finance & business news 3 October 2017 · 2017-10-03 · finance & business news FINANCE Reference...

3 October 2017

finance & business news

FINANCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Reference exchange rate up 5 VND 2Government bond yields tend to rise 2Higher outstanding credit platform expected in the end of the year 2Is credit growing more slowly? 3Banks urged to serve low earners 3Banking and insurance sectors achieve highest growth in

past 7 years 4VAMC distrains eight land lots of Hoan Cau Group 5Fintech start-ups poised to develop in Vietnam 5Techcombank to issue shares this month 6LienVietPostBank's shares to be traded on UPCoM from

October 5th at reference price of 14,800 VND per share 7TPP 11: What will Vietnam do? 7GDP in quarter three posts record high of 7.46pct 8CPI up 3.79pct in Jan-Sep 9Industrial production index up 7.9 per cent 9Binh Duong: Industrial production index rises 9.48pct 10FDI giants boost Vietnam's economic growth 11Binh Duong surpasses annual FDI target in nine months 13Retail sales post significant increase in January-September 14Capital city sees upbeat trade growth in 9 months 14Nine-month export value grows 19.8pct 14Trade deficit with Korea skyrockets to $23.3 billion 15Import and export turnover may reach $400b in 2017 15PM stresses key role of private sector in economy 16PM holds policy dialogue with leading private firms 17Cutting business procedures only one step forward 18Fuel price hike to have knock-on effects 19Binh Duong announes investment for 20 projects in 2017-2020 20HCM City microfinance fund for poor gets upgrade 20Hanoi demands special mechanism to develop 22,300

apartments 21Nearly 94,000 new firms set up in nine months 21Binh Duong registers 3,800 new firms in nine months 22E-commerce: disrupting age-old retail habits 22Cashew sector a hard nut to crack 25Green building trending: experts 25

Promoting tourism Lever to develop Vietnam tourism industry 26Hanoi apartment market seeing positive performance 29Hanoi office rental fees remain stable: CBRE 29Bridges projects boost land prices in Hanoi's eastern area 30Businesses flex their muscle to compete with foreign

fast-fashion brands 30Are Vietnamese manufacturers afraid of Thai products? 31Central Highlands Dak Lak province lures numerous projects 32

BIZ NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32Business Briefs 03 October, 2017 32HSX continues losing streak, but recovery expected 33Large cap stocks perform poorly 34Sluggish days ahead for Vietnam stocks 34SSI, UBS AG selected as next Vinamilk's share sale advisors 35VNPT schedules IPO in 2019 36HCM City starts tracing poultry origins 36High-tech rate low at industrial zones in HCM City 37ManpowerGroup Vietnam: number of female leaders

remains modest 38Vietnam eyes one million Japanese tourists in 2018 38Growth rate of cars in Vietnam goes far ahead of motorcycles 39In Vietnam, flight ticket agents sell passenger info to

airport transport services 39Chinese potatoes still sold as Da Lat produce 40VN dragon fruit wows Aussie consumers 41WB pledges to help Hanoi launch more BRT routes 42Phu Yen designates 14 sites suitable for solar energy plants 42Southern lottery companies report falling profit 43Mekong Capital earns $79m in divestments 44CJ Logistics pursues Vietnamese expansion ambition 45Samsung backs Vietnamese firms joining global supply chain 46Hoa Phat to cooperate with Italy firm 46Isuzu Vietnam Auto Care Centre rolls into service 47VinFast announces collection of sedan vehicles, SUVs 47Chair of FPT Software: 'I do not need a degree' 48Start Jerusalem 2017: Drop Deck wins VN challenge 51200 exhibitors to join Hanoi Textile, Garment Industry Expo 52International water, energy expo to open in HCM City 52

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FINANCEReference exchange rate up 5 VND

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VNA

The daily reference exchange rate for VND/USD was set at 22,473 VND per USD on Oc-tober 3, up 5 VND from the previous day.With the current trading band of/-3 percent, the ceiling rate applied to commercial banks during the day is 23,146 VND and the floor rate 21,800 VND.The opening hour rates at major commercial banks remain stable, with Vietcombank, BIDV and Vietinbank kept their rates unchanged from October 2.The greenback is traded at 22,690 VND (buying) and 22,760 VND (selling) at Vietcom-bank and 22,695 VND (buying) and 22,765 VND (selling) at BIDV.Vietinbank listed its buying rate at 22,690 VND and selling rate 22,760 VND per USD.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/reference-exchange-rate-up-5-vnd/118872.vnp

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Vietnam finance & business 3 October 2017

Government bond yields tend to rise

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| THANH NIEN

According to the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), in September, the agency held 16 auc-tions of government bonds, mobilising a total of 4.086 trillion dong of bonds issued by the State Treasury, up by 28.5 percent compared to August 2017.The winning bid compared to offering value reached 47.5%. Meanwhile, the winning bond yields were 4.63-4/67 percent per annum on 5-year bonds, 4.83-4.85 percent per annum on 7-year bonds, 5.38-5.40 percent per annum on 10-year bonds, and 6.1 per-cent per annum on 30-year bonds. Compared to August 2017, the winning bond yields tended to increase by 0.02-0.07 percentage point across the 5-year, 7-year, and 10-year tenors, and remained the same on 30-year tenor.As per HNX, the total trading value of government bonds on the entire market from the beginning of the year until the end of September reached a record high level of 1,520 trillion dong, up by 42.4 percent compared to the same period of 2016. Mean-while, the average trading value of each session in the last nine months was 8.557 tril-lion dong, 1.35 times higher than 2016; in which the trading of foreign investors reached 95.4 trillion dong with net buying value of 20.660 trillion dong, up by 162 per-cent compared to 2016.

Higher outstanding credit platform expected in the end of the year

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VNECONOMY

Statistics of the General Statistical Office (GSO) showed that as of September 20th 2017, the credit growth of the economy reached 11.02 percent (10.46 percent in the same pe-riod of 2016). In the last 10 days of September, according to the above data, the credit growth in the first nine months of 2017 is expected to be even higher.However, compared to the requirement for achieving annual credit growth of about 21 percent set by the government recently, the pressure in the last quarter of the year is significant, with an addition of about 10%.If the plan is timely completed, the growth in the last quarter of 2017 will see a surge over the same periods of many past years, particularly from late 2012 until now. And in the last three months of 2017, the average credit growth may far exceed other months of the year. The question is whether it is a pile-up?On January 5th 2017, at the conference on implementing banking tasks in 2017 organ-ised by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc re-quested to manage reasonable credit growth right from the beginning of the year, avoiding stressful works in the end of the year. However, as estimated in the above, in which credit should be developed by another 10 percent in the last three months of the year, it is not considered a pile-up like other years.Specifically, the difference in 2017 compared to other previous years is that the credit growth of the entire system has been positive since the very beginning of the year with fairly strong and even growth across the months. That pace is in line with the initial orientation of SBV with a target of 18 percent credit growth.Now, since the target being raised to 21 percent by the government, the work in the last quarter of the year is to gain a stronger growth, not similar to the pile of work on increasing lending like before.However, the growth rate and regulation of the credit growth in 2017 may not be so important when looking at the future. The success to achieve the 21 percent credit growth target in 2017 also largely depends on the absorption of the economy. If the goal is completed, the notable point is that a higher "platform" has been and will be cre-ated this year. That is the total outstanding credit for the economy (the denominator). The larger this number, the greater the absolute amount of money that will be lent out in the future according to the credit growth rate. Accordingly, raising the credit growth target from 18 percent to 21 percent will draw more attention in terms of in-creasing the denominator for reference in the future.Nearly 10 years ago, 1 percent of credit growth was equivalent to a not very significant increase of additional loans, as the total outstanding credit to the economy just reached about 2,300 trillion dong in 2008. That 1 percent as of late 2016 has created a much larg-er scale of money as the total outstanding credit was about 5,500 trillion dong.

Intellasia 3 October 2017 2 / 52

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And in the near future, in 2018, based on the platform achieved this year, each 1 per-cent of the credit growth is expected to be created based on a total outstanding credit of around 6,600 trillion dong, if the credit growth objective of 21 percent is obtained.

Is credit growing more slowly?

