(VOVWORLD) - The time is ripe for US businesses to engage more strongly in the economic restructuring of Vietnam, especially in finance-banking and State-owned enterprise equitization, according to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at a round-table talk on the US-Vietnam investment cooperation. The event was held in New York on Tuesday (local time) by Harbinger Capital and the Asia Group.
 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc shows an analysis of US investors' profits thanks to their operation in Vietnam.
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Prime Minister Phuc briefed US entrepreneurs about Vietnam’s socio-economic achievements after its 30-year renewal process. Vietnam, a middle-income country, has emerged as a lucrative market with its high population. Its efforts to improve the business climate have received positive reviews from domestic and foreign businesses. Mr. Phuc underlined the need for Vietnam and the US to optimize their respective advantages to achieve a trade balance. He suggested Vietnam import from the US machinery and export there fish, shrimp, fruits, and footwear. Prime Minister Phuc said: “Vietnam is doubling its efforts to build a constructive, active, and transparent Government which will be open with businesses. The Vietnamese Government will create the best possible conditions for investors, including those from the US, operating in Vietnam for win-win benefits”.
Jan Van Acker, President for Asia-Pacific region of Merck Sharp & Dohme, a global healthcare company with years of operation in Vietnam, said: “Merck Sharp& Dohme is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and we have been present in VN for more than 20 years. We have invested, in over those 20 years, 150-200 million dollars in bringing our pharmaceuticals to VN in medical education and in working with the Vietnamese government on prevention and screening an access for forfeit. I would like to compliment Vietnam and the government of Vietnam for the amazing progress you have made to provide high quality health care to Vietnamese people. You also have a strategy to ensure that by 2020, 80 percent of pharmaceuticals will be produced in VN. Merck Sharp& Dohme sees VN as a strategic country for us to invest and so we started in 2015, as the first US pharmaceutical company, a project for local manufacturing in VN. That project, to over the next 5-15 years, will bring up to 50 million USD of investment and technology transfer to Vietnam”.
The same day, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met with leaders of the US’ leading groups who are running large projects in Vietnam, including ExxonMobil, Coca Cola, Nike, and the Harbinger Capital. Phuc told them that Vietnam always welcomes visitors.