VietNamNet Bridge – In the interview given to VietNamNet, Professor Michael
Stanley Dukakis, former U.S. presidential candidate, former Governor of
Massachusetts State in the US, now the Professor of some universities in Boston,
said he hopes many Vietnamese businessmen would realize that Boston is their
second homeland.
Professor Michael
Stanley Dukakis
The worldly politician is now in Vietnam to attend the 500 fastest growing
enterprises (FAST500) report launching ceremony held in Hanoi on April 9, 2013.
Could you please tell us the secrets that helped make Massachusetts a world’s
leading high technology center?
Until the day I took the office as the state’s governor for the first time in
late 1975, Massachusetts was just a normal industrial state with the second
highest unemployment rate in the US.
There were many things to be done to turn Massachusetts into a high technology
center. However, there were two main things which were developing the
infrastructure and strengthening the education and training so as to attract the
high quality labor force to the state to make research and work.
The big advantage that Massachusetts had at that time was that it had big and
well known universities in Boston, including Harvard and medical schools, which
have been training the high quality labor force not only for the US, but for the
whole world as well.
In order to attract talents to Massachusetts, it is necessary to create a high
quality living environment for them, while the most important factors are the
green atmosphere and the preserved and promoted cultural and historical value.
A report showed that 50 out of every 100 PhDs coming to Boston to follow their
studies and research would decide to stay there to continue their works.
In a letter to the Vietnamese businesses in the FAST 500 list, you, as a
Member of the Board of Directors of the Boston Culture Fund wrote–that Boston
is an ideal place that welcomes Vietnamese businesses. You also wrote that you
hope Boston would be the second homeland in the eyes of many Vietnamese
businessmen. Could you please elaborate on this?
Boston now is a world’s leading high technology center, where there are a lot of
global high technology groups, many good training centers and the high quality
labor force.
All these could serve as the firm foundation for Vietnamese businesses to use to
turn themselves into global groups.
If so, Boston would be like a nerve center which would carry out the research
and development of products and brands for Vietnamese businesses, so that they
can reach out to the global market and go back to Boston, which, by that time,
would be their second homeland. With the great love to Vietnam, I wish to see
this to happen.
At the university where I am working, there are many excellent Vietnamese
students, while my neighbor is also a Vietnamese, who is a healthcare expert. I
hope there would be many successful Vietnamese businesses in Boston.
Someone asked me why Vietnam, a coffee production power which can make very
delicious coffee, still has not become a global brand. This is also a surprise
to me. I wish we can cooperate on the matter.
Vietnamese are still very fledgling and weak. Will do you think they be able
to develop in Boston?
It’s true that Vietnamese businesses are still young with weak corporate
governance skills. Therefore, they have been ineffectively using the resources
and have low competitiveness.
So it would be not easy for them to develop their business in Boston. They need
to follow the right way to do that, or their efforts would be profitless. As the
Director of the Global Boston Forum, I can say that I am willing to help
Vietnamese businesses in this issue.
Vietnam always wishes to develop the industries using high technologies. What
will it need to do to reach that end?
As I said above, it’s necessary to develop infrastructure and education. I can
see many high rise buildings in Hanoi and HCM City. However, the high rise
buildings may cause traffic jam and pollution. We don’t do this in Boston, no
high rise buildings or highway. The money reserved for such projects could be
used to develop other convenient transport means such as subways or tramcars.
Would give some advices to Vietnamese businesses in the context of the Vietnam’s
deeper integration into the world?
Trying to obtain bigger market share should not be the most important thing
businesses should strive to. The most important thing for them is to improve,
upgrade the quality of products and unceasingly create added values. The world
has been developing everyday, and Vietnam should not stand outside the
development trend.
* Professor Michael Stanley Dukakis was the Governor of Massachusetts for three
terms, which recorded the hallmark of his brilliant leadership with “the
Massachusetts miracle”. In 1980s, Massachusetts witnessed the strong development
on the basis of the high technologies and finance services.
To date, he has always been one of the influential faces in Massachusetts state
and the whole US country.
Michael Stanley Dukakis began his first term as Massachusetts’ governor in 1975
and he was re-elected as the state’s governor in 1982 and 1986.
He was the presidential candidate of the Democrats, Bush father’s rival in the
race for the White House in 1988.
Tran Thuy