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| TRI THUC TRE

As per the General Statistical Office (GSO), as of September 20, 2017, the total money supply increased 9.59 percent from the end of 2016 (compared to 11.76 percent in the same period last year); the capital mobilisation of credit organisations swelled 10.08 percent (compared to 12.02 percent in the same period last year); the credit growth of the economy touched 11.02 percent (compared to 10.46 percent in the same period last year). Good credit growth reflects the positive development trend and the relatively good capital absorption of the economy.Data on capital mobilisation shows that the demand for deposits in banks is growing more slowly compared to the previous year but credit is forecasted to increase more strongly at year's end to meet the expected government's growth target of 21-22 per-cent and banks will surely have to boost the credit growth further.Apart from banks' credibility, deposit rates are also being offered by banks at relatively competitive price, bringing about many choices to depositors. Of which, short-term in-terest rates are being raised slightly by banks compared to several weeks ago, to the highest level of 5.4-5.5%/annum (including VIB, HDBank, Sacombank, etc.).Data on credit growth shows that the growth momentum seems to have decreased sig-nificantly in September. As per the released report by the National Financial Supervi-sory Commission (NFSC), in August, the credit growth exceeded 11 percent (of which, credit in dong swelled 11%, and foreign currency credit rose 11.5%).The report by the General Statistical Office also shows that since July 10, 2017, the State Bank reduced operating interest rates by 0.25 percent and implemented support meas-ures to lower lending rates following the direction of the government. Credit organi-sations have actively carried out policies and direction of the State Bank on interest rate reduction i.e. short-term lending rates for priority areas decreased 0.5%/annum and in-terest rates for customers borrowing to serve business and production diminished 0.5-1%/annum.Simultaneously, credit organisations have reduced interest rates of some medium and long-term lending programmes for priority areas to eight percent per annum; and ac-tively carried out lending programmes at preferential interest rates for essential sec-tors in the development of economic and social security and for the customer group with transparent financial situation, short-term lending rates range at 4-5%/annum.

Banks urged to serve low earners

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VNS

Vietnam has significant room to promote inclusive finance, given 70 per cent of its population is living in rural areas and many are locked out of the conventional bank-ing system due to low income, experts have said.However, there were challenges in making banking products and financial services available to the low-income population, especially those living in remote areas, such as poor infrastructure system and preference for cash.According to Le Phuong Lan, deputy director of the Banking Strategy Institute, inclu-sive finance aimed at ensuring banking products and financial services provided by of-ficial financial institutions were accessible to all segments of the population at reasonable cost, which was critical to reduce poverty and accelerate the country's eco-nomic growth.A number of programes had been implemented to promote inclusive finance, such as projects to develop cashless payment, micro-finance system development, improving access to banking services, and credit support policies for agricultural businesses, small and medium enterprises, students and poor households, Lan said.Vietnam is in urgent need for inclusive finance as the demand for capital was increas-ing and the non-performing loan ratio at micro-financial institutions and social policy banks was much lower than other places, experts said.


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Facts, however, showed that access to banking and finance services was still limited in rural and remote areas.Statistics by the central bank revealed that the percentage of adults with accounts at official financial institutions increased from 21.3 per cent in 2012 to 30.9 per cent in 2014, still low in comparison with countries such as China with 78 per cent and Thai-land with 79 per cent.Vo Viet Hung, director of the central bank's Monetary and Financial Stabilisation De-partment, said management agencies should develop inclusive finance in line with fi-nancial stability.This would require the cooperation of relevant organistions and the application of high technologies to ensure convenience and safety of residents and businesses, Hung said.Interest rates were not always at the lowest level, Hung said, adding that international experiences had shown that the rates should be competitive to ensure healthy compe-tition among financial institutions.Phan Cu Nhan of the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies' International Integration De-partment said it was critical to provide training about how to use capital effectively along with promoting inclusive finance in Vietnam.Nhan added that banking products should be diversified to meet the abundant de-mand of low-income earners, together with the application of high technologies, such as mobile banking, to improve access.The State Bank of Vietnam was in charge of developing a national strategy on financial inclusion.http://bizhub.vn/banking/banks-urged-to-serve-low-earners_289220.html

Banking and insurance sectors achieve highest growth in past 7 years

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| TRI THUC TRE

As per the report of the General Statistical Office (GSO), the gross domestic product (GDP) in the first nine months of 2017 is estimated to increase 6.41 percent year-on-year, i.e. 5.15 percent in the first quarter, 6.28 percent in the second quarter, and 7.46 percent in the third quarter. The growth rate in the first nine months of this year is much higher than the growth of 5.99 percent in the same period of 2016showing a pos-itive signal for the economy to achieve the whole year growth target of 6.7%.Notably, among the sectors, the service sector grew the most strongly with 7.25%, con-tributing 2.8 percentage points to the total growth. In terms of economic structure, the service sector also accounted for the largest market share with 42.67%.In the service sector, finance, banking and insurance activities recorded a 7.89 percent increase in the first nine months of the year, which is the highest level in seven recent years. Previously, the growth of finance, banking and insurance in 2011 was 6.99 per-cent compared to 5.97 percent in 2012; 6.68 percent in 2013; 5.39 percent in 2014; 6.7 percent in 2015 and 7.38 percent in 2016.The GSO's report also shows that as of September 20, 2017, the total money supply in-creased 9.59 percent compared to the end of 2016 (up 11.76 percent in the same period last year); the capital mobilisation of credit institutions swelled 10.08 percent (com-pared to 12.02 percent in the same period last year); the credit growth of the economy reached 11.02 percent (compared to 10.46 percent in the same period last year). Good credit growth shows positive development trend and relatively good capital absorp-tion capacity of the economy.The 9-month insurance market maintained positive growth. Total premiums for the whole market in nine months were estimated to swell 18 percent year-on-year, of which life insurance premiums hiked over 22%; Non-life insurance revenue rose nine percent.

VAMC distrains eight land lots of Hoan Cau Group

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| THE SAIGON TIMES

Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) is seeking experienced units to help with evaluating eight land lots with total area of over 50,000 square meters, which are assets guaranteed for the bad debts of Hoan Cau Khanh Hoa JSC and Hoan Cau Nha


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Trang Co Ltd (Hoan Cau Group).According to Tuoi Tre newspaper, VAMC acquired these land lots from Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank (Sacombank), which are Hoan Cau Group's assets guar-anteed for its loans of VND2,418 billion (nearly $106.2 million) at the bank.The eight land lots, located in Tan Thuan Tay and Binh Thuan wards of District 7, HCM City, were planned for a high-rise residential building combined with a com-mercial centre. Their total value at the time Hoan Cau Group borrowed money from Sacombank was estimated at VND2,418 billion.Sacombank lent Hoan Cau Group money to develop the project, but the loan became Sacombank's bad debts, forcing the bank to sell the bad debts to VAMC for special bonds.Hoan Cau Khanh Hoa JSC has total loan principal of VND1.3 trillion and total loan in-terest of over VND84 billion. VAMC acquired the debts by special bonds worth VND1.3 trillion.Meanwhile, VAMC acquired total loan principal of VND1.1 trillion and total loan in-terest of over VND93 billion of Hoan Cau Nha Trang Co Ltd by special bonds worth VND1.1 trillion.Overall, Hoan Cau Group's total loan principal is VND2.4 trillion and total loan inter-est is VND177 billion.Hoan Cau Khanh Hoa JSC and Hoan Cau Nha Trang Co Ltd are subsidiaries of Hoan Cau Group which was founded in 1993 with charter capital of VND193 billion.Hoan Cau Group now has 36 subsidiaries in Khanh Hoa Province, HCM City, Da Lat City and Dong Nai Province. The group's charter capital was raised to VND1,170 bil-lion in 2015.Hoan Cau Group is the investor of Diamond City project in District 7, HCM City, which has total investment of $4 billion and is scheduled for completion in late 2018. Other projects developed by the group include Cantavil Hoan Cau in HCM City's Binh Thanh District, Diamond Bay City in Nha Trang City and Da Lat Palace Golf Club in Da Lat City.Hoan Cau Khanh Hoa JSC is the investor of Hoan Cau hotel and commercial centre project worth VND1.5 trillion in Nha Trang City, while Hoan Cau Nha Trang Co Ltd has invested in several projects like Crown Convention Centre, Ba Ho tourism area, Diamond Bay Condotel Resort and Diamond Bay Resort & Spa.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56381/VAMC-distrains-eight-land-lots-of-Hoan-Cau-Group.html

Fintech start-ups poised to develop in Vietnam


Toong, the first professional large-scale co-working space in Vietnam, and the United Overseas Bank in Vit Nam are joining forces to support businesses, especially those in-volved in financial technology (Fintech) in Vit Nam and Asia.Speaking on the sidelines of the Investor Summit-Deal Day Roadshow, which was or-ganised by UOB, Toong and Ernst & Young in HCM City on last Saturday, Duong Do, Toong's founder and CEO, said that as part of UOB and Toong cooperation agreement, UOB will bring its Finlab into Vietnam to support members working under Toong's network nationwide.The Finlab, which was set up by UOB and Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd, is the first full-fledged accelerator programme in Singapore targeting the promotion and acceler-ation of the growth of Fintech startups and innovation in the region.The Finlab accelerates the development of Fintech firms by providing start-ups with valuable insights and a strong infrastructure to propel their businesses to the next lev-el.Companies participating in the Finlab will have a chance to test their products on UOB's core banking platform as well as receive consultation from UOB experts in the Asian region, he said.Participating companies would also get opportunities to expand their businesses in the most dynamic markets in the Asean region, China, the US and EU.


