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Vietnam to take centre stage with APEC summit
2006-11-11
Vietnam is gearing up to host from Sunday the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, its largest ever international event, which culminates next weekend in a world leaders' summit. The communist host nation, which has enjoyed East Asia's fastest economic growth after China and is due to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) next month, hopes the meeting will symbolise its arrival on the world stage. Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung promised the country is open for business, speaking after the world's largest chip maker Intel said Friday it would pour one billion dollars into a plant it is building in Ho Chi Minh City. "I would like to reiterate that Vietnam, as an active member of APEC and WTO, and despite numerous difficulties ahead, will try to create all favourable conditions for the investment environment," said Dung. The first of over 10,000 political and business delegates and journalists attending the week-long 14th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting started arriving at the weekend in Hanoi, Vietnam's nearly thousand-year-old capital. US President George W Bush, China's Hu Jintao, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are set to follow later in the week for the summit of the APEC grouping, which represents nearly half of global trade. Leaders and officials will also come from APEC members Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. The Pacific-Rim members were set to discuss ways to free up trade globally and in their region, and how to counter threats such as North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, terrorist financing and diseases such as bird flu. Vietnam -- a country of 84 million people that has emerged from post-war isolation and poverty to see annual economic growth of 7 to 8 percent over the past five years -- has been eager to show off its recent achievements. Having won plaudits from the United Nations for reducing poverty and containing bird flu, it is now trying to reform an economy riddled with red tape and corruption and to prove itself as a responsible international actor. Vietnam was admitted last Tuesday as the 150th member of the WTO, a decision set to take effect in December, and it is the sole Asian country to have applied for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2008-09. A host of multinational companies attending a parallel APEC CEO summit and the Doing Business with Vietnam forum are expected to soon announce new plans in the country as it enters the international rules based trading system. "Vietnam really will be in the limelight," said Martin Gainsborough, a Vietnam expert with Bristol University. "Foreign businesses taking another look, WTO accession and the APEC meeting. These things come together. "What is important is the cumulative effect of quite significant events combined with a wave of optimism about the country." Similar international meetings have seen large anti-globalisation protests, but these are considered unlikely in Vietnam, an authoritarian state that bans opposition parties, street rallies and free speech. "Security is our top priority," said Deputy Foreign Minister Le Cong Phung. Hanoi's estimated 15,000 police will be on duty to zealously enforce the law and keep an eye on dissidents, including the 'Bloc 8406' coalition of regime critics named after the date they founded their movement, April 8 this year. Human rights concerns had threatened to cloud Bush's visit, when a US senator said he would block a bill to normalise trade ties between the former enemies over the arrest of an American-Vietnamese dissident in Vietnam. That obstacle appears to have been removed after a Ho Chi Minh City court ruled on Friday that the dissident, Thuong Nguyen "Cuc" Foshee of Florida, and two other US citizens will be deported to the United States next month.
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