Australian business reap rewards of early start in Vietnam

Australian business reap rewards of early start in Vietnam

By Robert Templer

HANOI (AFP): Alone in the dusty scrubland of an abandoned U.S.
airbase in southern Vietnam stands a small symbol of Australia's
march into Asia -- a factory producing the painted steel roofing
that covers a million Australian homes.

BHP Steel, a division of Australia's largest company, opened
its plant outside Ho Chi Minh City earlier this year, after
weaving its way through the tortuous Vietnamese bureaucracy in
record time.

"Being big and reputable helped. Also being Australian
helped," said managing director John Gourlay, although Vietnamese
friends have been surprised enough by his success to nickname him
Ong May Man, or Mr. Lucky.

"Vietnamese and Australians share a similar outlook on life,"
Gourlay said. "And our political stance towards Vietnam has not
been forgotten."

While Vietnamese have been gleefully telling newly arrived
U.S. businesses that "the buffalo that comes late to the trough
drinks muddy water," Australian firms have been consolidating
their position as the third largest investors here.

Australia's headstart began in 1983 with a decision by
Canberra to normalize ties with Hanoi, despite intense pressure
from many western and Southeast Asian countries angered by
Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia four years earlier.

"This policy has been justified and has ultimately paid off,"
said Graham Alliband, a former Australian ambassador here who
returned as a businessman. "We helped turn around Vietnam's
relationship with the world."

Canberra was also among the first western countries to provide
bilateral aid to Hanoi, marking a transformation from a former
enemy that sent its troops here to fight communism into a close
economic partner.

Australia's role as an "honest broker" in the Cambodian peace
deal, largely put together by Foreign Minister Gareth Evans,
added to its stature.

Prime Minister Paul Keating's visit from Sunday, the first to
Hanoi by an Australian leader, puts a final polish on relations
with Vietnam, now a testbed for Canberra's policy of
strengthening Asian economic ties.

Australia's willingness to deal with Vietnam during its period
of isolation led to important early investments, such as the
telecommunications system developed by Telstra from 1987 that
Vietnamese officials view as a model of how to do business here.

The unthreatening size of most Australian companies and a
perception of them as "straightforward and open" have been
helpful, said Denis Wholley, head of the Australian Trade
Commission office in Hanoi.

"The partnership between business and the Australian
government in developing relations in Asia has been well
perceived," he said.

But many say they hardly needed a push from their government
to invest here, despite recession-hit Australia having few of the
obvious cultural advantages or large capital reserves of
competitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Singapore.

Australia had pledged US$ 620 million in investment by the end
of 1993, with two-thirds of that coming from Telstra and BHP
Petroleum.

Trade has grown from $41 million in 1990 to $366 million last
year, with Vietnam wracking up a $136 million surplus through
crude oil sales to Australia.

A large number of small firms, particularly those involved in
construction and the service sector, have set up shop and are
showing an ability to adapt well to the rapid changes in
Vietnam's economy and laws, according to Simon Fraser, an
lecturer in business studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology.

"Australian businesses are becoming more mature, they're
learning much more quickly how to work in countries like
Vietnam," said Fraser, who pins some of the success of
Australians here on a relaxed attitude that works well given
Vietnam's frustrating red tape and poor infrastructure.

BHP Steel's Gourlay says he has no doubts Vietnam "will be the
next, if not best, 'Asian Tiger,'" an optimism shared many of his
compatriots.

Such is the rush into Vietnam that one small enterprise has
found itself trampled underfoot. The Australian embassy was
forced to close its Billabong Club last month, no longer able to
cope with the crush of businessmen at the bar.

-30-