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Besides Fintech firms, firms in other sectors, through Toong's network, will also re-ceive support and consultation from UOB when they do business in countries where UOB has a presence to minimise their risks and to penetrate new markets most effec-tively, he said.In addition, in Vietnam, Toong will support UOB's customers who want to invest in the country, he added.Toong and UOB will also cooperate to host Fintech events to support start-ups, he said.The Investor Summit-Deal Day Roadshow is part of the Fintech Singapore Festival or-ganised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in November in Singapore.Startups will get an opportunity to connect with some of the most renowned investors in the world via a personalised matchmaking process at the event, said Varun Mittal, Asean Fintech Lead at Ernst & Young.Participants from Vietnam will have two more weeks to apply for the event starting from September 30, he said.Toong set up its first co-working space in Hanoi in 2015 and has now five co-working spaces Hanoi, HCM City and Da Nang.There is a lack of platforms for Fintech start-ups to test their products and services and a scarcity of start-up mentors in the Fintech sector in Vietnam.The cooperation is expected to boost the development of the Fintech start-up commu-nity in Vietnam strongly in the coming years.http://bizhub.vn/tech/fintech-start-ups-poised-to-develop-in-viet-nam_289246.html

Techcombank to issue shares this month


Techcombank will issue 70 million shares to existing shareholders at the price of VND30,000 (US$1.32) per share this month.The bank will close the list of buyers on October 10. The transfer of share purchase rights will take place from October 19 to November 2 and payment will be made from October 19 to November 11.The sale is expected to bring Techcombank a total of VND2.1 trillion.All proceeds from the share sale are expected to be invested to increase the bank's fixed assets, expand network and update technology and equipment. The bank will also use a part of the increased capital to boost lending and investment in government bonds.It is one of two share sales that Techcombank has planned to raise charter capital from VND8.8 trillion to VND13.8 trillion.In the second sale due within the next 12 months, which will be decided after the first sale's completion, the bank will sell another 430 million shares.Both share sales will take place for existing shareholders. Masan Group is currently Techcombank's largest shareholder, holding 15 per cent of the bank's charter capital.This is the largest capital increase Techcombank has made since 2008. Between 2008 and 2012, its charter capital was increasing regularly, from VND4.7 trillion to VND8.8 trillion.Techcombank's after-tax consolidated profit in the second quarter of this year rose 42 per cent year-on-year to nearly VND1.13 trillion, raising its after-tax profit in the first half of this year to more than VND2.18 trillion, up 72 per cent year-on-year.The bank's network expansion this year has also been positive. The bank has approved plans to open branches and transaction offices in provinces of Quang Binh, Vinh Long and Yen Bai, as well as Quang Ninh and Hung Yen.In the next few years, the bank's Board of directors plans to build new headquarters in Hanoi and HCM City.http://bizhub.vn/banking/techcombank-to-issue-shares-this-month_289225.html


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LienVietPostBank's shares to be traded on UPCoM from October 5th at reference price of 14,800 VND per share

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VIETTIMES

The Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) has issued an official announcement on the first trading date for the registered shares of Lien Viet Post Commercial Joint Stock Bank (LienVietPostBank). Accordingly, LPB shares of LienVietPostBank will be traded on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) from October 5th with a reference price on the first trading day of 14,800 dong per share. The number of shares registered for trading is 646 million shares. The capitalisation value of LPB will be about 9.6 tril-lion dong, ranking among the top 10 listed banks with the largest market capitalisa-tion.LienVietPostBank is formerly known as Lien Viet Joint Stock Commercial Bank which was established in March 2008. As of February 21st 2011, the prime minister approved the capital contribution of Vietnam Post Corporation in LienVietPostBank by the value of the Vietnam Postal Savings Services Company and addition capital contribution. On July 22nd 2011, the bank was officially renamed LienVietPostBank.By the end of June 30th 2017, the charter capital of LBP was 6.460 trillion dong. The bank has a headquarter, four representative offices, 68 branches, 132 transaction offic-es, and 1,235 postal transaction offices; being in the group of leading banks having widespread network across the country. LienVietPostBank currently has 5,770 em-ployees (5,150 persons as of December 31st 2016).According to LienVietPostBank, as of August 31st 2017, the total assets of the bank reached nearly 150 trillion dong, while total mobilisation fund was nearly 138 trillion dong, total outstanding credit was over 96 trillion dong, and pre-tax profit in the first eight months of the year was 1.289 trillion dong. The current biggest shareholder of LBP is Vietnam Post Corporation with an ownership of 12.54%.

TPP 11: What will Vietnam do?

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VIETNAMNET

Vietnam still has great opportunities if it joins TPP, but instead of focusing too heavily on trade agreements like the TPP, Vietnam needs to strengthen internal resources, ex-perts say.After the US withdrew from TPP in January, other countries moved ahead with new negotiation rounds for a TPP 11.Bui Ngoc Son from the World Politics Research Institute said the move showed that the 11 countries still want to maintain TPP and try to escape the US influence to expand relationships.However, he said, as the US left the agreement, TPP's significance would change to fit the characteristics of the 11 non-US countries."This may still be a trade agreement, but it will comprise different provisions and fol-low other principles," he said.Le Cao Doan from the Vietnam Economics Institute said that the US withdrawal has left a big gap for other countries. Japan, Australia and New Zealand have expressed their wish to replace the US to hold the leading role in TPP.Meanwhile, China has called on countries to set up the FTAAP (Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific).Commenting about the prediction that the US may come back to TPP, Dang Dinh Dao, former head of the Economics Research & Development Institute, said this is likely to happen."When joining TPP, all member countries will get benefits," he said. "The US influence in Asia has decreased significantly."Dao said it would be a great opportunity for Vietnam because the US is a large market.Meanwhile, other economists are cautious when talking about the possibility of the US returning to TPP.Doan said this depends on the US administration and Trump. The 45th US President wants to restore US position and strength with bilateral instead of multilateral play.Son thinks it is not likely that the Trump administration would rethink joining TPP.If the US doesn't change its decision, Dao said that besides the efforts to expand the markets with TPP member countries, Vietnam should accelerate bilateral agreements


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with the US to boost exports to the market."The US market is always open. The problem is if Vietnam can satisfy the requirements of the market," he said, adding that Vietnamese enterprises need to improve the qual-ity of products.Doan thinks that instead of focusing too heavily on FTAs, Vietnam needs to strengthen its resources.Vietnam needs to have its own political views and be independent."In all cases, it is necessary to build Vietnam into an economically powerful country," Doan said.http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/187320/tpp-11--what-will-vietnam-do-.html

GDP in quarter three posts record high of 7.46pct


The national gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter reached a record high of 7.46%, according to the General Statistical Office (GSO).GSO general director Nguyen Bich Lam said at a press conference in Hanoi on Septem-ber 29 that the economic growth has shown positive signs. Significant breakthroughs have been made in the processing and manufacturing sector and export activities.He added the restructuring of agriculture, forestry and fisheries as a whole, as well as the role of an "enabling State" has proven effective. The major balances of the economy have been sustainable, and inflation has been curbed.The GDP growth in the year to September grew by 6.41%, driven by a 2.78 percent pickup in agriculture, forestry and fishery, a 7.17 percent rise in industry and construc-tion, and a 7.25 percent improvement in services.The speedy recovery and growth of the processing and manufacturing sector, and the impressive result of the services sector are major factors contributing to the economy's overall growth rate.In particular, the processing and manufacturing sector rose by a sharp 16.63 percent in quarter three, the highest since 2011 thanks to electronics products, computers, phones, metals and metal products.The production index of electronic products, computers and phones in quarter three rocketed to 45.5 percent against the year-ago period, making the January-September period increase to 25.1%, as the Samsung Group expanded its production of high-val-ued electronic products.Vietnam fetched $154 billion in export revenue in the nine-month period, a year-on-year rise of 19.8%.The consumer price index (CPI) last month rose by 0.59 percent compared to August, expanding 1.83 percent against December 2016, and 3.04 percent year-on-year. Over-all, the average CPI inched up 3.79 percent in the year to September.As such, the target to curb inflation and keep the all-year CPI of less than 4 percent is attainable.Direct and indirect foreign investments amounted to $25.5 billion in the nine months, increasing by 34.3 percent year-on-year.The country has had over 93,900 startups with total registered capital of around VND902.7 trillion in the nine-month period, up 15.4 percent and 43 percent respective-ly over the same period last year. Notably, around 21,100 suspended enterprises had resumed operations, rising 2.9 percent year-on-year and bringing the total number of businesses that have been newly established and resumed business to over 115,000.The GSO general director said this year's 6.7 percent growth target will come true if the GDP in the last quarter reaches 7.31%. This is an ambitious target, however.He stressed the positive results in the past nine months, especially the trend in the third quarter, has created a strong momentum, and thus the GDP growth target for 2017 will likely be met.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56392/GDP-in-quarter-three-posts-record-high-of-746.html


