Word: hanoi
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...cheaper real estate and a nearby port that is less clogged than Saigon's. Sumitomo, the Japanese real estate giant, first looked to the south when it was planning to build a Vietnamese industrial park in 1997. But after comparing Saigon's infrastructure and labor costs, the developers chose Hanoi instead, and the gamble paid off. The first two phases of Sumitomo's 300-hectare Thang Long industrial park in Hanoi sold out last year, two years ahead of company projections. "It was a surprise," admits Shigeo Fukuda, senior director of Thang Long industrial park. "We're rushing to build...
...Plus: there's always location, location, location. Hanoi is situated 170 km from the border with China, which last year displaced the U.S. as Vietnam's largest trading partner (two-way trade: $8.7 billion). The U.S. remains Vietnam's largest single-country export market, but many of the companies locating in the north think that, too, may be changing quickly. Most of the companies that have placed factories in the north harbor big plans of sending their finished products, from bathroom fixtures to digital cameras, to the mainland. On a small scale, that's already happening. Canon's Vietnam general...
...goods, previously as high as 30%, to zero. That gave Vietnam's electronics manufacturers greater access to a trading bloc of half a billion people. "We can be the gateway for export to China," boasts Hoang Van Dung, vice president of Vietnam's Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hanoi, "And we can export to ASEAN and the West at the same time...
...outages. Vietnam still hasn't developed support industries to supply parts and services to factories, forcing them to import parts and expertise. Meanwhile, restrictive labor laws make it virtually impossible to fire unproductive workers, and managers in foreign-owned factories complain about pervasive government corruption and interference. In January, Hanoi abruptly decreed that the minimum wage paid at foreign-owned factories would rise by 40%, a move designed to end mass strikes by garment workers in the south. The country's first oil refinery has been delayed for seven years and two foreign investors have pulled...
...government appears committed to further progress. Last week, the Communist Party congress, an eight-day leadership conference held once every five years, opened in Hanoi with the political élite promising to accelerate economic reforms and tackle corruption. But it remains to be seen whether bureaucrats will be able to change. "People used to joke in the late 1990s that Vietnam never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity," says Fred Burke, managing partner of the U.S. law firm Baker & McKenzie. "I hope it won't be true this time." Workers like Nhan, who is going to work...