Vietnam’s single largest export is crude oil, which accounted for 11% of earnings from exports in 2009. Vietnam’s other main exports part from crude oil are textiles, footwear and garments, rice, coffee, rubber and coal. Aquaculture is also an important source of export business as well as processed forest products. At present, the exports from Vietnam are dominated by agricultural products but this is all set to change as Vietnam increases its industrial base. Already, 5% of earnings are accounted for by electronic equipment. As the country continues to develop its industrial base, the freight services infrastructure will continue to develop to support it. The main markets for exports from Vietnam are the United States, accounting for nearly 20% of exports, followed by Japan, China, Australia and Singapore.

Economic relations between Vietnam and the United States are improving but impeded by Vietnam’s record in human rights. Nevertheless, there have been great strides forwards in economic relations over the last decade and this is reflected in the current level of freight transport. A landmark bilateral agreement in December 2001 significantly boosted the level of Vietnam’s exports to the United States. The most important imports to Vietnam are commodities, including petroleum products, steel, fertilizer, electronics, machinery and equipment. Most imports come from China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia.

Vietnam is currently keen to develop more trade with countries in the European Union and freight services companies are making this easier, as freight companies increase their own expertise in the Vietnam market. There are now many shipping companies that can help businesses in the European Union trade with Vietnam. The diverse nature of the above examples of imports and exports to and from Vietnam stresses how versatile the freight services companies operating in Vietnam need to be in order to service this market. A shipping company or freight company that is familiar with exporting from Vietnam will be expert at providing the correct transportation mode to ensure that the products arrive at their destination market in peak condition and within as short a time frame as possible. The freight forwarding market in Vietnam has developed considerably in recent years and the standard of freight services available is very high.

The other advantage of Vietnam plastic bags is no anti dumping tax to EU countries. Anti dumping tax on plastic bags is created because the companies in EU,US cannot compete with cheap prices from Asia. The anti dumping tax ranges from 8 percent to 30 percent for almost Asian countries especially put on China; the tax rate depends on different factories. There is no anti dumping tax on Vietnamese companies therefore, it makes Vietnam become a very strong competitor compared with other Asian countries, especially China.

Regarding to the quality of plastic bag, Vietnam also imports materials (virgin resin) from Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc and machines from Taiwan, therefore, the quality is at the same level as other Asian countries. Even Vietnam’s bag quality is known more stable than China. Taking those advantages, Vietnam become more and more competitive in global market and attract a lot of customers from developed countries and try to expand their capacity. It will open very promising future for Vietnam plastic industry and big opportunities for worldwide customers to get high quality and cheap prices.

Second position next to Halong bay is stunning Sapa – the Queen of all Vietnam holiday packages. Sapa is in the north west of Vietnam close to Chinese border and about 340 km north west of Hanoi. Sapa town is located at the altitude of about 1600m and dominated by Hoang Lien Son range of mountains with the highest mountain of Indochina(Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) Fansifan 3143 m above the sea level. Probably, no other place in the world could compare to the spectacular scenery of Sapa and its terraced paddy fields formed by multi minority groups near thousand years ago. Besides the natural beauty, you have chances to discover different cultures of 7 colorful ethnic groups living here.

The third is charming and romantic Hanoi, one of the highlights for Vietnam holiday packages. Throughout the thousand years of its eventful history, marked by destruction, wars and natural calamities, Hanoi still preserves many ancient architectural works including the Old Quarter known as 36 commercial streets and over 600 pagodas and temples. Hanoi’s famous sites include the One Pillar Pagoda (built in 1049), the Temple of Literature – first university in Vietnam (built in 1070) with 82 doctor steles which were chosen as UNESCO world heritage for ancient education document, Hanoi Citadel, Hanoi Opera House, President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum…Hanoi also characteristically contains 18 beautiful natural lakes such as Hoan Kiem Lake, West Lake, Thien Quang lake, Bay Mau lake and Truc Bach Lake…, which are the lungs of the city, with their surrounding gardens and trees where you can join morning or afternoon exercise and Tai Chi practice everyday.

They became involved in the early 1960′s and starting deploying troops in 1965. While most people think a large number of these soldiers were drafted, 2/3 of them actually volunteered. Richard Nixon signed the Nixon doctrine after an attack in 1968 to withdraw troops in a process called Vietnamization. All U.S. troops were withdrawn by 1973 when the Paris Peace Accords were signed, although they continued to give economic aid to South Vietnam until North Vietnam ended the war in 1975 with the capture of Saigon.