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CPI up 3.79pct in Jan-Sep


The consumer price index (CPI) in September picked up 0.59 percent against the pre-vious month as many groups of items in the basket of commodities used for CPI cal-culation marked up, making CPI in the first nine months rise 3.79 percent over the same period in 2016.Data of the General Statistical Office released on September 29 shows the steepest rise of 5 percent in the education group which resulted from tuition fee hikes in 41 cities and provinces nationwide this month. This group, together with the transport group that recorded a 1.51 percent increase as a result of fuel price hikes, pushed up the Sep-tember CPI strongly.The group of housing and building materials edged up 0.69 percent against the previ-ous month, with a rise of 1.18 percent in building material price, and 5 percent in cook-ing gas price and 3.08 percent in kerosene price.Other groups reporting price rise were medicine and healthcare with an increase of 0.25%, and food and catering service with 0.08%.Overall, CPI in September edged up 1.83 percent compared to December 2016 and 3.4 percent against the same period last year, making the average CPI in the first nine months rise 3.79 percent year-on-year.September core inflation, which is based on the CPI excluding commodities managed by the State, grew 0.08 percent against August and 1.32 percent year-on-year.The average core inflation in the first nine months of this year grew 1.45 percent com-pared to last year's first-nine-month average.The General Statistical Office also noted a strong increase in the retail revenue of con-sumer goods in September, attributing the rise to numerous promotional programmes launched at commercial centers, supermarkets as well as retail stores.The country's total retail sales of goods and services in September amounted to an es-timated VND336.6 trillion (over $14.8 billion), up 1.8 percent against a month earlier and up 12.1 percent over the same period last year.The figure for the first nine months of this year is estimated at nearly VND2,918 tril-lion, a year-on-year rise of 10.5%. If the inflation factor was excluded, the growth would be 9.2%, a little bit higher than the same period of last year's growth of 9%.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56380/CPI-up-379-in-Jan-Sep.html

Industrial production index up 7.9 per cent


The national index of industrial production (IIP) increased 7.9 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of this year, the General Statistical Office (GSO) reported.The metric was higher than the 7.1 per cent growth recorded in the first nine months last year, and 7.2 per cent in the first eight months of this year, GSO said.While the first quarter IIP growth was 3.9 per cent, it surged to 8.1 per cent in the sec-ond quarter. The office estimates third quarter growth at 9.7 per cent.The GSO attributed this year's IIP growth to the breakthroughs in the processing and manufacturing sector, which made big strides with a rise of 12.8 per cent, contributing 9 percentage points to the overall IPP. This helped offset the strong drop of 8.1 per cent in mining, which reduced 1.8 percentage points from the nine-month figure.Many industries enjoyed significant growth including electronics, computer and opti-cal products (25.1 per cent), prefabricated metal products (14.2 per cent), metal pro-duction (21.4 per cent) and rubber and plastic products (11.6 per cent).Among key industrial products that posted high IIP increases in nine months were tel-evision sets (31.6 per cent), raw steel and iron (28 per cent), urea (15.9 per cent), fabric (16.8 per cent) and processed seafood (9.4 per cent).However, some other sectors saw lower growth rates, such as food processing (6.6 per cent), cloth (6.3 per cent), beverage (5 per cent) and coal and lignite exploitation (2 per cent).Some sectors recorded industrial production declines. Medicine, pharmaceutical chemicals and pharmaceutical material production went down by 1.7 per cent, tobacco by 2 per cent and crude oil and natural gas by 10.7 per cent.


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Locales where the IIP registered high growth were HCM City at 7.8 per cent; Can Tho at 6.9 per cent; Binh Duong at 9.5 per cent; Dong Nai at 8.3 per cent and Da Nang at 8.9 per cent; besides Bac Ninh at 25.1 per cent; Hai Phong at 20.1 per cent and Hanoi at 6.7 per cent.According to the GSO, the consumption index of the processing and manufacturing in-dustry rose 9.9 per cent year-on-year, higher than the growth of 9 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2016, contributing to the production growth in this indus-try.The GSO said that to continue growth in industrial production, the industrial sector should reduce inventory because the inventory index of the sector in the first eight months witnessed a year-on-year surge of 10 per cent, 0.01 per cent higher than the growth recored in the first seven months.PMI rises in SeptemberIn September, the Vietnam Manufacturing Purchasing managers' Index (PMI) rose, with faster rises in output, new orders and employment on the back of stronger cus-tomer demand. This was revealed on Monday by the latest survey from Nikkei's IHS Markit.The composite indicator of manufacturing performance stood at 53.3 in September, up from 51.8 in August. The reading signalled a solid monthly strengthening of business conditions, with the rate of improvement the most marked since April. The health of the sector has now strengthened in 22 consecutive months."The anecdotal evidence has highlighted an improvement in customer demand over the month. This resulted in a sharp and accelerated increase in new business, the most marked in five months. The rate of expansion in new export orders also quickened in September," the Nikkei's IHS Markit reported.The manufacturing output increased for the 11th successive month, with the latest rise the most marked since April. All three broad sectors saw a production increase, led by consumer goods firms.Higher new orders contributed to capacity pressures, as signalled by a further rise in backlogs of work. Some panellists also mentioned that staff shortages contributed to the build-up of outstanding business. Firms responded to greater workloads by in-creasing their staffing levels. Moreover, the rate of job creation quickened to a six-month high, according to the report.Manufacturers also used inventories to help fulfill new orders in September. As a re-sult, the stocks of finished goods decreased for the third month running, and to the greatest extent since July 2016.http://bizhub.vn/news/industrial-production-index-up-79-per-cent_289254.html

Binh Duong: Industrial production index rises 9.48pct


The southern province of Binh Duong enjoyed a month-on-month rise of 5.09 percent in index of industrial production (IIP) in September and a 9.48 percent year-on-year in-crease in the first nine months of this year.According to the provincial People's Committee, the number of workers in local firms in the reviewed period rose 1.76 percent from the previous month. The figure in State-owned enterprises was up 1.88 percent, while that of foreign direct invested firms was up 1.69 percent.Since early this year, the processing and manufacturing industry contributed 96 per-cent of total value of the sector.Some sectors recording good growth included food processing with 5.1 percent; gar-ment, 5.7 percent; leather and related products, 11.9 percent; paper and pulp products, 6.2 percent; rubber and plastics, 12.7 percent; electronics, computers and optical prod-ucts, 18.4 percent.The committee also revealed that along with support policies, the province has promptly remove obstacles and created favourable conditions for enterprises to im-prove competitiveness and expand market.The province expects good growth in the local index of industrial production in the


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rest of the year.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/binh-duong-industrial-production-index-rises-948-per-cent/118853.vnp

VN manufacturing PMI uplifts in September03/Oct/2017 Intellasia| VNSThe Vietnam Manufacturing Purchasing managers' Index (PMI) rose in September, with faster rises in output, new orders and employment on the back of stronger cus-tomer demand.This was revealed on Monday by the latest survey from Nikkei's IHS Markit.The composite indicator of manufacturing performance stood at 53.3 in September, up from 51.8 in August. The reading signalled a solid monthly strengthening of business conditions, with the rate of improvement the most marked since April. The health of the sector has now strengthened in 22 consecutive months."The anecdotal evidence has highlighted an improvement in customer demand over the month. This resulted in a sharp and accelerated increase in new business, the most marked in five months. The rate of expansion in new export orders also quickened in September," the Nikkei's IHS Markit reported.The manufacturing output increased for the 11th successive month, with the latest rise the most marked since April. All three broad sectors saw a production increase, led by consumer goods firms.Higher new orders contributed to capacity pressures, as signalled by a further rise in backlogs of work. Some panellists also mentioned that staff shortages contributed to the build-up of outstanding business. Firms responded to greater workloads by in-creasing their staffing levels. Moreover, the rate of job creation quickened to a six-month high, according to the report.Manufacturers also used inventories to help fulfill new orders in September. As a re-sult, the stocks of finished goods decreased for the third month running, and to the greatest extent since July 2016."A marked acceleration in the rate of input cost inflation was recorded, linked to high-er prices for raw materials, including those sourced from China. The increase in input costs was the strongest since May 2011. Rising input prices led firms to increase their output charges in September for the first time in five months. That said, the rate of in-flation was modest amid reports of competitive pressures," the report showed.Higher new orders, and a subsequent rise in production requirements, encouraged firms to increase their purchasing activity at the end of the third quarter. The rate of expansion was solid, and the fastest since April. Stocks of purchases also rose, partly reflective of efforts to build inventory reserves, it added.Suppliers' delivery times continued to lengthen, albeit to the least extent in the current eight-month sequence of longer lead times. Finally, manufacturers remained optimis-tic that the output would increase over the coming year, with positive sentiment linked to predictions of a new growth order and business expansion plans."New orders rose markedly, feeding through to faster expansion of output, employ-ment and purchasing activity. Manufacturers are, therefore, well placed to record fur-ther growth during the final quarter," said Andrew Harker, associate director at IHS Markit."A cautionary note, though, is signalled by the re-emergence of inflationary pressures. Cost inflation was the strongest in over six years amid pressure on the supply of raw materials," he added.http://bizhub.vn/news/vn-manufacturing-pmi-uplifts-in-september_289253.html

