SpaceX, Netflix, Boeing to join “greatest-ever” US small business mission to Vietnam

HANOI, March 17 (Reuters) – SpaceX, Netflix and Boeing are amongst the corporations joining the “greatest-ever” U.S. small business mission to Vietnam subsequent week to go over investment and sales possibilities in the booming Southeast Asian nation, the organiser stated.

Much more than 50 corporations, like defence, pharmaceutical and tech firms, will participate in the mission organised by the US-ASEAN Small business Council, an market physique, according to a list observed by Reuters.

The delegation is a sign of increasing interest in the worldwide manufacturing hub, which is benefiting from a shift away from China amid Sino-U.S. trade friction.

Vietnam, with a population of one hundred million individuals, also has a quickly-expanding customer industry as its middle class expands.

“This is the greatest-ever mission in Vietnam,” stated Vu Tu Thanh, the US-ASEAN Small business Council’s representative in the nation, noting that the physique had been organising these events for 3 decades.

Streaming giant Netflix (NFLX.O), which Reuters final month reported was arranging to open an workplace in Vietnam, is amongst the corporations joining the trip. Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.

Aerospace suppliers Boeing (BA.N), Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) and Bell (TXT.N) will hold meetings with state-owned Vietnamese defence procurement corporations, Thanh told Reuters, adding that it was the very first time in about a decade that safety firms had decided to join the annual mission to Vietnam.

In December, the exact same corporations held talks with Vietnamese government officials about the achievable sale of helicopters and drones, as the nation seeks new suppliers and the Ukraine conflict strains the capabilities of Russia, for decades Vietnam’s major military companion.

“Helicopters is a single of the issues the corporations hope to sell to the Vietnamese,” Thanh stated, while he cautioned that defence bargains took time to be completed and no quick breakthrough was anticipated.

Boeing stated in a statement that its discussions with officials would concentrate on its expanding partnership with Vietnam and methods to strengthen the country’s aviation and defence capabilities.

Lockheed Martin and Bell did not respond to requests for comment.

The majority of the corporations joining the small business mission currently have a small business or manufacturing presence in Vietnam, like Apple (AAPL.O), Coca-Cola (KO.N) and PepsiCo (PEP.O), Thanh stated, with some arranging to expand it.

Some corporations are also coming to get a far better sense of the political circumstance immediately after current turmoil in the Communist-Celebration led nation, like the resignation of the president in January, Thanh added.

Participants will have meetings with Vietnam’s major political and regulatory leadership, like with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Thanh stated some corporations have been interested in Vietnam as a manufacturing hub and in delivering solutions to increasingly wealthy customers at a time when financial development reached extra than eight% final year.

Amongst them is SpaceX, which is searching to sell its satellite web solutions to Vietnam and other nations in the area, Thanh stated. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

The mission will also contain semiconductors corporations, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer (PFE.N) and Johnson &amp Johnson (PFE.N), healthcare device maker Abbott (ABT.N), economic firms Visa (V.N) and Citibank (C.N), web and cloud corporations Meta (META.O) and Amazon Internet Solutions (AMZN.O), the list showed.

Reporting by Francesco Guarascio Editing by Jamie Freed

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Francesco Guarascio

Thomson Reuters

Francesco leads a group of reporters in Vietnam that covers major economic and political news in the quickly-expanding southeast Asian nation with a concentrate on provide chains and manufacturing investments in numerous sectors, like electronics, semiconductors, automotive and renewables. Just before Hanoi, Francesco worked in Brussels on EU affairs. He was also aspect of Reuters core worldwide group that covered the COVID-19 pandemic and participated in investigations into income laundering and corruption in Europe. He is an eager traveler, constantly keen to place on a backpack to discover new locations.