Nguyen Minh Cuong has received a bachelor’s degree in Political Economics from University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University (VNU), Hanoi and has achieved the first prize for the Students Research Competition at VNU level in 2011 for the project “Models for an Early Warning System for Financial Crises and Application into Predicting Crises in Vietnam’s Economy in 2012-2015”. Nguyen Minh Cuong is working as a researcher at the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) and participating in projects for strategic development of Vietnam’s agriculture towards 2030 and some projects related to land policies and modern agricultural systems.
The participants of the Seminar included Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, Dr. Pham Sy Thanh from VEPR, and a number of researchers, lecturers and students from various universities in Hanoi.
The paper reviews some new perspectives on the competitive advantage of the Lao PDR based on the theories developed by Michael Porter and updated data. The author then evaluates the current situation of Laotian enterprises operating in the fields which have competitive advantage in the economy. Lao’s data has been mainly analyzed with quantitative methods. Since the study focuses on the competitiveness of a country other than Vietnam, the policy recommendations will not be for policymakers, but for investors who have been interested in this potentially emerging market.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh recommended that the author should focus on a specific industry instead of analyzing all of industries which have competitive advantage in Laos.
Dr. Pham Sy Thanh, not only strongly agreed with Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, but also shared his own viewpoints based on the research experiences on Chinese enterprises in order to help the authors to get a deeper vision when analyzing Laotian enterprises. Additionally, the two experts both shared their knowledge about Laotian economy and suggested some new innovative ideas for the author to develop their study further.
After the presentation of the author and profound suggestions of the two senior experts was the discussion of other lecturers, researchers and students. The author clearly answers the questions and carefully received feedbacks aimed at improving and developing the study in the future.