FDI giants boost Vietnam's economic growth

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| BAO DAU TU

The role of FDI businesses, especially the "giants" is increasingly confirmed. Even, the reason for the GDP growth in Q3 to reach 7.46 percent is also thanks to the contribution of big names such as Samsung, Formosa, etc. and the FDI sector in general.When data on socio-economic situation in the first nine months of 2017 was released


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with the GDP growth reaching an estimated level of 7.46 percent in Q3, and 6.41 per-cent in January-September, questions began to be raised i.e. what are the reasons for Vietnam to make such a breakthrough? And one of the answers is that it was thanks to Samsung.Among the three "pillars" of growth including industrial production, import-export and domestic consumption, Samsung contributed two.As per data from the General Statistical Office, over the past nine months, the manu-facturing and processing industry grew 12.8 percentthe highest level over the past many years. And the cause of this sector's unexpected surge was first of all thanks to Samsung.Nguyen Bich Lam, general director of the GSO said the production of high value smart phones and electronic components for exports have risen sharply in Q3 with 45.5%. In Q1, this sector only swelled 5.9%, compared to 23.5 percent in Q2. Similarly, television production swelled 31.6 percent year-on-year."This growth was mainly because Samsung invested in production expansion of high value electronic products with the expected revenue of the electronics industry in 2017 at over 1.188 trillion dong, up 177 percent from 2016", said Lam.At the end of last year, Samsung did not succeed with Galaxy Note 7, causing Viet-nam's economy to suffer more or less. This year, this sector's industrial production val-ue surged in Q2 and Q3, just as Samsung focused on production and launched to the market such product lines as Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8, which are welcomed by the global market. The sharp increase in TV production was also because its SEHC's com-ponent in HCM City strengthened the production, especially for high-value TV series such as QLED.Samsung's large production and export helped boost the country's export turnover over the last nine months to $154 billion, up 19.8 percent from the same period last year, nearly tripled the government's set target. Of which, the export of telephones and components alone was estimated to reach $31 billion, up 21.4%; the export of electron-ics, computers and components hit $18.5 billion, up 40.8 percent year-on-year. Sam-sung made great contribution to these figures."For the first time, Vietnam's export turnover by month may reach more than $19 bil-lion in August and September. At this time, Samsung strengthens the export of Galaxy Note 8", said Lam.Samsung plans to export $50 billion in this year. However, it is highly likely that the figure may reach $55 billion, even higher if the two luxury product lines of Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note8 sell well. And this can become real when recent information shows that the export of these two product lines have increased strongly.Galaxy Note 8 has just been opened for sale, but as of September 18, one million prod-ucts have been sold in South Korea. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, as of September 28, the number of orders amounted to 40,000 units.With large orders, Samsung will strengthen production and export, positively affect-ing Vietnam's economy.Not just Samsung, the other FDI giants was mentioned when the General Statistical Of-fice explained why Vietnam's economic growth accelerated in Q3/2017, i.e. Formosa.Nguyen Bich Lam said, metal production in the first nine months of 2017 increased 21.4%, including the contribution of Formosa. Though Formosa Steel Complex (Ha Tinh) has just come into production, it is expected that in 2017, this huge project will produce 1.5 million tonnes of crude steel, with the turnover of 16.850 trillion dong, contributing to Vietnam's economic growth.In fact, if Samsung and Formosa are explained as one of the reasons for the unexpected GDP growth in Q3, the FDI sector in general has made great contribution to Vietnam's socio-economic development now. Regarding exports alone, in the first nine months of this year, this sector contributed $ 110.8 billion, an increase of 21 percent, equal to nearly 72 percent of Vietnam's total exports.This is a remarkable contribution, but also because of this huge contribution that many economic experts suppose that Vietnam's economy is heavily dependent on FDI and


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that, FDI trend in the economy is something that should be warned.However, regarding this issue, the minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung has repeatedly emphasized that there must have comprehensive and accurate assessment of the contributions of FDI sector to Vietnam's economy. "Instead of pull-ing FDI down, we have to push up the domestic economic sector, then Vietnam's econ-omy will be strong", said minister Nguyen Chi Dung.Having the same opinion, Prof DrSc. Nguyen Mai said this is not the time to say whether or not FDI is needed because the reality has proved that. It is important that FDI sector is stronger than the domestic one, and we need to make efforts for Vietnam's private sector to get stronger consequently."Summing up the 30 years of FDI attraction, this should be clarified. Many experts have warned of the implications of FDI. It is true that there will have issues related to price transfer, the spill-over effects are not as expected, the technology transfer re-mains little but it is necessary to have precise assessments about the contributions of this sector to Vietnam's socio-economic situation", said Prof Nguyen Mai.

Binh Duong surpasses annual FDI target in nine months

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VIR

Vietnam's second highest foreign direct investment (FDI) receiver Binh Duong prov-ince announced that in the first nine months of 2017 it received a record in attracting FDI, reaching 140 per cent of its annual target.According to Nguyen Thanh Truc, director of the Binh Duong Department of Planning and Investment Department, the total FDI volume recorded in the first nine months of the year in the province stood at nearly $1.97 billion, a jump of 27 per cent compared to the same period last year.The FDI in Binh Duong, Truc said in the meeting with foreign investors on September 26, prioritising projects with high technology and large-scale ones on urban and serv-ice development.In the first nine months, the province attracted 148 new projects valued at a total of $1.165 billion. There were another 87 capital expansion projects adding a total of $765 million. About 90 per cent of these projects targeted industrial zones.Binh Duong is now home to a total of nearly 3,000 FDI projects, worth over $27.7 bil-lion, from 60 countries and territories.In order to create a better investment climate, the province's leaders and authorities work regularly with investors to learn about their difficulties and help them resolve issues.Tran Thanh Liem, Chair of the Binh Duong People's Committee, said at in the meeting with foreign investors on September 26 that improving the infrastructure system, and creating open dialogues with foreign investors were the key methods to attract invest-ment flows to the province."Binh Duong has become a popular investment destination, especially for Korean, Jap-anese, Singaporean, and Taiwanese investors. It proves the province's role in Viet-nam's FDI attraction in general and the Southern Economic Zone's in particular," Liem said.During the past years, Binh Duong has been investing in infrastructure, especially the transport network, which facilitates connections with HCM City, the Mekong Delta, Southeast Vietnam, and the southern Central Highlands.Many important transport routes have been invested and put into operation, such as Binh Duong Boulevard and My Phuoc-Tan Van Highway, which connects local indus-trial parks (IPs) with seaports and airports.Binh Duong is also the leading province in developing IPs, new urban areas, and serv-ices. Currently, the province has 28 IPs with a total area of over 10,560 hectares and 71 per cent of the occupancy rate. It also has 11 industrial clusters sprawling over a total of 802ha with a 55 per cent of the occupancy rate.By 2020, the province will have 34 IPs with a total area of 14,790ha.http://www.vir.com.vn/binh-duong-surpasses-annual-fdi-target-in-nine-months.html


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Retail sales post significant increase in January-September


The total retail sale value of goods and services from January to September posted the highest year-on-year increase in 2017, according to the General Statistical Office (GSO).The latest updates revealed that the total retail sale jumped by 10.5 per cent over the same period last year, and 9.2 per cent if inflation was excluded, with a value touching more than VND2.9 quadrillion (US$129.6 billion).In comparison, the increases were 8.9 per cent in the eight-month and 8.7 per cent in the seven-month periods, and 8.4 per cent in the first half of this year.The increase in the retail sale of the service sector contributed significantly to the coun-try's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first nine months of this year, even higher than the contribution of the finance-banking and insurance sector and real es-tate business, according to GSO.In the service sector, accommodation and catering services increased by 12 per cent to touch VND362.5 trillion, largely thanks to the improving tourism revenue.The retail sales of the goods totalled VND2.18 quadrillion, up by 10.5 per cent, in which, food and foodstuff was up by 9.8 per cent, household appliances sales went up 11.3 per cent, garment sales went up 14.9 per cent, and the transport means went up 24.9 per cent.According to Nguyen Bich Lam, GSO's general director, the considerable increase in the retail sale of the service sector demonstrated the transition of Vietnam's economic structure.The country's GDP grew 6.41 per cent from January to September.http://bizhub.vn/news/retail-sales-post-significant-increase-in-january-september_289252.html

