“Feel much at home here”

Had you been here before  serving as an ambassador? How do you find living in Vietnam? 

I’m here for almost three years and a half which is significant time. It allows me to see the country evolves during this time. I have been here before as tourist with my wife years ago. We came for the Tet holiday in 2003 (17 years ago). It is a fantastic visit which gave us the flavor of Vietnam and making us always think that we would come back here one day. 

Israeli ambassador to Vietnam Nadav Eshcar

And happily and gladly, we did it. I am working here as an ambassador since the summer of 2017. I think this is one of the most interesting as well as pleasant place for me to be a foreign diplomat. The country is so beautiful, the people are so welcoming and we feel very much at home here. 

Could you outline some cooperation targets between the two countries in the time ahead?

Besides, Vietnam has developed fast and been moving fast forward becoming a more interesting place to work. I think the relationship between Israel and Vietnam is also running fast forward. We are very active here. There is a huge interest by Vietnamese side in Israel and vice versa, in developing business sales, in developing new fields of cooperation. 

We also cooperate in so many fields like agriculture, education, start-up and cyber security, innovation and of course, quality clever and so much more. I think it is very privileged for me to be here in this time.

Vietnam as an influential or significant player in international arena 

Success in science-technology and startup is one of the most outstanding stories when we talk about Israel? How does Israel do that?

Basically, our society  evolved from the society of minority. We needed to excel in order to success, excel more than the majority. This is also our condition in a long run. We appreciate the excellence very much. This is one thing. The second thing is we are from a harsh country in the sense of natural resources. No water, almost dessert, it’s hard to give food or develop agriculture for people to live there. So, we need to innovate. We succeed by innovation and ideas. It’s great achievement. it’s about the mentality of people. 

Vietnam also heads towards becoming a start-up country. Any experience that Israel can share with us and any bilateral cooperation between the two countries on the way?

I think Vietnamese people are no less clever, may be cleverer, and very capable and so innovative. And I think the capability of the Vietnamese to achieve those achievement is guaranteed with the help of the government, with the help of improving the academy. I think Vietnam is on the right track to be just like that.

At the moment, Vietnam and Israel are working together in many issues. In almost every aspect of our cooperation, I think you can find the issue of innovation and the issues of technology. And we are very happy to share our experience with Vietnam. 

And we are happy to learn from Vietnamese experience as well. I think that the Vietnamese side is always eager to exchange with us – that how I feel when I arrived  here. For example, when we talk about ecosystem of innovation – this is one of example from our projects we are doing with Ho Chi Minh authority. Our accelerator will join with the Vietnamese accelerator to work together and push a team of Israeli and Vietnamese to start it up, guide them on how to startup from ideas to a company.

And the main thing is not to push this specific team but to practice how to accelerate together. This is something very advanced on the concept of cooperation, not just “let’s do something together” but “let’s create/proceed something together”. This is something meaningful and this is going happen this year and we are looking forward to that. 

I think Vietnam is raising its head as a player, as a more influential or significant player in international arena. By far, the best achievement of Vietnam is that how the country manages to handle the pandemic of Covid-19 because it is among of very few countries in the world that basically manage to stop the pandemic at its gate. It was stopped very quickly and very successfully. 

With great determination, with great professionalism, this is huge success story in this time. This is the biggest story in the world – the story of Covid. So I think in this time, when we move from 2020 to 2021, the eye of many countries are looking at Vietnam as a role model and as an example of how to contain the pandemic.

Thank you so much!