and Myanmar share similarities in agriculture. So, before saying goodbye to the minister, Thanh promised, “If you give me the chance, within two months, I will send my most qualified experts and paddy grains to Myanmar to produce seed rice grains.”

Thanks to assistance from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Vietnam National Seed Corporation, Thanh led a delegation of agricultural experts to Myanmar and was given full assistance to carry out the project.

Once the project was underway, the minister and the President of Myanmar visited the field in person many times. The minister brought with him local fruit and sometimes beer for the Vietnamese experts. And the result was ‘perfect’, said Thanh.

“The rice grains of Vietnam produced an impressive yield of 9-10 tons of rice per hectare. A flower of rice creates 1,200 grains, which was a record in Myanmar then,” Thanh recalled.

On publicly announcing the result, Ph.D. Tin Tut – headmaster of Myanmar’s Yezin agriculture university – confirmed that, “The productivity of the seed rice from Vietnam outdoes the ones from the Philippines and China. The rice from the seed best suits the taste of the Myanmarese as well.”

It was this friendship with locals and confidence from State officials that gave Thanh more and more business chances, including the approval of the Myanmarese government for mine exploitation – the first ever in the nation.

Viettranimex contributed 40 percent in the three-partner project to exploit Myanmarese marble – among the highest quality in the world. Site construction and the import of machines are almost completed, and the first batch of marble is expected in August this year.

Trust in Vietnam

A government official in Myanmar who is a friend of Thanh told him that Vietnamese enterprises are rated at the top by his government based on confidence, Thanh said.

“I believe he is honest in saying that, Myanmarese people are honest,” he added.

Before 2010, life in Myanmar was difficult and people suffered lives of deprivation due to isolation. It was even difficult to find a good place to stay and eat, Thanh recalled.

A friend in need is a friend indeed. Trust comes inevitably.

In March last year, minister Hlaing asked Thanh to boil some corn reaped on the field of Vietnam’s seeds and brought it to a meeting of his government to to show off the results and boast the corn’s quality.

“I was told that the minister said the corn seed from Vietnam produce a delicious product,” Thanh said.

The researcher and university headmaster, Tin Tut, told Thanh, “You, Vietnamese experts came here and worked with us to create qualified seeds in our time of difficulty. You have differentiated yourself from others who come here only for the sake of our market.”