BESIDES the normal beeping, there is also a brand-new buzz in the office of ABC Communications. With the announcement that the United States had lifted its longstanding embargo on Vietnam, phones immediately started ringing off the hook at the country's premier paging service.
Deputy managing director, Patricia Yeung, who is based in Hong Kong, welcomed the decision saying it would be a shot in the arm for Vietnam's economy.
However, she said ABC's bullish plans for the country were already on track long before the US action.
After scouting Vietnam for several years, ABC Communications signed its first contract with Ho Chi Minh Post and Telecommunications in March last year, to provide a paging service to the Vietnamese city and surrounding countryside.
The Hong Kong firm followed its landmark paging pact by signing a second contract last summer that effectively made it Vietnam's national paging service. The contract is not exclusive, but covers the entire country.
Within four months of launching the service in Ho Chi Minh City, ABC already has 1,300 customers, Ms Yeung says. ''We expect to have 5,000 to 6,000 by the end of the year.'' Customers are also signing up for the service in Hanoi and Haiphong, where the service will be launched officially on February 19. ABC expects to extend the service soon to the Mekong Delta and central Vietnam. Its year-end goal is 10,000 customers.
''The potential is immense,'' Ms Yeung said, noting that although official statistics listed a low per capita income for Vietnamese, there was a lot of hidden wealth.