Albert Ting
Director of Central Trading and Development Group
Member economy: Chinese Taipei

Born in Taiwan, Albert Ting was educated in the United States. He attended Philips Exeter, a New Hampshire preparatory school and studied economics at Harvard. He later earned his Master’s Business Administration degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He worked for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong initially in 1998. By 1999, he was working full time in New York City. Then, once the EU adopted the Euro, Morgan Stanley’s office moved him to its London office for four years until 2004. Ting’s first trip to Vietnam took place in 1991. He noted that Vietnam is vastly different now; for example, fifteen years ago Vietnam had forty percent unemployment.

The Central Trading and Development Group is one of the largest direct foreign investment firms in the country. The company has been in Vietnam since 1989 and has really seen Vietnam’s transition from a planned to export oriented economy. The group has three major projects in Vietnam. The first is job creation. Direct Central Trading and Development Group has created 100,000 jobs in seventeen years and created environments that further economic development. For example, the group applied the Taiwanese concept of export processing zones to Vietnam. The group’s second project is infrastructure development. Vietnam suffered many power shortages in the mid-1990s, on average 500 outages per month. The group built a thermal power plant in Ho Chi Minh City in 1998, which provided forty percent of the city’s electrical needs. Finally, the group expands urban areas. Saigon South is Ho Chi Minh City’s master plan. The plan was created by world-renowned urban planners and architects and was the first Asian master plan to win the American Institute of Architecture’s Urban Planning Award. The plan provides for 200,000 people in a new section of the city. It also has the first United States International School in the city area. The preparatory boarding school is on the forefront of education by cooperating across the Pacific between Vietnam and the US. Central Trading and Development Group tries to be a development catalyst by timing appropriate action to create positive results. Saigon South enables and attracts more investment. It helps local set up more small and medium enterprises, and accession to the World Trade Organization makes the economic environment created by Saigon South work even better. Ting believes that APEC demonstrates that Vietnam has reached a significant turning point in its economic development. The government has made significant preparation for APEC; for example, senior level government leadership changed. Vietnam’s young Prime Minister has experience, energy, and contacts with the international world. Also a reform stating that only people under the age of sixty can stand for reelection has transformed the overall structure and ideology in Vietnam. AOEC shows Vietnam’s total commitment to change.

Central Trading and Development Group and Saigon South are interesting, because they are examples of how APEC and the WTO have helped Vietnam. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that foreign investment in Vietnam would not be possible without significant reform and assistance from the Vietnamese government. Vietnam is fortunate to have investment from firms interested in planning, because sometimes rapid economic growth is unplanned. Unplanned and rapid growth can lead to overcrowding, waste, and generally hazardous situations, in turn slowing overall growth as the area becomes less attractive.

Interviewed by Daniella Fergusson and Webb McArthur

Picture by: Daniella Fergusson. Written by: Daniella Fergusson

“APEC Vietnam 2006 is a real testimony to how much the Vietnamese economy has opened up”