Mr Dung said many of ABAC recommendations have been put into practice, including APEC Business Travel Cards, five-percent reduction in transaction costs, anti-corruption and the implementation of single certificate of origin as well as standards and conformance.

According to Mr Dung, ABAC 2006 has submitted all recommendations made by the business circles in a nine-point proposal to the leaders of APEC member economies. Among top priorities, ABAC called on APEC leaders to consider initiatives to resume the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations and concretise what they have achieved in agriculture, services and tariffs in order to end the negotiations as soon as possible.  

ABAC also proposed promoting trade facilitation, developing the private sector, enhancing the financial system and promoting technology innovation and cooperation with APEC.

Following is the full text of the interview.
VOVNews: What initiatives has Vietnam developed to support local enterprises in its role as ABAC president this year?
Mr Dung: ABAC Vietnam has developed several cooperation projects and initiatives to support Vietnamese businesses. They include helping small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access capital sources and markets and boosting the development credibility services, particularly for globally unrated enterprises, so that they can find it easier to access capital flows and markets in the region.

ABAC proposed building links between regional enterprises through an APEC enterprise network as well as between SMEs and trans-national groups.

Based on the main theme and priority areas in the year of APEC 2006, ABAC Vietnam and other ABAC members have identified the theme of ABAC 2006 as “Driving forward Prosperous and Harmonised APEC Community” with such sub-themes as “Advancing the Busan Roadmap to Achieve the Bogor Goals”, “Building Prosperity Together through Economic and Technical Cooperation and Shared Development”, “Fostering a Secure and Favourable Environment for Trade and Investment”, “Promoting APEC Linkages”, and “Fostering Closer APEC-ABAC Relations.”

Vietnam’s assuming the role of ABAC president is a good chance for Vietnamese enterprises to grasp global economic development trends and expand cooperation and international integration and to provide APEC leaders with consultancy advice on how to build a more favourable business environment.

VOVNews: Among issues to be submitted to APEC leaders, which one do you think we should focus on?
Mr Dung: I think the most important thing is to create a favourable legal environment for enterprises to develop, reduce administrative procedures, increase enterprises’ possibility of accessing capital sources and enhance the application of sci-tech advances as well as personnel training, particularly for SMEs.

The number of SMEs makes up 96 percent of the total enterprises operating in Vietnam. After joining the World Trade Organisation, they will face a lot of difficulties, including a lack of capital and technology, market awareness and inexperience in business activities with foreign partners. Therefore, the Government should pay attention to personnel training to help SMEs overcome such difficulties.

VOVNews: ABAC has called for further cooperation between the private sector and governments. How can we realise this?
Mr Dung: Over the past decade, cooperation in the private sector through ABAC and APEC has proved effective. However, we propose further cooperation in this domain through ABAC to make recommendations to APEC leaders with regard to their policy making and implementation.

VOVNews: Thank you very much.