AT A GLANCE

The Singapore Chamber of Commerce Vietnam – SCCV HCMC (formerly Singapore Business Group HCM City Chapter – SBG HCMC) is a non-profit organization established on 9 August 1992 by a small group of Singaporeans doing business or working in Vietnam.

Since then, it has evolved from a social club with a membership of 30 individuals into a premier business group with a membership strength of more than 300 members and is growing.

Besides organizing monthly social networking sessions amongst various business communities, seminars on law, and other business-related topics, The association also undertakes charity projects to help the less fortunate in Vietnam.

Since 2001, the association has set up an educational fund from the proceeds of an annual charity golf event to provide scholarships for needy and deserving Higher Secondary school and University students. To date, 2,795 such students had benefited from this scholarship.

VISION & MISSION

OUR VISION

To be a caring, cohesive, and reputable premier business chamber in Vietnam.

OUR MISSION

To actively foster business relations with other business communities whilst promoting social, cultural, recreational, educational, and charitable activities.

OUR OBJECTIVES

  • To act as a source of assistance and guidance for Members.
  • To gather and disseminate relevant information and legislation to Members.
  • To organize seminars and dialogues on relevant business-oriented topics of interest to Members.
  • To promote social, cultural, recreational, and educational activities for its Members and their families.
  • To participate in public and charitable activities for the benefit of Members and the general public.
  • To undertake any other activities that are consistent with the Association’s objectives within the laws of Vietnam.
  • To set up Chapters in various cities and provinces in Vietnam to carry out the objective of the Association.
  • To promote business relations amongst members as well as with Vietnamese enterprises, foreign business entities, and business associations.
  • To organize regular networking functions amongst its Members with other business entities, business associations, and competent authorities.
  • To co-operate with competent authorities in seeking Members’ feedback on laws, regulations, and procedures relevant to enhancing the attractiveness of Vietnam’s business environment.

MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT

It is my pleasure to address our Patron, Partners, valuable Members and Associates in my 10th year as the President of Singapore Chamber of Commerce Vietnam (HCMC).

Looking back at 2021, it has been an eventful year. It started with the inauguration of Joe Biden in January. Kamala Harris became their first female, Black and South Asian Vice-President. In February, the coup d’état in Myanmar saw the toppling of the popularly elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. America pulling out their troops in Afghanistan in April after nearly 20 years of conflict.

In 2021, Supply Chains became a household term. Businesses have assumed for decades that outsourcing production was the key to success. Then there was COVID-19. It revealed one of the drawbacks of supply chains: shortages and stoppages far away lead to shortages and stoppages closer to home. When the pandemic initially struck, factories shut down and many businesses reduced inventory to avoid being stuck with unsold items. However, when vaccines became accessible in 2021, customer demand skyrocketed, leaving many enterprises short on parts and supplies. All businesses globally experienced this on an unprecedented level. Relief to this problem is still nowhere near in sight.

Covid 19 vaccines arrived as the virus started to mutate. Just when the world thought that the Delta variant could be put under control, Omicron took the world by storm. Following a rebound to an anticipated 5.5 percent in 2021, global growth is expected to slow to 4.1 percent in 2022, owing to prolonged COVID-19 flare-ups, less fiscal support, and persisting supply bottlenecks.

Vietnam’s 2021 was by far the most challenging to date. While Vietnam was praised around the world for containing the pandemic in 2020, the Delta variant proved to be too much to handle, resulting in stringent lockdowns, industrial interruptions, and supply chain disruptions.

While most western countries suffered an excruciating 2020, Vietnam’s 2021 was harsh with the pandemic hitting Vietnam’s GDP hard. In Q3 2021, Vietnam recorded its first-ever negative GDP, since 2000 affecting businesses and its people significantly. Nevertheless, Vietnam rebounded in the last quarter and had achieved an amazing 2.58% growth while most of world’s economies were in the red. While most economies are still dealing with an ongoing covid surge or the aftermath, the business sentiment in Vietnam still remained strong followed by positive GDP growth in the foreseeable future.

For 2022, Vietnam’s government has forecast GDP growth of 6 to 6.5 percent. For us at SBG, we had a challenging 2021. With the social distancing measures in place most part of the year, we had switched to conducting more webinars events in place of physical networking sessions and forums. And that had also set the pace for us to continue conducting webinars and hybrid events (physical event with live streaming) moving forward. To continue enforcing our focus on helping businesses, we had also formulated two business-focus sub-committees (led by our members) – F&B Sub-com and Startup Sub-com. More such sub-committees are incubated as we speak. It would be an exciting ride into the new year.