Capital city sees upbeat trade growth in 9 months


Domestic trade and services turnover in the capital city of Hanoi amounted to 1,719 trillion VND (75.6 billion USD) between January and September, an annual increase of 9.6 percent.According to the Hanoi statistics department, retail revenue grew 9.8 percent and con-tributed 405 trillion VND (17.82 billion USD) to the amount.Nine-month export of the city, meanwhile, hit about 8.59 billion USD, up 8.7 percent year-on-year.Upbeat export growth was attributable to substantial turnover increases made by key commodities, such as footwear-leather (up 100.9 percent annually), electronic prod-ucts (up 98.9 percent), and farm produce (up 64.7 percent).Among major exports of Hanoi, garment and textile saw an annual reduction of 0.1 percent in the period, due to difficulties in securing long-term contracts, dropping sub-contracting prices and stricter requirements from importers.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/capital-city-sees-upbeat-trade-growth-in-9-months/118832.vnp

Nine-month export value grows 19.8pct


Total import-export value was estimated to reach 308.51 billion USD in the first nine months of 2017, up 21.4 percent from last year, according to the general Department of Vietnam Customs.Of the sum, export revenue was worth 154.03 billion USD and import value amounted to 154.48 billion USD, annual increases of 19.8 percent and 23.1 percent, respectively.All key export commodities recorded a higher turnover during the period.The phones and components category brought in about 30.99 billion USD, up 21.4 per-cent year-on-year.Apparel reeled in 19.26 billion USD, while exported aquatic product value amounted to 5.96 billion USD. The figures were 8.6 percent and 19.2 percent higher than the same period last year, respectively.In September alone, trade value was estimated to hit 37.6 billion USD, a slight decrease


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of 0.9 percent from August, with export turnover dropping 3.9 percent to 19 billion USD. Meanwhile, imports during the month rose 2.3 percent to 18.6 billion USD, re-sulting in a trade surplus of 400 million USD.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/ninemonth-export-value-grows-198-percent/118817.vnp

Trade deficit with Korea skyrockets to $23.3 billion


Although Vietnam's trade deficit has been narrowed in recent months, but trade deficit with South Korea alone in the year to date surged a staggering 57.7 percent over the same period last year to $23.3 billion.According to data of Vietnam's General Statistical Office, the country reported a trade sur-plus of $400 million in September, helping reduce January-September trade deficit to $442 million. This was a sharp decrease as trade deficit in January-July had exceeded $3 billion.The data shows that the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector posted a trade surplus of $17.64 billion while the domestic sector posted a trade deficit of $18.08 billion in the first nine months.Notably, Vietnam suffered from a big trade deficit with South Korea.Vietnam's exports to Korea in the nine months totalled $10.6 billion, increasing by 27.3 percent year-on-year, but imports from Korea amounted to $33.9 billion, up a jaw-dropping 46.5 percent year-on-year, leading to a trade deficit of $23.3 billion with the northeast Asian country.Vietnam's major products shipped to Korea included electronic products, computers and computer components (up 40.5 percent year-on-year), phones and phone parts (up 36.6%), and textiles and garments (up 6.1%).On the other hand, the country mainly imported machinery, equipment, tools and oth-er components (up 113.3 percent year-on-year) and electronic products, computers and computer components (up 45.9%) from Korea.In January-September, Vietnam also endured a big trade deficit with China, at $19.7 billion (up 5.6 percent year-on-year), and with Asean countries, at $4.6 billion.Market watchers have predicted that trade deficit with Korea would become bigger in the near future due to the increasing impact of the Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agree-ment (VKFTA) which became effective in late 2015. Moreover, the increasing presence of Korean firms in Vietnam will lead to a higher demand for machineries, equipment and materials imported from Korea.Overall, Vietnam's exports in the first nine months of 2017 edged up 19.8 percent year-on-year to $154 billion, with $43.2 billion of it contributed by domestic firms, up 16.8%, and $110.8 billion by foreign-invested firms, up 21%.Meanwhile, imports rose 23.1 percent year-on-year to $154.5 billion, of which $61.3 bil-lion came from the domestic sector, up 18.7%, and $93.2 billion from the FDI sector, up 26.1%.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56395/Trade-deficit-with-South-Korea-skyrockets-to-US$233 billion.html

Import and export turnover may reach $400b in 2017

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| HAI QUAN

As per the general Department of Customs, the total import and export value is esti-mated to reach $37.6 billion, down 0.9 percent from the previous month. Of which, the total export value touched $19 billion, down 3.9 percent and the total import value hit $18.6 billion, up 2.3%.As such, as of the end of September, the total import and export value is expected to reach $308.51 billion, up 21.4 percent from the same period of 2016. Of which, the total import value is estimated at 154.03 billion, up 19.8 percent and the total import value is estimated at $154.48 billion, up 23.1%.In January-September, the trade balance continued to post the surplus of $400 million, helping to reduce the trade deficit as of the end of September to $442 million, equal to 0.3 percent of the total export turnover.Vietnam's early achievement of import and export turnover is a positive sign because it was until November 15, 2016 our country attained this achievement. Therefore, the


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import and export turnover as of the end of September nearly tripled compared to 2007.The statistics of specialised units such as the general Department of Customs, the Gen-eral Statistical Office or the Ministry of Industry and Trade had no specific information about Vietnam's achievement of $100 billion milestone in import and export turnover.However, based on the statistics of the general Department of Customs, this milestone was made at the beginning of December 2017.Specifically, as per the statistics of the general Department of Customs,, the country's total import and export turnover was $99.731 billion as of the end of November 2007 and $111.2 billion at the end of 2017.As such, in December 2017 alone, the total import and export turnover was $11.469 bil-lion, and hit nearly $370 million each day.Based on the aforementioned data, we can see that right on the first days of December 2017, the country set a record when for the first time, the import and export turnover hit $100 billion.After more than four years, on December 25, 2011, Vietnam set the second milestone in international trade when reaching the import export turnover of $200 billion.Nearly five years later, Vietnam set a new record in import-export activities when reaching the milestone of $300 billion (November 15, 2016).And, with the import and export turnover of more than $30 billion per month like now, within the last three months of 2017, our country can entirely achieve the turnover of about $100 billion, and set up a new milestone when reaching the import export turn-over of $400billion/annum for the first time.

PM stresses key role of private sector in economy


Prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc praised the significant success of the private eco-nomic sector, saying it represented 96.7 per cent of the country's 500,000 enterprises. PM Phuc spoke in Hanoi at a Saturday policy dialogue with 14 chairmen and general directors of leading private enterprises.Attending the event were also leaders of the government Office, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Planning and Investment, and the members of the PM's Economic Adviso-ry Group, which was established in July.Phuc applauded the production and business achievements of the firms, describing them as important contributions to the economy.The cabinet leader called for solutions to spur business development in line with the Party's resolution on the importance of the private sector as a driving force in the so-cialist-oriented market economy.The PM said he wants business leaders to speak frankly about the difficulties they en-counter."Businesses' voice will help address national issues. We want to listen to the private sector's recommendations to alleviate difficulties and create the best possible environ-ment to nurture the private economic sector's development," he said.The government leader highlighted the recent substantial progress achieved by the private sector, but also pointed to a lack of large-scale private companies with most Vi-etnamese private enterprises being small-, medium- and micro-sized firms.Phuc said the government would collect feedback from the companies to revamp rel-evant policies, improve the business climate, and remove bottlenecks.According to the Business Development Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the private economic sector contributes 43.22 per cent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), accounts for 39 per cent of the total social investment, and generates 11.9 per cent of all jobs. Meanwhile, the State economic sector contrib-utes 28.69 per cent to the GDP.In 2016, the number of newly-established enterprises nationwide hit a new record with more than 110,000, up 16 per cent annually. In the first nine months of 2017, an addi-tional 94,000 firms were established with a combined registered capital of VND900 tril-lion (US$39.6 billion).


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At the second Vietnam Private Sector Forum held in Hanoi two months ago by the Vi-etnam Young Entrepreneurs' Association and the Mekong Business Initiative, the PM said private enterprises should continuously reform and increase competitiveness to contribute 50-60 per cent of the national GDP in the future.In a recent interview with the Viietnam News Agency, Phan Duc Hieu, deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said Vietnam now has more than 4,000 business procedures, creating inexplicable barriers for businesses. More than 50 per cent need to be abolished as soon as possible, Hieu said.Economist Le Duy Binh told Vietnam News Agency that what the private sector need-ed the most was neither support nor incentives but a transparent, fair and healthy business law system, together with a simple and convenient administrative system.

