Vietnam gets in top gear

Business Asia, April, 2004

The Vietnamese government has given the go-ahead to the country's leading diesel engine producer, Viet Nam Engine and Agricultural Machinery Corporation, to produce and assemble commercial vehicles. Company management board head Quan Thang said the company would start production of components such as bodies, chassis, engines and gearboxes. This is the third state-owned corporation to receive government approval to produce vehicles, the others being the Viet Nam Automobile Industry Corporation and Viet Nam National Coal Corporation.

Meanwhile, provinces in the Central Highlands--which covers a sixth of the country's total land area--have pooled resources in an effort to make their region attractive to investors, both domestic and foreign. Dr Le Ngoc Thang, acting director of the Ethnic Minorities Research Institute, said that corporate income tax and land-use tax were suspended for the first five years of new projects' operations and then taxed at half the official rates for the following five years.