We look forward to seeing all of you in our coming events.

On behalf of Singapore Chamber of Commerce Vietnam (HCMC), we will like to wish our Patron, Corporate Sponsors, Members and Associates a healthy and prosperous year of the Tiger.

Norman Lim

President, SCCV (HCMC)

Mr. Norman LimPresident

SCCV EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER

MR. NORMAN LIM

President

Norman Lim has been in Vietnam since 2007. He has previously head two Fortune 500 MNCs, spearheading their businesses in Vietnam from scratch. With his vast Green field experience, he is now working for Metkraft Ltd (a Fisher Barton company) as their President with responsibility over their manufacturing operations and to expand their commercial footprint in Asia Pacific. He has joined SBG Exco as an Executive Member since 2008 and took rein of the chair in 2012. He has worked relentlessly with his team of Exco to bring value and more business focus activities to our members. He is also very active in CSR activities. As a PADI certified Master Instructor, he has been an active marine life conservationist in his previous tour of work in Brunei. And now he has taken over the baton to continue raising Education Funds (an SBG initiative) to help poor but deserving students in and around Ho Chi Minh City to continue their studies.

MR. JASON YEO

Vice President

With more than 16 years of experience in the banking industry and having spent 6 years in Vietnam, Jason has witnessed Fin-tech revolution in a developed financial center and an energetic frontier market. In the retail banking front where the battleground is one of the most intensive, having a clear customer orientation and innovative commercialization beachheads will allow us to optimize cost per acquisition, foster deep engagements and effortless servicing of our users.

With a relatively young population and rapid economic developments in Vietnam, Jason’s focus is to develop a comprehensive network, service and digital strategy to better serve the community and facilitate Foreign Direct Investments into the country. Jason is known to be a people’s person and passionate in championing corporate social responsibility initiatives, specifically in helping less fortunate children to develop their talents. Jason took over as Honorary Treasurer for SCCV in 2017.

MR. DIXON OH

Vice President

Dixon; Oh Gek Soon is a Singaporean businessman based in Vietnam for almost 21 years since year 2000. He is currently the CEO of Eagle Trading & Logistics Co., Ltd. He is also the Board Member of Aquarius Vietnam JSC.

Prior to his current post, Dixon held senior management responsibilities in a number of Singapore-based regional companies. Dixon was first posted to Vietnam as General Director of the Vietnam operations of AP Oil International Ltd, a Singapore mainboard-listed company.

Prior to Vietnam, Dixon worked in a number of countries in East Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Southeast Asia.

MR. SECK YEE CHUNG

Vice President

Seck Yee Chung leads Baker McKenzie’s M&A practice in Vietnam. He is ranked as a leading and recommended lawyer in the Corporate, M&A and TMT practices in Vietnam by various league tables (Chamber Asia, IFLR1000, Asia Pacific Legal 500, etc.).

He has dealt with a wide range of investment projects and major M&A deals. He advises and assists on investment, corporate, commercial and compliance/competition matters.

This includes foreign direct investment, market access and licensing, private and public M&A, commercial contracts, data use and privacy, competition and merger filing, and compliance, over a diverse range of sectors, including technology, e-commerce, logistics and real estate to consumer products, food and beverages, healthcare, manufacturing, and industrials.

MR. JEFFERY LEE

Honorary Secretary

Jeffery Lee is always searching for local talent in Vietnam since November 2010 due to his involvement in the Executive Search and HR Consulting Services of A8 Resource Co., Ltd. in developing a talent pool for foreign-invested and domestic enterprises in manufacturing, IT, logistics, FMCG, industrial sales services industries.

In addition, Jeffery and his staffs are continuously working to support clients as a HR Business Partner providing Payroll Services, EoR Outsourcing and HR As a Service with customised HR solutions.

As of now, he is focused on the collaboration with Growth Consulting Asia Pte Ltd to introduce the Five Dimensions of the Growth Mindset © in Vietnam as well as Next Phase Leadership on the Four Phases of Performance and Contribution.

MR. ELIAS ABRAHAM

Honorary Treasurer

Elias is the Managing Director of ZIM Shipping Line in Vietnam. ZIM, founded in 1945 and headquartered in Haifa (Israel), is ranked among the Top 10 global shipping lines. ZIM is a veteran shipping liner, with decades of experience providing customers with innovative seaborne transportation and logistics services, a reputation for industry-leading transit times, schedule reliability and service excellence.

