What is the main target of your business trip to Vietnam?

This trip to Vietnam is very special. I have with me the top 70 managers within the SingTel Group. We had a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City. This is our annual top management workshop where we discuss important and strategic issues facing the group for the year.

I want my managers to actually have a chance to look at Vietnam and to see how vibrant is the economy. That is the main reason.

In Vietnam I also took the opportunity to talk to officials from Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Corporation (VNPT), the Ministry of information and Telecommunication and Ministry of Planning and Investment. I try to talk to as many people as possible - to demonstrate our keen interest in Vietnam.

Are you satisfied with the feedback you heard from Vietnamese officials?

We are very interested in equitization plans of Vietnam’s key mobile phone operators. We are always hoping that equitization can happen faster. We understand that it is a complicated process and it takes time.  .  So we hope that the equitisation can happen earlier.

You may know that Vietnam’s two largest mobile phone providers MobiFone and Vinaphone are scheduled to be equitised by the end of this year. What is your plan in this business affair?

If we have an opportunity we would like to be their strategic investor in this investment. We are prepared to bring in capital and the capital can either go to the government or the money can go to the company for them to further invest into their network or business.

We are also prepared to bring in operating expertise.  If you look at SingTel’s investment in the region, we have investments in both matured markets and emerging markets. We have a lot of experience in the kind of services that will be relevant to countries like Vietnam. We have a lot of marketing experience for example, how to package different products. And that is very useful for mobile operators in Vietnam as well.

But there are many international firms France Telecom, Vodaphone, Comvik, Telenor, Singapore Technologies Telemedia have expressed their interest in Vietnam’s telecommunication sector. What advantages in technology and management does SingTel have compared with these firms in the race to Vietnam?

If you look at regional mobile … SingTel at the end of June this year we had more than one hundred and thirty six million mobile customers. So outside China – it is the largest mobile market. It demonstrates that we have been a very successful and good partner to different mobile companies that we invested in. We have helped the companies that we have invested in become very successful. Most of the se players were much smaller when we invested in them. They have become the number one or number two in the markets they are operating.

So we don’t just bring the capital, we bring expertise and you can look at our track record to see that we are a very good investor.

We also bring in advantages and skills. So you can have a lot benefits in procurement and buying.

Do you think the competition among the foreign firms and SingTel will be very tough?

We are used to competition. If you look at telecom industry anywhere in the world, there are few markets where competition is limited. So having many operators and competing with each other in the market is not something that we are not used to or something that we are afraid of. Competition will bring out the best operator because if you are not a good operator you can not survive.

If you talk to our partners they would tell you the kind of value we bring to the investment.

We don’t talk, ok, Vietnam is a good investment so we come in, and when there is a problem we get out of the country. We are not like that. We work with local operators to overcome issues - we help them with new technology development and product development.