PM holds policy dialogue with leading private firms


Prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc held a first-ever policy dialogue with 14 chairmen and general directors of leading private enterprises last Saturday in Hanoi, the govern-ment news website reports.Leaders of the government Office, the ministries of Finance, and Planning and Invest-ment, and the members of the PM's just-established Economic Advisory Group also took part in the dialogue.Statistics shows the private sector has become a driving force behind the national econ-omy. Since 2010, the sector has contributed more than 43 percent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth compared to around 28.9 percent of the State econom-ic sector.A study reveals that given the same investment capital, the private sector in Vietnam generates revenue three times higher than that of SOEs.The 5th Plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee has recently passed a resolution intended to spur the development of the private sector into an important engine of the economy.The PM hailed the recent substantial progress of the private sector, adding that many groups and corporations are very successful.The government leader also noted the relatively small number of large-scale private companies. He said less than 10,000 out of the operational 496,000 enterprises, mostly from the private sector, are listed as large and medium-sized ones while the remainder is of small- and micro-sized ones.Therefore, he urged relevant agencies to identify the bottlenecks, and pledged the gov-ernment would do more to give a strong boost to the growth of the private sector.He stressed the dialogue was aimed at collecting feedback from private sectors in a sin-cere, frank, honest and responsible manner. Thus, the government can continue re-moving bottlenecks, creating the best legal framework and business environment for the local private sector.At the Vietnam Private Sector Forum 2017 with the participation of about 1,000 private businesses nearly two months ago, the prime minister set the target of raising the pri-vate sector's GDP share from the current 43 percent to 50-60 percent in the coming years.He stated the key to the country's economic growth lies mainly in the private sector. "What the private sector can do well, the government should create (favourable) con-ditions for them to do," he said.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56393/PM-holds-policy-dialogue-with-leading-pri-vate-firms.html

Cutting business procedures only one step forward

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| BIZHUB

On September 21, Trade and Industry minister Tran Tuan Anh signed a historic deci-sion cutting 675 business and investment procedures, equivalent to 55.5 per cent of to-tal business conditions under that the ministry (MoIT) had reviewed.State leaders and the business community have hailed the move as the most active and strongest among the country's ministries in implementing administrative reforms.


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Media reports have also applauded the decision and businesses eagerly awaiting its implementation, fully expecting it to diminish difficulties in doing business and make the country more competitive in the international market.In the World Economic Forum's 2017-18 global competitiveness index, Vietnam has advanced five spots to 55th place. This is a significant improvement, clearly demon-strating the country's efforts in reforming business conditions and improving the in-vestment and business environment.However, we need some broad, comprehensive insights into this process even as we acknowledge the advances made.Historic reformFreedom to do business is a vital feature of a fully functioning market economy. In Vi-etnam, the way we think about business freedom has changed a lot for the better since the advent of the Law on Enterprises.In late 2014, a new Law on Investment and a new Law on Enterprises were introduced, carrying a strong spirit of reforms, increasing flexibility for investors and businesses, cutting business conditions and reducing administrative procedures. The spirit of re-forms really encouraged entrepreneurship, and there was a wave of business estab-lishment in the second half of 2015 when the two laws came into effect.The gains have been maintained thus far. From only around 30,000-40,000 companies being newly established each year in early 2000s, the number has risen to more than 110,000 a year now.Recently, this reform has been fortified and demonstrated powerfully in two ways.First, it can be seen in the "negative list approach" by the government, following which enterprises have freedom to conduct businesses not prohibited by law. Second, the cutting of red tape by ministries has helped cut both entry costs and the cost of doing business.The MoIT has made a breakthrough decision with its latest abolition of business con-ditions. Early in September, the government had asked all ministries to remove about half of more than 4,000 business conditions in total.As one of 13 ministries and sectors assigned by the government to simplify procedures and business conditions, MoIT has been a leader in implementing this task.Now, investors and the business community are awaiting similar actions from other ministries and hoping it will boost development of the private economic sector, not just in the number of enterprises, but also in the quality of operating businesses.Four issuesSecuring the freedom to do business and reducing cost for business operation through administrative reforms are very encouraging but it is not sufficient for private sector development.First, the Vietnam 2035 Report by the World Bank and Ministry of Planning and In-vestment shows that the productivity and competitiveness of Vietnamese private sec-tor is decreasing. The low quality of growth in the private sector can be attributed to many factors, including weak enforcement of property rights, uneven playing field, difficult access to production factors like land, capital and labour, as well as high trans-action costs.All these areas need reforms to ensure sustainable growth of the private sector.Second, from the business cycle perspective, besides conditions for market entry, Viet-namese companies have demonstrated weak contract enforcement.The World Bank's 2016 Doing Business Report ranked Vietnam 69th out of 190 coun-tries and territories in terms of enforcing contract indicators (which measures the time and cost for resolving a commercial dispute through local courts as well as the quality of judicial processes).Enforcing contracts in Vietnam takes 34 procedures and 400 days to complete. Mean-while, though Vietnam has a Bankruptcy Law, resolving insolvency is a painstaking process, taking about five years on average to complete, and this is accompanied by a low recovery rate.More than 110,000 new companies were established in 2016, but the total number of


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businesses temporarily being suspended, awaiting dissolution and bankruptcy last year was about 73,000.Third, cutting administrative procedures is not enough to cut the cost of doing busi-ness. Costs of compliance with business conditions such as pre-check expenses, in-spections and special examination fees and information disclosure also constitute the total expense of doing business.We want to have fewer investment and business procedures but unclear regulations could push up business costs. Thus, it is essential to promote transparency, and through that, to reinforce trust between the authorities and businesses.Fourth, deliberation about decreasing business conditions should not be limited to the domestic market. It should also be attached to the process of opening up the economy. In many countries, investment and business procedures can be treated as effective measures to protect domestic businesses.Heavy business procedures may harm the country's competitiveness, but when and how much to cut them should be a matter of prudent decision making, one which en-sures competition as well as sustainable development of domestic businesses.* Vo Tri Thanh is a senior economist at the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) and a member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Coun-cil. A doctorate holder in economics from the Australian National University, Thanh mainly undertakes research and provides consultation on issues related to macroeco-nomic policies, trade liberalisation and international economic integration. Other areas of interest include institutional reforms and financial systems.http://bizhub.vn/analysts-pick/cutting-business-procedures-only-one-step-forward_289248.html

Fuel price hike to have knock-on effects


Enterprises providing transport services and construction materials planned to in-crease charges following an increase in fuel prices on the domestic market recently.Petrol retail prices have continuously increased over the past few months, directly af-fecting transport firms. The domestic retail price of petroleum increased by VND319 to reach VND18,111 (79 US cents) per litre on September 20.Representatives from taxi companies said transport costs could be increased by VND500 per kilometre in the future. The adjustment could make it harder for tradi-tional taxi firms to compete with Uber and Grab.Some transport businesses in Hanoi told online newspaper vov.vn that they were pre-paring to increase transport costs by 7 per cent. However, the exact adjustment would be carefully calculated as petrol price was not stable. Transport firms would end up spending money and have to undertake complicated procedures for each adjustment.Dau Xuan Ngoc, director of Thien Truong Trade, Tourism and Investment Company which provides transport services on Hanoi-Thai Binh, Hanoi-Nam Dinh and Hanoi-Nghe An routes, said transport firms have not made profits with the current petrol price at over VND18,000 per litre.He told the newspaper that they were trying to reduce some costs to make up for the hike in the petrol price while waiting for instructions from State management agencies such as the Department of Finance and the Department of Transport. They also asked the management board of bus stations to reduce service costs.Prices of building materials have also been rising in Hanoi. The price of sand was VND290,000 to VND420,000 per cu.m, increasing 5 per cent in the past two weeks.Tran Ngoc Duc, a contractor in the city's Hoang Mai District, said the price of cement had also risen by VND10,000 per 100 kilos.The municipal Department of Industry and Trade has asked market watch offices to carry out checks of the products to ensure there are timely solutions to stabilise the market and ensure supply.Tran Thi Phuong Lan, the department's deputy director, said the city had instructed businesses to participate in price stabilisation programmes of necessary products in the city.


