Washington (VNA) – All businesses in Silicon Valley want to help Viet Nam, said Thanh Nguyen, founder of Paramit, an electronics manufacturing services company with 300 employees, during a meeting on June 27 between prominent Vietnamese-American chief executives in Silicon Valley, a delegation from the United States, and a Vietnamese delegation.

Hien Duc Cung, chief executive of Advantek in Palo Alto, said that he wants to set up a high-tech training programme in Viet Nam.

Most of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs present at the meeting were establishing ventures in Viet Nam or exploring out opportunities in the country.

The Vietnamese delegation to the meeting, led by Vice Minister of Science and Technology (MoST) Tran Quoc Thang, was part of the entourage accompanying Prime Minister Phan Van Khai’s recent visit to the United States. The meeting was aimed to promote cooperative ties between Vietnamese businesses and their counterparts in Silicon Valley, especially in the high-tech industry.

During the meeting, organised by the business group Vietnamese Silicon Valley Network, Vice Minister Thang said Viet Nam hoped to receive help and cooperation from Vietnamese living in the US and overseas, especially those in Silicon Valley, in developing the country’s economy.

“Viet Nam would like to see more knowledge transfer from overseas Vietnamese in the high-tech, sciences, biotechnology and manufacturing sectors,” he said.

In an interview with the Mercury News, the Vice Minister said the Vietnamese delegation visited Silicon Valley “to learn from the examples of Silicon Valley as well as to listen to suggestions and concerns of Vietnamese-Americans in the high tech arena.”.

The Vietnamese Government has for years encouraged overseas Vietnamese to invest in Viet Nam on the basis of the Viet Nam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) signed between the two countries in 2000. The US is now Viet Nam’s largest trading partner, with 6.1 billion USD of trade between the two nations last year.

The Silicon Valley entrepreneurs expressed concerns over the lack of a legal framework in Viet Nam to protect businesses and intellectual property rights and to enforce the central government’s policies at the local level. They suggested the Vietnamese government boost the high-tech sector by offering more training and entrepreneural programmes.

The Vietnamese delegation invited Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to visit Viet Nam to seek business opportunities with guidance of the MoST. The Vietnamese Government will be more open and willing to embrace Vietnamese-Americans, MoST Vice Minister Thang assured the entrepreneurs.-Enditem