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Preparations For Grand Event
(Saigon Times Magazine Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Host Vietnam has made comprehensive preparations to ensure APEC 2006 is a success
[QQ] Hanoi has taken on a new look as the capital prepares to welcome the most important international event, the meeting of leaders from the 21 economies of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. More than 20,000 pots of fresh flowers and 8,000 banners and posters are on show in all main streets, and the city has been thoroughly cleaned up.
One of the activities to welcome APEC Vietnam 2006 on November 12-19 was the musical performance by the Korean National Orchestra in Hanoi on November 3, using traditional Korean musical instruments. The show at the Hanoi Opera House started with the shinnaerim, sacred Korean music, to express the wish for the summits success. The final item was a Vietnamese folk song, Ly ngua o (Black horse ballad), performed well by Korean musicians.
According to the Union of Friendship Organizations in Hanoi, an international music festival to welcome APEC will be held on the evenings of November 18-19 with the participation of artists from Britain, France, Russia, China and Japan.
Along with musical shows, an exhibition of Vietnam lacquer paintings is on from November 15 to 30. The exhibition, the first to survey the extensive range of Vietnam lacquer paintings, features works of 130 famous artists like Nguyen Gia Tri and Tran Van Can.
Another exhibition, APEC Pictures and Vietnam Heritage, is being held on November 14-23 at Hanoi Arts and Culture Exhibition Center. The exhibition displays 100 large-size pictures introducing the cultures, sceneries and peoples of the APEC economies and pictures and objects representing Vietnamese culture and history.
To help international visitors during the event, authorities have erected 40 booths to provide tourist information. The booths at hotels, public places and tourist places in Hoan Kiem and Ba Dinh districts have electronic maps to provide necessary addresses and tourist information about Hanoi and northern cities and provinces.
Logistics
Early this week, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam completed the final handover of 115 sedans that the Government has ordered to serve the APEC delegates. Final checks of security, traffic and other works have been carried out to ensure everything will go smoothly.
Nguyen Thanh Chau, deputy head of the APEC secretariat, says all preparations have been basically completed. Despite the huge volume of work, especially those regarding logistics, security and protocol, the work has faced no major problems because Vietnam has experience in organizing international events of such scale.
Apart from receiving delegates to APEC meetings, the country must also prepare to receive official visits by heads of state of several countries, including the U.S., Russia, Japan, China and Chile. The U.S. delegation has more than 1,000 members, the Russian delegation about 400 and the delegations from China and Japan also have hundreds of members. Along with them, huge volumes of equipment, special aircraft for state leaders, specialized vehicles and communications systems will be brought in and need to be attended to. However, Chau says all plans for reception have been prepared.
Besides more than 3,000 official delegates to attend the APEC 14, about 1,800 journalists, including more than 1,200 international reporters and over 500 local journalists, have registered for coverage of the APEC 14. According to the APEC Organization Committee, Japanese media have the largest group of reporters, with 400, followed by the U.S. (300), Russia (100) and China (100). All the 100 booths for journalist work at the International Media Center have been booked. The center can accommodate 800 journalists. The APEC secretariat will provide information about APEC activities for local and media agencies daily.
Businesses have so far provided nearly US$5 million for different activities during the APEC 14. The amount includes cash, products and services.
The Vietnam National Administration for Tourism says 126 hotels in Hanoi have been coordinated to accommodate more than 10,000 international delegates and observers. Nine five-star hotels in the downtown, Daewoo Hanoi, Sofitel Metropole, Hilton Hanoi, Horison, Sheraton, Sofitel Plaza, Melia, Nikko and Thang Loi, will serve leaders of APEC economies. Hotels of three and four stars will serve members of high-level delegations, presidents and CEOs of big corporations and international journalists. All the staff at these hotels has been trained to ensure service quality in food hygiene and security.
To serve international guests, hotels in Hanoi have prepared a large stock of typical Vietnamese dishes and Asian, European and American foods. We have prepared menus for a special buffet of typical Vietnamese dishes like fried spring rolls, pho and fish paste with rice noodles, says Nguyen Huu Phuoc, a sous-chef at Sheraton Hanoi Hotel, which is expected to host nearly 300 guests from the U.S., including President George W. Bush and his wife.
Hilton Hanoi Hotel has also prepared nearly 60 Vietnamese dishes to serve guests during the APEC. They are typical dishes of the three regions of Vietnam, such as banana salad and pho of the North, Hue-style beef noodle soup and fresh spring rolls of the central region, and rice cakes and grilled beef of the southern region.
Hanoi Horison Hotel has prepared buffets with more than 100 dishes to serve guests from Muslim countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The hotel has arranged a separate area for cooks from Indonesia to prepare dishes for the Indonesian delegation.
For drinks at the gala dinner on November 18 and banquets, the APEC organization committee has selected Dalat wine, Hanoi vodka and Thang Long wine.
Leaders will be presented with unique gifts made by Vietnamese artists. Among the gifts is the Vietnam Is My Lover, a book of 145 photos by famous Vietnamese photographers. The photos feature tourist attractions and a fresh look at the country and its people. The leaders will be pleasantly surprised to receive their portraits featured in sand paintings by Y Lan, an artist from HCM City, and in gem pictures made by Than Chau Ngoc Viet, a Hanoi-based precious stone company.