There was a variety of weapons used in the Vietnam War including 40 different rifle types, 22 machine guns, grenades, rocket propelled grenades, artillery, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. Some of the more popular tpyes of rifles were the M14, M16, and SKS carbine. the M3A1 “Grease Gun”, and M60 were some of the machine guns. The AC130, AC119G, and Ac47 were some of the gunships that were used. There were also attack helicopters, fighters, bombers, tanks, jeeps, and naval patrol craft used. The fatalities of the Vietnam War were astronomical. Over 3 million Vietnamese soldiers were killed, over 1.5 million soldiers from Laos and Cambodia were lost, and over 58,000 from the United States. Over 900,000 of the survivors of the war had to deal with wounds, amputations, and post traumatic stress disorder. The Vietnam War has been publicly portrayed in a number of prominent films. Tax Driver, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon are just some of those.

Vietnam is the place to find two Globe Organic Heritage sites namely Halong Bay and Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in addition to scenic normal landscapes such as the Phu Quoc island and also the historic villages along the Mekong River. Vietnamese cuisine is fast gaining popularity and recognition for its elegant simplicity and healthful preparation characterized by utilizing hardly any oil and a mix of vegetables. The Vietnamese coastal regions abound with popular and world-class beaches and scenic boat rides. But nothing strikes on spot the essence of Vietnam as a striking view of large expanse of rice fields using the harvesters, clad in their native Ao’Dai and wearing their familiar conical hats to protect them from the heat.

Now that the Tiger has finally roused from his deep slumber, progress is seen all around, flowing, like the lots of motorbikes, massing and gushing forward in a sea of headlights and honkers around the streets of Hanoi. International acceptance of Vietnam’s fresh- discovered status is very much apparent in the booming tourism industry. And it would hurt a bit if you finally give it a try for Vietnam.

If you are one of those people who are always craving for adventure and fun, then Vietnam is the place for you to be during your vacations. Vietnam cycling tours offers the best of the thrills and an adventurous experience. A conductive cycling tour can be well availed by contacting the various cycling tour operators that are easily available based on your needs and requirements. The varied terrains and the topography of Vietnam are the basic reasons why cycling is so popular and full of thrills.

The cycling tour programs vary in levels of difficulty in Vietnam. They are designed in that way in order to make this activity popular and exciting for everyone. There are certain people who like cycling but are not confident with slopes, while some people prefer to indulge in hilly cycling. So, the difficulty levels are basically devised for the enjoyment of all the people as people can pick up their cycling tours according to their comfort and confidence level.

These cycling sessions can be held anytime of the day and span up to a couple of hours per day. The duration of the cycling session is largely dependent on the physical condition, interests and the difficulty level of the tourist cyclists. Even if one is a novice, these excursions take ample care and security of the visitors and thereby instill a new confidence in their cycling skills along with bringing them closer to nature. These tours are accompanied by expert guides who guide and instruct the cyclists throughout the excursion.

Low cost location

However, low cost labour is hardly a competitive advantage in the long term. Labour cost keeps changing and today’s low cost location is not necessarily tomorrow’s viable outsourcing location. If it is not China or Vietnam, it could be Bangladesh or Cambodia. Ig Hortsmann, a professor of business economics at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management notes that Nike originally off shored manufacturing to Japan. As labour costs increased, manufacturing was later moved to South Korea and Taiwan. When labour cost increased in South Korea and Taiwan, it was moved to China and later also to Vietnam. Justin Wood, a Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit Corporate Network in Singapore makes the point that in the last 15 years Vietnam has moved from a low to a middle income country. The move towards a middle income will likely put additional pressure on Vietnam’s low cost labour status.

Intellectual property threat

For many companies outsourcing to Vietnam, intellectual property (IP) remains a concern. Within the fashion industry, IP is not as enforced as it is within the film and music industries. Designers can “take inspiration” and it is seen as a major driver for setting trends in the industry. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has called for stricter intellectual property enforcement within the fashion industry to better protect companies and promote competitiveness within the textile and clothing industries. “It is a hard thing to take care of and you just have to be faster than everybody else”, says Rolskov. For smaller designers and labels it is much easier to switch manufacturing. However to prevent the copying of designs is a challenging undertaking.

Infrastructure development

For Vietnam to advance as an outsourcing location, the textile industry supply chain needs to be considered. Local logistics are influenced by direct and indirect cost. In Vietnam’s textile industry raw materials are often imported, which increases cost compared with those countries able to source locally. Managing reverse logistics can also be a challenging undertaking in Vietnam. Procedures, processes and infrastructure are sometimes not in place to manage repairs, returns and warranties.

According to a new market research report from Transport Intelligence (Ti) entitled Vietnam Logistics 2009, the high cost of logistics remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks in Vietnam. According to TI analyst John Manners Bell, logistics costs are estimated at 25 percent of Vietnam’s GDP. Even with cheap labour cost, poor infrastructure remains a major barrier for entry. This is largely due to Vietnam being in the early stages of infrastructure development.

