Professor Roger Strange of the UK-based University of Sussex speaks at the 8th international conference of Việt Nam’s Business, Economics & Resources 2024 held at HCM City Open University on July 2. — VNA/VNS Photo Nguyễn Diệp

HCM CITY — Around 90 domestic and foreign scholars shared their thoughts at the 8th international conference of Việt Nam’s Business, Economics & Resources 2024 (VBER2024) held at HCM City Open University on Tuesday (July 2).

With the theme “Going forward from crisis: Unleashing the power of ultimate aspirations and innovations”, this annual event aims to create a forum for researchers to present and discuss the latest research in the fields of business, economics and resources in the current context.

The conference serves as a bridge to enhance exchanges, learning, and promote academic cooperation among individuals and countries in the region and around the world.

Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Minh Hà, president of HCM City Open University, said with a vision of becoming a university that implements open education and oriented towards high-quality applications, the university continuously strives to create conditions and issue various policies to encourage research activity to strongly awaken and promote research capabilities within the community of students and lecturers.

New research centres and institutes are going to be established to improve and enhance the university’s research output and quality.

“The VBER2024 conference is a forum that connects multi-disciplinary, multi-field knowledge to collectively assess opportunities and challenges, thereby proposing solutions, overcoming limitations, and improving socio-economic efficiency through research projects with practical application value and high dissemination,” he said.

This year's event attracted 34 papers with the participation of keynote speaker Professor Roger Strange, lecturer at the University of Sussex in UK, and co-editor-in-chief of the International Business Review, along with 34 researchers, and 53 lecturers and doctoral students.

After the opening session and the plenary session, the conference featured two special discussion sessions.

“Financial Literacy, Mental Health” showcased state-of-the-art academic studies on financial literacy and mental health – the most important aspects of civilised life in modern society.

The “Sharing is Caring” forum, co-chaired by Professor Roger Strange and Dr. Banjo Roxas, lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, offered a place for young scholars to present their research, receive valuable feedback, and update the most advanced research methods from leading experts worldwide.

Through this, young scholars have improved their skills, enhanced their capabilities, and increased their chances of publishing articles in prestigious international journals.

Professor Roger Strange, lecturer at the University of Sussex in UK and co-editor-in-chief of the International Business Review, shared research on international business.

The new realities of business include the growth (resurgence) of populism and economic nationalism; sustainable development and climate change agenda; new digital technologies, and changing power relationships, he said.

Illustrative image (internet)

The new realities in Việt Nam are an emerging market-oriented socialist economy in a multipolar world, integration into the global economy, with WTO membership since 2007, low production costs, a conducive business environment, partnerships with independent suppliers and/or opportunities for inward FDI.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) from US and Europe are increasingly looking for suppliers and GVC partners in “friendly” emerging economies (friend-shoring) as an alternative to over-reliance on China (decoupling and de-risking).

There is limited domestic availability of parts and components of suitable quality. Most parts and components are imported or produced by foreign-owned firms.

“Free trade agreements and ‘bamboo diplomacy’ are appropriate government policies to promote upgrading and to capture more of value,” he said.

Dr. Võ Hồng Đức, executive director of the Business, Economics & Resources Research Centre at HCM City Open University, said quality papers and research presented at the conference would be considered for publication in prestigious journals listed in the ISI and/or Scopus indexes.

In the conference, awards were given to outstanding papers/presentations, prominent young researchers, and the best papers on gender studies or energy/environmental economics.