HO CHI MINH: Singapore and Vietnam are set to collaborate further in business and areas of partnerships, including service industry and business management.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew made this point at the end of his 5-day visit to Vietnam.

Mr Lee last set foot in Vietnam 10 years ago. And in this trip, he noticed the change in the country as more small enterprises have sprouted up beside foreign ones.

But Mr Lee said, due to poor infrastructure and inadequate education systems, it will take Vietnam another 20 years to catch up with other ASEAN countries.

Nevertheless, Vietnam's economy is likely to grow by at least 8 percent in the next 10 years, and he hopes Singapore businesses will tap into its potential.

Mr Lee said: "I would say we will be selling services, exporting our consumer goods. Our value to them is in our management system. These people will come with ready-made systems of working, their manufacturing plants, their management systems, their out-sourcing to local industries.

"How to run the place; how to order the traffic; how you get your hospitals correctly laid out; how you specialise – we are of value to them in many areas. Our value now is increasingly in the know-how software, how to do things properly."

"We should save a lot of troubles for them. It's the same with China – they are still sending people every month to NTU (Nanyang Technological University) to attend courses."

Singapore's Trade and Industry Ministry (MTI) expects momentum to pick up between the two countries.

MTI says one role Singapore can play is focusing on the capital market, listing them in Singapore's market.

Education-wise, more than 2500 Vietnamese have been trained in the newly set up Vietnam-Singapore Technical Training Centre.

Singapore has also given out more than 400 scholarships to students in Vietnam, and more than half of them are currently in university. - CNA/so