In the last two years, under the framework of the UNDP Project “Promoting a business environment in ASEAN”, UNDP has been working very closely with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry to support businesses in enhancing business integrity by providing guidance for them to develop and apply codes of conduct and internal control systems. “The UNDP’s support for a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Vietnam Maritime Corporation marks an important step on the journey of UNDP in promoting business integrity in Viet Nam” said Ms. Sitara Syed, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Viet Nam at a signing ceremony on 21 February 2020 at VIMC’s office in Hanoi.

VIMC was established in 1995 as a State-owned one-member limited liability company under the name of Vinalines, which operates in three core maritime businesses: port operation, shipping and maritime services. For the period of 2007 to 2012 the company experienced the issue of misuse of the state property and nearly went to bankruptcy. In 2018 the Prime Minister issued a decision 751 approved a plan for equitizing the parent company. One of the purposes of the equitization is to change the corporate governance system and enhance the financial and business capacity of the company.

“In the context of Vietnam's international integration, Vinalines determined that building a corporate governance system in line with international standards is an effective tool to detect risks and enhance competition capacity for companies” said Mr. Nguyen Canh Tinh, General Director of VIMC at the ceremony.

“Integrity and transparency issues have a very important impact on the sustainable development of the business. Only with transparent governance businesses can develop sustainably” Mr. Nguyen Quang Vinh, VCCI Secretary General confirmed.

“Today, we are beginning a collaboration directly with one selected company – Vinalines, which has expressed their commitment to promote a sustainable and transparent business, to build a good internal control system. We welcome their decision and look forward to working closely with them towards our collective goal to create champions of business integrity in Viet Nam” Ms. Sitara Syed said at the ceremony.

The MOU is to officially confirm the delivery of technical assistance to VIMC to pilot building and applying the internal control system in the corporation. VIMC is one of two companies which was selected by the Project for providing in-house technical assistance to enhance business integrity.

The support from the UK Prosperity Fund is crucial to the Project, UNDP and businesses in Viet Nam. “Really enjoyed this event and proud that UK support to ASEAN programmes continues to grow” HE Jon Lambe, UK Ambassador to ASEAN confirmed the priority of the UK support to ASEAN in his twitter. 

More information, please kindly contact: 

Catherine Phuong
Assistant Resident Representative - Governance and Participation Unit
United Nations Development Programme
Email: catherine.phuong@undp.org

Do Thuy Van
Programme Analyst - Governance and Participation Unit
United Nations Development Programme
Email: do.thuy.van@undp.org