Our fourth day in Vietnam began with an overview of their longstanding history. Afterward, we struggled to improve our current Vietnamese-speaking ability (we can all successfully count to ten now!) and finished off the afternoon with a quick stop for lunch. In addition to ordering our usual dishes, like rice and chicken, we decided to boldly order chicken feet, a delicacy here in Ho Chi Minh City. Even though I didn’t partake in the sampling, I couldn’t help but smell the chicken feet’s strong, potent odor. They appeared to have the consistency of a chicken wing, minus 95% of the meat!

VinaCapital was our third site visit. As one of the largest asset management companies in the world, VinaCapital is responsible for investing their donors’ money back into the country. Primarily, they appear to receive a large number of FDIs, especially since the wage in Vietnam is extremely low. It was extremely interesting to hear from host about how VinaCapital plans to address the looming challenges ahead. As future recommendations for the Vietnamese government, VinaCapital’s representative spoke passionately about the implementation of a pension plan. However, it is difficult to overlook a certain set of obstacles that may present themselves in the near future, one of which being the quality of university-level education. Without a concrete foundation to educate the younger generation, individuals will struggle in order to expand the economy forward. On top of that, specific government laws make it very difficult for foreign venture capitalists to invest in infrastructure. If these laws were altered, it would become much easier to improve the logistics of Vietnam.

VinaCapital’s charity organization, known as the VinaCapital Foundation, works together with V.C in order to redistribute a portion of the company’s profits toward charitable causes. Some of their most popular ones include heart defects, hearing loss, and scholarships intended for bright women. I was very impressed with VinaCapital’s dedication toward improving and growing the future of Vietnam!