Many experts believe that China’s advanced infrastructure gives it a major competitive advantage. Electricity and transportation costs will likely come down even further and and this will have a significant impact on the total cost, even if their labour is more costly. The Vietnamese government is aware of this dynamic and has invested billions of dollars in the country’s infrastructure. The government is actively encouraging foreign direct investment in the country’s infrastructure. This is visible with projects such as the Cai Mep Container Port in the Mekong River Delta and the new Long Thanh airport that’s projected to be completed by 2015.

Through assessing the overall supply chain, rather than a singular focus on labour costs, it is easier to identify where Vietnam’s opportunities and challenges lie in the textile industry. While small scale designers and manufacturers take advantage of a flexible environment, infrastructure and logistics processes will need further investment to make Vietnam an outsourcing destination and source for tomorrow’s fashionista wardrobes.

During the period from the 1st-2nd and 9th – 10th centuries Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese; proto-Vietic was influenced and borrowed much vocabulary from Han, Tai-Kadai and Nam-Dao languages and then became ancient Vietic, a monosyllabic language.

From the 10th to 14th century, with the end of Chinese domination Vietnam established an independent feudal regime. As the result of Vietic being used as a mother-tongue by common people and Han being used as an official language, Sino-Vietnamese (Han-Viet) words were formed by borrowing from Han. This particular means of borrowing was different across the regions, which split Vietic into two parts. These parts are said to be the Vietnamese and Muong languages as known today. Although almost 50% of words were borrowed from Han but most of them were changed so Vietnamese did not lose its own characteristic. For example, Chinese has 4 different tones but Vietnamese has 6 – mid level, low falling, high rising, mid dipping-rising, high breaking-rising, low falling constricted.

A character called “Chu Nom” was said to be created by some Vietnamese Confucian scholars to record Vietnamese spoken sentences based on Han (Chinese) characters. It is known as the first obsolete script for recording the Vietnamese language. Research suggests it was created as a complete writing system around the 11th century. It was then used more during the 13th – 18th centuries and nourished Nom literature and Nguyen Du’s Tale of Kieu.

From 16th century, missionaries from the West entered Vietnam and used Latin characters to record Vietnamese words and invented the modern Vietnamese script. Alexandre de Rhodes was the first person who printed the books in Quoc Ngu, which marked its first appearance.

Under French colonisation (19th century), French was taught at school instead of chu Nom. The French authorities also banned the use of classical Chinese (Han), leading to the decline of chu Nom since it is similar to Han. During the early half of the 20th century, it gradually died out whereas Quoc ngu grew more and more standardized and popular because it was simpler and easier to remember. At the same time, Vietnamese adopted many French terms into its lexicon, e.g. ga from gare [French] – train station, pho mat from fromage [French] – cheese or bup be from poupee [French] – doll.

However, the current Vietnamese scripts have been changed compared to the scripts at Alexandre de Rhodes’s time. For instance, the words beginning with tr nowadays are tl or bl. The person who received credit for creating the current Vietnamese scriptswas Pierre-Joseph Pigneaux de Behaine with his Annam-Latin dictionary.

The alphabet of chu Quoc Ngu has 27 Latin letters, with 6 tones. It replaced French, Han and Nom because it records Vietnamese phonetics in a simple and scientific way. After The Geneva Accords (1954), the North-South division caused the development of Vietnamese to differ regionally. While the North imported some spoken Chinese words, the South imported some English/American words into everyday language. Since re-unification (1975) Vietnamese has been more standardised.

There are various mutually intelligible spoken dialects of Vietnamese, with three main dialects being: Northern (including Hanoi), Central (including Hue) and Southern (including Saigon). The Hanoi dialect is accepted as the standard. The central dialect is markedly different from the others due to its local vocabulary. Although all dialects use the same spelling and written language, they have the different tones and consonant in a given word.

Vietnam has over 86 million people and is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world. The two main concerns of travelers – heat and monsoon rains have been addressed in recent years. Modern accommodations and transportation with air conditioning are prevalent and many Vietnam travelers have decided to brave the inclement weather of the monsoons to enjoy some of the benefits the rains – mainly better “beach” weather when the rains of the day have passed.

A large variety of Vietnam hotels has emerged in the past few years – small family run “mini-hotels” to 5-star luxury resorts – make comfortable accommodations available to every travel budget. The “Backpacker Telegraph” provides access to bargain hotels by way of the internet and word-of-mouth. Spend a little time “surfing the web” and you’ll find a wide range of places to spend a night or two to fit any budget.

