½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Hi! What business do you have in mind? Im planning to go to HCMC to work too. Im in Singapore now.

I'm a vietnamese, not expat. In my opinion, you shouldn't be so hurry and let try to adapt to new environment,and find out what is the most sensible. Good look, i'm always being ready to help you as possible.

So what do you like to do in Vietnam ?

As a Singaporean expat living here for 2.5 years and starting my own small biz here as well, my advice for all Singaporeans new to Vietnam to explore and understand the Vietnamese culture first...and of course, learning Tieng Viet is essential here....

Trying to impose our Singaporean ideas or culture here to Vietnam will never work and backfire instead. A big example will be Ya Kun....which rented an entire shophouse in District 1 (prime district of Saigon), renovated it and gave it a very posh look; in fact more classy than those we have back in Singapore....trying to sell Singaporean style coffee to the Vietnamese, they backfired and closed down around 6 months later. Reasons are simple: Vietnamese coffee is renowed around the world and for those who do not know, the coffee in Singapore are all imported from Malaysis, Brazil or Vietnam itself....another reason for Ya Kun's failure here in Saigon: they were selling curry chicken rice (accordingly to my ex boss here) for USD$8; which to all of us is purely too costly....

The rich Vietnamese here are frequent travellers to other countries including Singapore and some of them who are my friends were telling me that the Singaporean food sold in Saigon can never compare with what we have in Singapore's food courts or hawker centres....and they cannot find a valid reason to pay much more for the food here than what they paid for good food in Singapore.

In a nutshell, to do biz here, you need to know the locals here and network well with those who can help you in your biz startup e.g. Registering with the local authorities, negotiating with the landlord for lease contract, where to get cheap and good furniture from the numerous factories here in nearby Long An, Binh Duong etc (including Singaporean companies that I personally know) and how to recruit staff....most importantly, knowing what the Vietnamese wants is essential and unless you want to hire a translator for life, knowing basic Tieng Viet aka Vietnamese language will be great for you to have a headstart. But on a good ending, many Singaporeans are based here and we network thru business groups here to be able to provide some advice. Cheers and welcome to Vietnam and Saigon!!!

Hi Skinny!

I read your reply to Lex12 and must thank you for your good advice. In fact, I am also a singaporean. I bought my Condo in HCM 10 years ago. Now I am back in HCM to stay.

I actually already staying here for a year now.

The reason I am replying to this mail is that I also had been searching for a potential joint venture, preferably singaporean. Best regards!