ASEAN Facilitates Business in the Region

ASEAN Facilitates Business in the Region

Link to photos.

ASEAN - Business

Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM 

Monday, 16th November 2015

The second ASEAN Business Seminars and Business Policy Dialogues were held to promote awareness and understanding of the ASEAN Economic Community’s (AEC) key initiatives to the business community on 9-11 November in Ho Chi Minh City.

Two additional information packs covering the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) and  Establishing A Company in ASEAN Member States (AMS) were shared and validated with the private sector at this seminar. The objective was to provide information materials on these initiatives and to better explain to the private sector how such initiatives are benefiting businesses including through facilitating the movement of goods across the region.

The private sector also appreciated information on starting a business with the mapping of the registration processes in selected AMS namely, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam.  The processes of starting a business were presented and participants discussed the need for the streamlining the processes as they recognised the importance of improved rules and regulations towards reduction in time and cost of doing and starting a business in the region, particularly for SMEs.

Mr. Le Manh Hung, Deputy Director-General of Agency for Enterprise Development of Viet Nam, in his opening remarks highlighted the importance of facilitating SMEs’ access to information on the AEC. He also called for similar activities to be conducted more frequently to increase ASEAN SMEs’ awareness as a step towards enhancing their participation in the AEC.

Mr. Vo Tan Thanh, Vice President of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), urged the ASEAN private sector to be more proactive in exploring the information to enrich their awareness on the AEC and stated that the VCCI hopes to work with the ASEAN Secretariat and in parallel to hold various workshops and seminars to disseminate information on AEC.

It was noted that a number of SME participants still have little knowledge of ASEAN initiatives. Such lack of understanding and information may hinder them from benefiting from ASEAN integration initiatives under the AEC and the participants welcomed seminars and dialogues as well as the information packs on AEC to build awareness among the business community.

The seminar’s participants included key representatives from chambers of commerce and business associations from AMS to learn, exchange and update their understanding of ASEAN. They also discussed how these business associations could disseminate the information to their domestic networks and constituents.  The Seminar on AEC Information for Business and the ASEAN SME Policy Dialogue were co-organised by the ASEAN Secretariat and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), with support from the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.