O.C. Business Community, Trade Experts Laud Decision

Orange County trade experts and business people, including many in the Vietnamese community, on Wednesday applauded news that the Clinton Administration apparently will lift the 19-year embargo on commerce with Vietnam.

“I’m interested in exploring the opportunities,” said Lloyd Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who is president of Biomed Healthcare in Irvine.

Tran said that Vietnam, with a population of more than 70 million, vitally needs health care products and is a logical trading partner for a company like his, which sells medical supplies.

Orange County is particularly well-positioned to take advantage of new trade opportunities because of the large number of Vietnamese entrepreneurs in Little Saigon and elsewhere who maintain family and business contacts in their native land.

The World Trade Assn. of Orange County and several other organizations and government agencies stand ready to help potential exporters.

“There is a lot of scrambling” in anticipation of the embargo’s end, said Thomas Horton, marketing director for the World Trade Assn. of Orange County.

He said he has seen 30 or 40 membership applications recently from Vietnamese Americans who want to join the group so they can meet other business people seeking trade opportunities.

Michael Hoffman, western regional director of the federal Bureau of Export Administration, said, “I would anticipate a significant amount of interest, and our office will be around to assist.”

Companies have been allowed to negotiate deals with Vietnam but cannot carry out any transactions unless and until the embargo is lifted. That restriction has not stopped them from laying the groundwork.

A Huntington Beach group that wants to build hospitals in Hanoi and Saigon has been negotiating for months in anticipation of a change in U.S. government policy.

“We’re ready to go,” said Les Hufford, executive director of the Real Estate Medical Investment and Trade group, which is putting together the hospital project.

All the agreements are in place with the Vietnamese government, he said Wednesday, and the company is close to lining up $10 million in financing, perhaps as early as next week.

Open trade with Vietnam is overdue, he said, because other industrialized nations have already been selling products and services there. “The only one being hurt by the embargo is the American businessman,” he said.