Australian ambassador to Vietnam Bill Tweddell said Australia wanted to learn Vietnams experience in organizing APEC 14 because it will be the host of the APEC 15 in 2007. Speaking at a press conference last week, he said a 120-member delegation will accompany Australian Prime Minister John Howard, the largest Australian delegation to the APEC event to date.
Business meetings
One of the prominent activities during the APEC week in Hanoi is the APEC Investment Forum to be held on November 15-16. At the forum, representatives from APEC will introduce their economies and seek cooperation opportunities in trade and investment. Delegations from other APEC economies also prepare business meetings. Representatives from at least 11 economies will organize investment promotion workshops within the APEC Investment Forum. On its part, host Vietnam will present the new investment and enterprise laws to APEC investors and business people. Phan Huu Thang, director of the Ministry of Planning and Investments foreign investment agency, says the forum will be a good opportunity to introduce Vietnams investment environment to international investors, especially in the context of its successful accession to the WTO. Some 600 delegates will attend the forum, but registrations have already exceeded expectation.
At the same time, the seminar Doing Business with Vietnam will be held on November 16 by Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and VinaCapital.
Early this week, the Vietnam-U.S. Advisory Council met in Hanoi to discuss topics for discussion at the upcoming Vietnam-U.S. summit. The council, established last year, comprises leaders of government agencies and big businesses of both countries. It will have a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Phan Huu Thang says U.S. investors will present at least seven investment projects to the government leader. Among these projects, which have combined capital of billions of U.S. dollars, are those regarding power generation, financial services and telecommunications.
Proposals
Nguyen Quoc Cuong, deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs multilateral economic cooperation department and member of the APEC secretariat, says Vietnam has put forward more than 10 major proposals of long-term, strategic significance for the future operation of APEC.
One important proposal is the road map for the Hanoi action plan to implement trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in the Asia-Pacific region. The road map will focus on three main points: Support for multilateral trade and acceleration of the WTO, promotion of bilateral and regional cooperation agreements and facilitation of business operations with such measures as reducing business costs and easing customs procedures.
Vietnam will also propose a package plan for APEC reform aimed to increase the efficiency, connectivity and dynamism of the organization. The plan is initiated in the context of fast changes in the world and low efficiency of cooperation in APEC due to the overlapping between activities of its sub-committees and working groups.
Another proposal is to increase cooperation between the State and private sectors, which has been strongly supported by businesses and has been a major topic in various meetings of APEC in Vietnam since the beginning of this year.
According to Cuong, five important documents are expected to be approved by the leaders of APEC economies. They are the senior officials report on APEC activities in the past year and implementation measures for the future, the ministerial meetings declaration for approval of the report and the direction of APEC activities, the APEC leaders declaration on important issues of the organization, the Hanoi action plan and the APEC reform plan.
(With Cao Cuongand Anh Minh in Hanoi)
Leaders of APEC economies to officially visit Vietnam during APEC 14
Chile President Michelle Bachelet
China President Hu Jintao
Japan Prime Minister Shinjo Abe
Russia President Vladimir Putin
U.S. President George W. Bush
Other leaders will visit during the meeting but will not make an official visit at that time.
APEC Vietnam 2006 logo
The logo of APEC Vietnam 2006 was designed by artist Nguyen Van Dong and was chosen in a contest that attracted 140 entries. It has a stylized traditional Vietnamese conical palm hat, which expresses a peaceful country with friendly people. The oval globe incorporated into the hat signifies the continuous growth of the international community. The yellow, red and blue colors represent Asia, America and the Pacific Ocean and the Vietnamese national flag (red and yellow).
More than 1,100 CEOs to attend
More than 1,100 business executives from APEC economies will be in Hanoi to attend the APEC CEO Summit 2006 from November 17-19. According to the organizing committee, the figure has surpassed the number of 800 delegates to the CEO Summit 2005 organized in Busan, South Korea. Nguyen Van Thao, head of the organization committee, says presidents and CEOs from big corporations, such as Boeing, AT&T, GM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, FedEx, AIG, DHL, Citigroup, HSBC, Visa, Motorola, Intel, IBM, Ford Motors, New York Life, Nike, JC Penney, Cargill, Chevron, Intel, China Unicom, Gazprom, Lukoil and Posco, will be present.
About 500 delegates from big Vietnamese companies and foreign businesses in Vietnam will also attend one of the biggest business events in the world. Among the big Vietnamese companies are Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group, Trung Nguyen Coffee, Vietnam Airlines, Vietnam Railway and leaders of business associations.
The summit will cover topics focusing on the theme Towards a community: Creating fresh opportunities for co-development. These topics include bridging the gap between member economies, boosting the development of information and communication technologies, attracting foreign direct investment, increasing assistance for small and medium enterprises and Vietnam as an investment destination.
The Vietnam: Doing Business forum will be held on the eve of the summit. The forum, aimed at promoting investment and trade in Vietnam, will discuss fresh opportunities after Vietnam becomes a WTO member. It has attracted great interest from foreign investors and CEOs, as Vietnam was to be admitted to the WTO on November 7.
The event will be covered live by Time Warner, Asia INC and VTV.
Copyright 2006 The Saigon Times Magazine. Source : Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Intelligence Wire
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