Transportation “to and through” Vietnam can be financially managed by conducting a bit of research on the web. The large international carriers often offer great fares to various hubs in Asia. And the recent emergence of Asia’s regional bargain carriers will provide that last “hop” into Vietnam if you can’t manage to land in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) or Hanoi. Danang is now an arrival point for regional carriers from Thailand and other nearby countries.

In-country transportation can be arranged for a reasonable price by utilizing the “open tour” private tour bus industry, and if you’re really adventurous you can try Vietnam’s public bus system. Vietnam’s railroads provide excellent transportation from one end of the country to the other. Both the private tour bus companies and the railroad provide a number of choices in the area of comfort. “Hard” and “soft” are the adjectives used to describe the levels of service available on the train. You might even chance a local trip on motorcycle or enjoy a trip around town on a cyclo.

If you’re wondering what you do when you get to Vietnam, take a look at any Vietnam travel guide. There are “adventures” to meet the requirements of any traveler’s abilities and desires. Providers of local tour services can be found “online”, in travel guides, or “on the street” when you arrive in town. Waiting to arrange your tour until you’re “on-site” will allow you to make last minute changes to your plans, stay a few extra days at someplace that catches your fancy or spend your money on something else. If you’re on an organized tour you may end spending most of your time sitting near someone who’s a pain.

The government of Vietnam recognizes and promotes the importance of education and training. According to Vietnam Economic Times, there were more than 200 institutions of higher learning in the country in 2004, and that number had increased by 60% in the preceding six-year period. Today the country has a 96% literacy rate and 80% of the country’s college graduates hold degrees in the sciences (Vietnam Economic Times). This makes Vietnam an exceptional country for outsourcing technological projects, because the highly educated population has a high level of scientific and technical literacy. The labor force also have much lower turnover and much higher stability than do those of most other countries that are active in outsourcing. Overall, companies in Vietnam has an IT-related turnover rate of less than 5%, whereas in many other countries, such as India, this turnover rate can be 10% or even higher.

Common outsourcing destinations in Asia-Pacific are often plagued by instability. Consider, for example, the 2006 coup in Thailand, the Kashmir conflicts between Pakistan and India, and the Sri Lankan military’s struggles against the Liberation tigers of Tamil Elam. There are many U.S. travel advisories that warn Americans against traveling to these areas, but fortunately Vietnam doesn’t share these countries’ woes. In fact, Vietnam is a very stable country, which creates a hospitable business environment for outsourcing.

Economic Stability: Vietnam’s economy is healthy and growing rapidly, with a GDP that, according to CEIC, grew an average of 7.4% in the six years leading up to 2005. This is the second fastest GDP growth in all of Asia, as published in the New York Times article, Vietnam’s Roaring Economy Is Set for World Stage, on October 25, 2006. FDI (foreign direct investment) was almost US$5 billion in 2005, which makes a favorable comparison with that of other countries that are popular destinations for outsourcing work.

Ethnic/Religious Stability: Because 95% of Vietnam’s population is ethnically Vietnamese and more than 80% of the citizens do not identify themselves with any particular religion, Vietnam is largely free of ethnic/religious conflict. A 2003 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) study concluded that Vietnam had one of the most secure environments for investment, given the conflicts in Iraq and the surrounding region. Likewise, Vietnam was ranked as the safest among the 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific Region by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong (Berth of a Nation in Time, autumn 2002).

Political Stability: The current government has held power since Vietnam’s 1975 reunification, meaning that there have been more than 30 years of political stability in the country. The last major conflict with a neighboring country was almost 30 years ago, in 1978. Two American presidents (Bill Clinton during his presidency and in 2006, and George W. Bush during the APEC summit) have visited the country, and Bush met with several top officials including the president, prime minister, and Communist Party chief, thereby underscoring the country’s political stability.

Today, Vietnams’ policies create a warm and welcoming business environment for foreign investment. The country became the World Trade Organization’s 150th member in November of 2006, thanks to a vote of the organization’s General Council. Vietnam is also taking great strides in protecting intellectual property rights and since 2002 has largely been complying with the guidelines established in the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIP). When Vietnam became a WTO member, it agreed to comply with TRIP immediately, without a transitional period. The country is expected to achieve full TRIP compliance soon, thanks to legislation that was passed in 2006. This legislation prompted the U.S. to laud the country for its “extensive revisions and updating of its intellectual property laws.”

Unlike many Asian languages, Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet, just as English does, which makes it relatively easy for Vietnamese speakers to learn English. English is the second most popular language in the country, and the majority of Vietnams’ college graduates have high proficiency in English. Consequently, most IT workers in Vietnam are able to communicate easily with U.S. companies in English when completing outsourcing projects.