Conflict: Opening up to International Investment and Diversification – a case study of Vietnam

One of the first pre-requisites for a country trying to attract foreign investment – especially one closed to international trade for many years – is to encourage entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is often described as a person who can not only organize and manage an enterprise, especially a business, but who usually shows initiative and risk. In most places this would indeed be true. People hoping to succeed in business will have to use their initiative to seek out markets and offer attractive products, and bear the risk of wasting their time, effort and a large amount of money should their venture go awry. In Vietnam, however, the entrepreneurship success formula or paradigm has an interesting twist to it. As a developing country with a high level of technical competency and a young population, entrepreneurs will need to take the initiative to survive in a highly competitive and constantly evolving business environment, where trends can change quickly and their prospective customers or clients will be constantly looking for the next big thing. The risk, however, is offset by the low barriers to entry and starting up, the availability of cheap labor, and the low cost of living. So whilst entrepreneurs need to be quick and take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way, they need not necessarily risk everything to launch their dream company.