Global corporation leaders expressed their desire to cooperate with Vietnam on a variety of fields, including agriculture and digital citizenship, as they gathered in Hanoi for the 2018 World Economic Forum on ASEAN (WEF ASEAN).

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc hosted a dialogue with around 20 of those leaders on Wednesday, besides separate receptions for Alex Dimitrief, President and CEO of General Electric Company (GE)’s Global Growth Organization, Google’s President of Asia-Pacific Karim Temsamani and Carlsberg’s CEO Cees't Hart.

Google’s Vietnam Digital 4.0 program

In the discussion with Temsamani, PM Phuc said that with the population of nearly 100 million people, Vietnam has great potential for developing information and technology, which is identified as one of the priorities for industrialization and modernization of the country.

The Vietnamese leader hoped that Google will join the country in the development of information and technology, especially in terms of start-ups, human resource, and investment in research and growing technology ecosystems in Vietnam.

At the same time, Google should pay more attention to maintaining the cultural identity of Vietnamese people, in the context of Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, Phuc suggested.

In return, Temsamani anticipated that with its available foundation and clear development orientation, Vietnam will benefit from economy digitization, during which Google is willing to support the Southeast Asian country.

The Google representative asserted that the corporation had set the target of training 500,000 Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SME) on digital skills for free until 2020, in its Vietnam Digital 4.0 program.

Its aim is to help these SMEs increase their competitive advantage and develop business opportunities in the digital economy.

In addition, Google also committed to more contribution to building a technology ecosystem in Vietnam, the Asia-Pacific president said.

Especially, the firm will have initiatives to help Vietnamese farmers digitize their agricultural production, to support people working in creation and production areas to promote their products more effectively, to more audience through its video-sharing website YouTube.

In a separate development, Simon Milner, Facebook's vice-president of public policy for Asia-Pacific, also told PM Phuc in the morning dialogue that the U.S. company is committed to long-term presence in Vietnam.

The world’s top social networking site wants to join the local government's vision of a digital nation, engaging in the four fields of digital citizenship, digital economy, digital government and digital connection.

The corporate will also work with Vietnamese enterprises, especially support and cooperate with SMEs and start-ups, the Facebook representative said.

Carlsberg and GE’s investments in Vietnam

In his reception for the Carlsberg CEO, PM Phuc said Vietnam’s government is stepping up in equitization process and divesting capital at state-owned enterprises in accordance with the principle of market transparency and openness, which is an opportunity for foreign investors, including the Denmark-based brewery group.

With Carlsberg interested in the privatization at Habeco, one of Vietnam's biggest brewers, the premier suggested that the two parties soon discuss and address bottlenecks to promote equity purchases and strategic cooperation agreements.

As Habeco's strategic investor since 2008, Carlsberg has worked with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Vietnamese authorities to accelerate this process, the CEO told PM Phuc.

Speaking at the same reception, Dimitrief, the GE representative, said that the U.S. conglomerate shared Carlsberg’s intention to expand investment in Vietnam, but in the field of electric power.

Replying to these attractive proposals, PM Phuc affirmed that the Vietnamese government always attaches great importance to investors.

“Vietnamese government always accompanies and creates favorable conditions for international corporations, including GE, to invest in Vietnam.”

The PM added that Vietnam is making efforts to improve its business environment in order to help investors win in its businesses in the Southeast Asian country.