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An hour with Steve Forbes and stories about rich people in Vietnam

06/08/2010 - 344 Lượt xem

A guard gave each one of us an invitation card, which was a too simple a requirement for us who had had to go through a very strict screening process when we entered government or corporation buildings. Americans often invite guests to wait and drink coffee or tea in a meeting room before the requested person arrives. Yet, Steve Forbes personally led us to the 1st floor, explaining about each picture hung on the wall along the corridor. And we entered the meeting room to find others were waiting to receive us.
Steve Forbes was open. He seemed to know that we were glad with the result of the last negotiation round between

Vietnam

and the U.S about

Vietnam

’s joining the WTO. His first sentence was “Congratulation. You’re going through a memorable moment.”
Tim W. Ferguson, the editor-in-chief of Forbes Asia, a Forbes publication on Asia, added, “We’re going to have new articles and sections about

Vietnam

.” Then he started to tell us about his visit to Hanoi 2 years ago, asking, “Do they still use gold in transactions on the housing market? Or do they pay through the banks now?” He suddenly turned to the representative of the Central Bank of

Vietnam

in our group and inquired about the Vietnamese banks’ ability to post bills and handle debts.
In the meantime, Steve Forbes asked more about the stock market and foreign indirect investment. He explained enthusiastically about flat tax, and the basic concept of applying the same tax level to everybody. He had developed and published several books about a theory on flat tax which many countries have applied. He was particularly interested in corporate tax in

Vietnam

, and surprised to learn that it is only 28 % compared to 35% in the

U.S.

Steve Forbes didn’t say a word to introduce his publications to us. We only knew about them through other sources while staying in

America

. He talked a lot about Vietnamese economy - not macro economy, but merely interesting little stories like Bill Gates’s visit to Hanoi.
There was nothing overwhelmingly active or busy in Steve Forbes which people have often imagined famous editors to be. He was calm and changed topics quickly in order to talk to every person with different expertise in our group, but his topics were all connected. He was indeed an excellent conversationalist.
We forgot that an hour had passed by. Nor did we remember to take photograph. Only on our way out, I suddenly recollected and had to call him to wait for us. He did wait for us, cheerfully, though he was preparing for another meeting.
Our quickly taken photos may not look very good to professional eyes, but they are souvenirs good enough to capture a memorable meeting with Mr. Forbes. They remind me of old French and German newspapers of the 19th century which Steve Forbes preserves like antiques in his magazine museum. They remind me also of his question when

Vietnam

will have billionaire businesspeople willingly to publicize their richness in the media.
I have an old friend who studied mechanic math in Moscow. After graduating with a PhD at the beginning of 1990, he came home to find himself unemployed for the first few months before luckily getting a job at FPT. Those days, he had to ride his bicycle to work, and often rode back home for lunch. Once, he told me every two month, he was able to save 500.000 dong. At this rate, perhaps he would have to wait half a century to be able to afford some apartment on the 5th floor in Hanoi. He thus had to rent a place to live for a long time. Occasionally, he spent the night at the workplace, sleeping at his desk.
For almost 10 years I had heard nothing of him. But I heard that FPT was hitting jackpot everyday. I looked for some information about the company, and learned that my old friend now owns half the company’s stock worth about 200 billion dong. His old classmates at Hanoi University High School admitted that he is now the richest of them all. Some of them have run their own businesses in Europe, been able to saved about 5-6 million dollars, which is nothing to compare to him.
He now belongs to the class of rich people. Economic development and the growth of the stock market in recent years have given birth to many millionaires as well as billionaires. Mr. Truong Gia Binh, FPT’s president, has 5 million company shares worth thousands of billion dong.
Rich people often work passionately, from day to night. Employees at ACB bank rarely see their chairman Tran Mong Hung go home before 5 or 6 p.m. He attends credit meetings and studies every loan every day. He sends back documents sent for his signature only after 30 minutes.
Perhaps he doesn’t need to work that hard, because ACB has an experienced and professional management team. Yet, banking business requires close examination and management, and his bank is considering about building new headquarters.
He is worried that 80% of the Vietnamese people are still relatively poor. If ACB builds a stately office building, many people may not want to come in. It is because of this worry that the construction process hasn’t been started though inside his office, a lot of pictures on the new building’s beautiful design are hung on the wall.
If we read the reports of the companies listed at the stock exchange, we can have a long list of individuals who own hundreds of billion dong in stock. These are the officially rich people. There are also unofficially wealthy ones. Many of them don’t want to publicize their wealth, because society still looks at the rich with uneasiness.