(12 May 2017)

Takungpao – On 12 May 2017, on the sideline of the Vietnam-China economic-trade cooperation seminar in Beijing jointly organized by the China’s Ministry of Commerce, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) and the Vietnamese Government, President Tran Dai Quang met with Dr Jonathan Choi, Chairman of CGCC, the Hong Kong – Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Sunwah Group.

Vietnam President Tran Dai Quang (right) met with Dr Jonathan Choi, Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Hong Kong – Vietnam Chamber of Commerce

During the meeting, he highly affirmed the contributions of Sunwah Group and Dr Jonathan Choi to the socio-economic development of Vietnam for the past 47 years and hoped that in the future, the Group’s investment areas could be expanded to high-tech, tourism, education and financial banking. “May 18^th is Vietnam Science and Technology Day; we especially welcome more business corporations to participate in the science and technology research and development of colleges and universities”, he said.

He highlighted that Vietnam is vigorously promoting the industrialization and modernization, and is committed to improving the investment environment to welcome investors from various countries and regions including Hong Kong to Vietnam. President Tran Dai Quang hoped Sunwah’s investment in Vietnam would continue to achieve new positive results and the Group would keep expanding its business activities to various fields, such as high-tech, tourism, education, financial banking, etc., and to other provinces of Vietnam. “The Vietnamese Government considers your success its own success”, said Mr Quang. On this occasion, President Quang also expressed his expectation that Sunwah would continue to provide assistance to Vietnamese universities, especially in research, development and training, and promised that Vietnam would create the best conditions for foreign businesses to invest in the country.

At the meeting, Dr Jonathan Choi said this was the second time that he had the honor to meet with President Tran Dai Quang since last year’s APEC summit. Learning that APEC will be held in Da Nang, Vietnam this year, he accelerated the pace of the Group’s investment in Da Nang and looked forward to a better image of the city in preparation for welcoming APEC representatives from various countries. Sunwah has been doing business in Vietnam for nearly half a century in seafood, coffee processing and export, real estate, finance and social charity. Last year, VinaCapital under Sunwah Group joined the Hong Kong Chow Tai Fook to build a 4 billion USD resort project in the south of Hoi An.

As Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong – Vietnam Chamber of Commerce, Dr Choi said he would take up more responsibility to help more Chinese and Hong Kong businesses to invest in Vietnam and participate in the reform of state-owned enterprises in Vietnam. “Under the Belt and Road framework, many companies are now more interested in Vietnam,” he said. “We will strengthen our cooperation in the financial sector, continue our investment in Vietnam and help Vietnamese companies to come to Hong Kong and so on.”

Apart from business activities, Sunwah is also very active in promoting arts and cultural exchanges. Sunwah set up the ULIS-SUNWAH Chinese Teaching and Research Centre, and then developed the ULIS-Jonathan KS Choi Cultural Centre in Hanoi to promote Chinese research, teaching and cultural exchanges in Vietnam. Dr Jonathan Choi also mentioned, next year, Sunwah would establish a new Cultural Centre at Ho Chi Minh City National University and continue to give strong support to poverty alleviation in Vietnamese provinces.

Translated from: Takungpao News