The American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi (AmCham) recently surveyed their members about the business impact of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam.

The survey focused on business operations, travel and activity restrictions, burdensome procedures for in-bound arrivals, and the availability of vaccines in Vietnam.

“The coronavirus outbreak is causing anxiety and uncertainty across all business sectors in Vietnam,” said AmCham Executive Director Adam Sitkoff. Over 90% of AmCham members responding to the survey said the current outbreak has affected their business operations here.

The biggest challenges are a lack of available vaccines to protect their team members, and not being able to bring necessary people here due to burdensome travel requirements and paperwork.

Over 70% of respondents say their company is currently restricting work travel in Vietnam. Mr. Sitkoff added that around 90% of AmCham members have cancelled work or personal travel due to the current outbreak that has found infections in 30 cities and provinces here.

“The health and safety of people in Vietnam should remain the government’s number one priority. At the same time, it is important to recognize that in-bound travel brings in the foreign experts and business people necessary to facilitate new investment, efficient operations, key infrastructure, education of Vietnamese children and more. Survey results found that 81% of members say their company would bring more people to Vietnam if the mandatory quarantine period was reduced from 21 days down to 7 days. The pandemic is likely to continue causing disruption and locking people inside a room for many weeks might seem like a good idea today, but Vietnamese policymakers need to think seriously about a safe and simple system of documentation that will facilitate international arrivals here. Vaccines have proven safe and effective. AmCham encourages authorities to implement less burdensome entry procedures for fully vaccinated business people, foreign experts, and maybe even tourists,” Sitkoff said.

In the survey responses, AmCham members repeatedly stressed the need to get more people vaccinated. In fact, 88% of respondents said they or their company would pay money to receive a high-quality vaccine here. The AmCham Executive Director again offered to gather financial resources from companies if the government would guarantee quick vaccine availability for their team members. Sitkoff added that vaccine availability is the top issue on the minds of AmCham members right now and that until many more people get vaccinated, we will likely see additional outbreaks and disruption from the virus here.