Elias holds a Post Graduate Degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and spent over half of his 22-year shipping career in Vietnam, aside from stints in India, Sri Lanka and the US. In Vietnam, Elias served as APL’s Regional Director for SE Asia/Oceania (2016-2017) and Managing Director in Vietnam (2011-2015). Elias was also a Board Member of Vietnam International Container Terminal (VICT) from 2011 till 2016. While in Sri Lanka (2007-2011), he served as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Association of Vessel Operators (SLAVO).

Elias is a Singapore citizen and resides in Ho Chi Minh. Elias is an SCCV Exco member over the past three years and currently Chairs SCCV’s Supply Chain Sub-Committee.

MS. HUANG XIAOWEN

Honorary Advisor

Xiaowen is the Regional Director of Enterprise Singapore (ESG). She is concurrently the Vice-Consul (Commercial) of the Consulate-General of the Republic of Singapore in Ho Chi Minh City. ESG is the government agency championing enterprise development by helping them build capabilities, innovate and internationalise. ESG also support the growth of Singapore as a hub for global trading and startups.

Xiaowen joined ESG since 2014 to help build the capabilities of SMEs in Singapore. In particular, she worked closely with SMEs in the healthcare sector, and helped to grow the healthcare startup ecosystem. She started a number of programmes with the public healthcare clusters in Singapore to support medtech startups in commercialising their products and kickstarting their businesses. She also worked with private healthcare players to support them in growing their businesses. Prior to joining ESG, Xiaowen was with SingHealth, Singapore’s largest group of healthcare institutions, supporting the smooth running of hospital operations.

MR. KEN ANG

Committee Member

“I have been living in Vietnam for the past 24 years and exco for 20 years.
I am currently working with my dad’s partner in the automotive paint industry. Our paint brand is PPG coatings.
United Paints has been supplying automotive paints and products to Mercedes Benz Vietnam (HCMC), Thaco (Chu Lai), Ford Vietnam (Hai Duong) and many car dealerships for the past 20 years. I am looking forward to serving SingCham for the next term.
Thank you for your support to SingCham”

MR. KELVIN ANG

Committee Member

Kelvin Ang, a Singaporean and has been living in Vietnam for 13 years. He is the founder of ILW EVENT Company since 2015. In ILW, we make it our priority to understand our client’s objectives, working alongside clients from concept to completion to create a unique and memorable event. We pride ourselves on delivering a great service to each and every one of our clients, large and small.

MR. WESLEY CHUA

Committee Member

Wesley is a Singaporean with almost 15 years of experience in the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing issues. He is currently based in Vietnam with Ernst & Young (EY) Consulting Vietnam since 2020.

Wesley has worked in a variety of projects including international tax planning & restructuring, supply chain restructuring, operating effectiveness strategies, treasury management including entity capitalization and debt protocols in various jurisdiction, global transfer pricing documentation, tax & transfer pricing audits and work involving multiple tax authorities such as Mutual Agreement Procedure and Advance Pricing Agreement.

Before relocating to Vietnam, Wesley was working in Singapore and specialized in advising clients from an international perspective across various sectors. Wesley is an Accredited Tax Advisor (Income Tax) with Singapore Chartered Tax Professionals, Chartered Accountant (Singapore) with Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants and a ASEAN CPA holder.

Wesley is fluent in both English and Mandarin, and basic conversational Vietnamese. While not on his job, he challenges himself in the gym and doing outdoor activities. Wesley is also a certified swimming coach and enjoys imparting swimming and water survival skills to the younger generation.

MS. NGUYEN PHAN PHUONG THAO (EMILY)

Committee Member

Thao (Emily) had been with  SBG as a Senior Marcom Executive for 3 years (2019 – 2022) and is currently an Event Manager of Tanzanite International. Tanzanite International is an international developer with a long-term focus and commitment to luxury lifestyle beachfront resort and residential developments.

Thao has a demonstrated history of more than 7-year working in the events services industry with international and local brands. Strong sales professional and strong will in building relationships with partners.

Thao looks forward to opportunities to continue her contribution & support to SCCV in the next term.

MR. TERRY TAN

Committee Member

Hello, my name is Terry Tan and I am the Director of 4 companies in Vietnam, which is involved in energy commodities and marine logistics, power generation.

I specialize in business development and advisory consultancy and have been focusing on bulk cargo and coastal wind projects in Vietnam, especially in the southern region of Vietnam.

I am humbled and happy to be part of SCCV EXCO term 2018-2020 and 2020-2022 and I look forward to any opportunities to continue to serve and contribute to my fellow countrymen.

