Last year, Daley predicted that this would happen in a year or two, but he admitted on Wednesday that the economic downturn had been slowing things down.

“But I am quite serious about making a wager with everybody,” Daley said at a press conference about an on-going annual two-day trip by American companies to explore business in Vietnam.

Daley said in the first quarter of this year, the U.S. accounted for over half of the total US$6 billion registered foreign direct investment in Vietnam, and was thus “on track” to become a powerful force here.

At present, the U.S. ranks only 10th in terms of aggregate investments in Vietnam, but this, he said, was changing, because both U.S.-Vietnam political relationships and the local economy were brightening.

Daley said he remained optimistic even though trade, the current Doha round of global trade negotiations included, was not a priority with the Obama administration which is occupied by such issues as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and healthcare reform.

As far as free trade policies went, he said, the political consensus in the U.S. in recent years had come “undone” and there was going to be “a need to re-establish that consensus.”

Stuart Dean, who heads General Electrics in Southeast Asia, said at the briefing that Vietnam, like much of Asia, was a very attractive destination for American investors because it still had “a lot of growth.”

The Vietnamese central and local governments, particularly, were very friendly and receptive with manufacturing investors, he said.

An example was that GE had got the permit to build a manufacturing facility in Haiphong in just days after requesting it.

Speedy government approval was also what Chevron was expecting.

President of Chevron Vietnam Hank Tomlinson told the press his company was in final talks with PetroVietnam on a 20-year-long project to build offshore gas facilities to generate electricity for the Mekong Delta.

Tomlinson said Chevron had already invested US$300 million in this project, and once the project reached its final approval stage, it would need a total direct investment of over US$4 billion, two and a half billion of which would come from Chevron.

“This would make us a single largest investor in Vietnam,” he said.

This year’s delegation, made up of 16 major corporations, will meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to discuss partnerships in such fields as agriculture, infrastructure and energy.