MR. MORGAN ULAGANATHAN

Committee Member

Morgan Ulaganathan is the Head of Asset Services & Hospitality Advisory for Vietnam with Colliers. He has over 2 decades of experience in hospitality and real estate across Asia Pacific, with a multidisciplinary operational background in hospitality and asset services. He has been based in Vietnam since 2012, prior to this he was residing in Sydney for a decade

Holding dual responsibilities with Colliers, he manages developers and investors property portfolio through operational excellence of asset services. In the field of hospitality, he has provided clients with asset management, strategic planning, operator selection, general consulting and advisory services.

Morgan is a Singaporean citizen and holds a EMBA from Nanyang Business School along with Executive Education pursued at INSEAD, Cornell and UC Berkeley.  He was a volunteer at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic at vaccinations drives in Phu Quoc. Whilst residing in Hanoi he received a Letter of Commendation for life saving efforts from the Embassy of the USA to Vietnam.

SCCV NOMINATED EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER

MR. AJAY PANOT

Nominated Committee Member

Ajay Hiralal Panot has been member of Singapore Business Group for 18 years. He is General Manager at Raptakos, Brett & Co Ltd where he has joined since August 1987, and he has worked in Vietnam since November 1991 till date. Ajay was the Chairman of the Indian Business Chamber in Vietnam (INCHAM) from 2000 to 2006. Being part of the Executive Committee for the term 2018-2020 and 2020-2022, he will support team to organize various business and cultural events.

MR. ZAC CHEN

Nominated Committee Member

Zac Chen covered both sides of business financing as a banker in UOB Hong Kong, Maybank Singapore and Hong Kong, ORIX Leasing Singapore Ltd. And on client side, as a Director at a 3rd generation small medium business with regional presence that was established in 1961.

Founded Cashbox.co an online advisory platform that supports small businesses in getting financing quickly with minimal data processing effort while enabling financiers to help such businesses better in achieving their goals.

Zac would like to contribute to the wider business community in areas of family business succession, technology, and cross border business networks.

MR. TAN QUEE PENG

Nominated Committee Member

Quee Peng has more than 20 years of architectural experience leading major projects across Asia. His diverse portfolio also includes residential, commercial, industrial as well as redevelopment initiatives.

He believes that architecture is an inextricable part of our experience and has the power to inform and transform our sensibilities and perceptions, from personal spaces to our interaction with society at large. Quee Peng takes a whole-of-life cycle approach on projects, from new development to brownfield asset enhancement, to deliver quality to stakeholders at all levels.

He enjoys walks, reading, music and wine in his spare time.

MR. ALAN PHUA

Nominated Committee Member

Mr. Alan Phua is the Chief Executive Officer of Virtue Partners Management (Vietnam).

Possessing more than 2 decades of leadership experience, Alan started his career in the Finance industry more than 13 years ago. Previous appointments held included Head of Private Wealth, Head of Recruitment as well as Head of Healthcare Services. Alan is also concurrently a Brigade Warrant Officer in the Singapore Armed Forces.

Alan enjoys participating in committees and believes firmly in creating a collaborative and supportive environment where every member is heard and feels welcomed.  

Alan is able to converse effectively in 3 languages, namely English, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

MR. CALVIN H J YAU

Nominated Committee Member

First elected as SCCV ExCo: 13th of September, 2018

Calvin H J Yau is the advisor to Board of Management cum Chief Strategy Office of Vietnam Gateway Securities JSC (VGW).  Currently, he also serves as the director of companies in smartcard & payment solutions, leisure, food processing and investment advisory.

He has previously held as Executive Chairman at Funan Securities Corporation (FNS), senior management positions at Interfood Shareholding Company, a public listed company in HoChiMinh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) from Malaysia foreign invested enterprise and its subsidiaries, AVA Food Shareholding Company and Interfood Packaging Shareholding Company.

SCCV SECRETARIATS

MS. TRISTYN

Pham Ngoc Phuong Thao (Ms. Tristyn)
Senior Marcom Executive
Email: thao.pham@singchamvn.org

MS. HANIE

Ha Dang Thuy Hien (Ms. Hanie)

Marketing Officer

Email: hien.ha@singchamvn.org

MS. ELLY

Vo Ngoc Quynh Tran (Ms. Elly)

Senior Finance and Administrator

Email: tran.vo@singchamvn.org

MS. VICKY

Tran Ngoc Phuong Vy (Ms. Vicky)

Event & Marketing Executive

Email: vy.tran@singchamvn.org