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http://bizhub.vn/news/fuel-price-hike-to-have-knock-on-effects_289249.html

Binh Duong announes investment for 20 projects in 2017-2020

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VN ECONOMIC TIMES

Total investment to be from $600 million to $700 million in new projects in the south-ern province.The Binh Duong Provincial People's Committee has announced 20 projects that have attracted investment from 2017-2020.Total investment will range from VND14 trillion ($616 million) to VND16 trillion ($704 million), depending on the investment plans for the Cai Stream project in the southern province.Transport infrastructure tops the list, with 15 projects, followed by education, training and vocational training, with three. There are also two health infrastructure projects.The project with the highest investment, of VND4.06 trillion ($178.6 million), is Thu Dau Mot University, expected to be built in the build-transfer (BT) or build-own-oper-ate (BOO) form or be fully private.A 500-bed orthopedic hospital will be built in Di An town with expected investment of VND2 trillion ($88 million), also as a BT, BOO or fully private project.The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Development Project between Binh Duong New City and Suoi Tien Railway Station in HCM City and running through Thu Dau Mot and Di An has total investment of VND1.9 trillion ($83.6 million), with funding coming from of-ficial development assistance (ODA) or in a form proposed by the investor.The project will expand regional links, especially those between HCM City and Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. It expected to address traffic congestion and improve traffic safety on the My PhuocTan Van Expressway for the development of provincial industrial services.Regarding the project to expand Cai Stream in Tan Uyen, there are two investment plans at two expected investment levels. The first is VND3.5 trillion ($154 million) and the second VND1.1 trillion ($48.4 million). The project is expected to be in the build-operate-transfer (BOT) or BT form.http://vneconomictimes.com/article/vietnam-today/binh-duong-announes-invest-ment-for-20-projects-in-2017-2020

HCM City microfinance fund for poor gets upgrade


HCM City's Capital Aid Fund for Employment of the Poor was on Sunday renamed the Capital Aid for Employment of the Poor MicroFinance Institution Ltd (CEP) and brought under the Law On Credit Institutions."The upgrade is very important for us in promoting our activities to serve poor work-ers in southern provinces," Nguyen Thi Hong Van, general director of the fund, said.In 1991 the HCM City Confederation of Labour established the Capital Aid Fund for Employment of the Poor based on the Bangladesh Grameen model to create jobs for unemployed and self-employed workers in the city and eight provinces in the south-east and the Mekong Delta.Its mission is to work with, and for, the poor and poorest to realise sustained improve-ments in well-being, through the provision of financial and complementary non-finan-cial services in an efficient and sustainable manner.It seeks to provide microcredit for starting and developing small businesses, reduce poverty by creating income generating activities among the poor to enable a gradual increase in well-being, involve the poor in building solidarity, teamwork, shared re-sponsibilities and a sense of community in maintaining a clean environment and healthy social conditions and expand microfinance to reach as many poor as possible."The most challenge is how to mobilise capital because this is a non-profit institution and we hope HCM City authorities will provide more medium-term loans to the fund," Bui Van Cuong, chair of the Vietnam general Confederation of Labour, said.Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chair of the HCM City People's Committee, said: "HCM City will provide every support to the CEP and hope the institution continues with its great accomplishments in supporting poor workers."


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By 2016 the fund had gradually expanded its outreach to serve 330,000 people through 34 branches in HCM City and the provinces of Ben Tre, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Dong Thap, Long An, Tay Ninh, Tien Giang, and Vinh Long with total loans of around VND3 trillion (US$130 million).http://bizhub.vn/banking/hcm-city-microfinance-fund-for-poor-gets-upgrade_289224.html

Hanoi demands special mechanism to develop 22,300 apartments


Hanoi has proposed to the prime minister to put in place a special mechanism to build 22,300 commercial apartments, which would help add to the housing stock for reloca-tion.Accordingly, the capital city expects to select capable developers without going through the bidding process.The land use fees will then be calculated at the time when the land is handed over to the developers, but they must be allowed to pay the land use fees later, when they sell the apartments to households, the city's proposal suggested.In addition to this, the developers will be allowed to have a profit of 10 per cent (ex-cluding loan costs) to carry out these projects, similar to capped profit for developers of social housing projects.If the proposal is approved, Hanoi will start developing 22,300 apartments within this year for the relocation of residents to clear land for the capital city's other development projects in the period between 2018 and 2020.The development of 22,300 commercial apartments is estimated to cost around VND55 trillion (US$2.5 billion).The city said that with such mechanism, it would only have to arrange capital for land clearance, while other costs would be covered by raising funds from developers and investors.In addition to this, the residents will also benefit by enjoying quality facilities of the commercial apartments much better than relocated houses.Prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the capital city to optimise the use of land resources and carry out policies to raise private capital and resources to develop infrastructure projects.http://bizhub.vn/property/ha-noi-demands-special-mechanism-to-develop-22300-apartments_289244.html

Nearly 94,000 new firms set up in nine months


As many as 93,967 new enterprises were set up in the first nine months of this year with total capital of over 902.6 trillion VND (39.7 billion USD), a year-on-year rise of 15.4 percent and 43.5 percent, respectively.According to the Enterprise Development Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, average registered capital of each firm was 9.6 billion VND (4.22 million USD), a rise of 24.4 percent over the same period last year.At the same time, over 1.24 quadrillion VND (54.5 billion USD) was injected into 27,579 operating businesses, raising total capital pumped into the economy to 2.14 quadril-lion VND (94.16 billion USD), the agency added.In September alone, 8,600 new enterprises were established with total registered capi-tal of nearly 80.5 trillion VND (3.54 billion USD).The number of labourers in the newly established companies in the period was 886,453, posting a 4.5 percent year-on-year decrease. The ministry also reported that in the first nine months of the year, some 30,846 firms dissolved or ceased operations.More than 21,100 enterprises also resumed their operation in the first nine months of the year.The East Southern and Red River Delta regions had the highest number of new com-panies with 39,600 and 28.400 firms, respectivelyhttps://en.vietnamplus.vn/nearly-94000-new-firms-set-up-in-nine-months/118826.vnp


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Binh Duong registers 3,800 new firms in nine months


The southern industrial hub of Binh Duong reported 3,889 new firms in the January-September period, which pumped a total of 34.8 trillion VND (1.53 billion USD) in reg-istered capital into the local economy.The figures represented increases of 43.7 percent in the number of firms and 69.3 per-cent in capital amount on a yearly basis.Among the new firms, 3,753 are domestic firms and 136 are foreign-invested.Sectors with the highest number of new firms are metal product makers with 214 en-terprise, mechanical engineering and galvanising also with 214 enterprises, and wood and wood products with 103 enterprises.The garment and textile industry saw the entrance of 73 new firms, while chemicals and rubber-plastic industries each had 44.In the same period, 326 enterprises suspended operation, up 5 percent from last year, and 207 dissolved, a rise of 33.5 percent. Most of those enterprises are of small and me-dium sizes.As of present, Binh Duong is home to more than 29,000 enterprises, with total regis-tered capital estimated at over 200 trillion VND (8.8 billion USD). The province has set the target of have 23,000 more firms during the five-year period from 2016 to 2020. Also in the first nine months of the year, Binh Duong attracted 148 new projects valued at a total of 1.165 billion USD.Another 87 projects added capital of 765 million USD, bringing the total FDI inflow in the period to nearly 1.97 billion USD, a jump of 27 percent compared with the same period last year.Binh Duong has a total of nearly 3,000 FDI projects, worth over 27.7 billion USD from 60 countries and territories.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/binh-duong-registers-3800-new-firms-in-nine-months/118835.vnp

E-commerce: disrupting age-old retail habits


The proliferation of retail channels and payment methods, as well as disruptive retail methods have become a growing concern capable of threatening the largest retailers in the US. What does the future hold in store for large Vietnamese retailers?As cited by CNBC, the US Commerce Department reported that retail sales -- exclud-ing automobiles, gasoline, building materials, and food services -- jumped 0.6 per cent in July, a seven-month record since December 2016, doubling June's 0.3 per cent growth. Data suggests that the economy, along with the retail sector, will gather fur-ther momentum in the latter half of the year, with major consumer holidays coming up.Deloitte's Retail, Wholesale, and Distribution Industry Outlook 2017 report forecasts confident consumer spending throughout 2017, citing the strengthening labour mar-ket (which added an average 181,000 jobs per month in 2016) and increasing disposa-ble personal income (up 3.4 per cent in the year ending October) and average hourly earnings. With the broader retail market growing at 3 per cent per annum, numerous companies are looking for opportunities to expand growth and market share.However, Deloitte identifies major challenges ahead for traditional retailers, claiming that the retail, wholesale, and distribution industry has entered a period of transfor-mation.According to the firm, while retail spending continues to appear robust, a multitude of novel spending channels are appearing, sawing the seeds of uncertainty. Retailers must anticipate potential risks and rewards as business model disruption is 'the new normal.'Global market forces, the proliferation of retail purchase channels, along with the com-modisation of products and pricing all contribute to elevating the expectations of cus-tomers and as such are emerging factors transforming the playing field.According to Deloitte, firms that are not watchful enough to spot and utilise innova-


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tions are more than likely to be tripped up by them. Online retail channels, product customisation, and novel customer services are all areas to look out for, as the disrup-tion of traditional retail methods is gaining traction.As illustration, Deloitte cited the rise of subscription-based online ordering of tailored meals or home delivery of recipes with packaged ingredients. According to the firm, both services pose an imminent and serious threat to supermarkets and restaurants.Additionally, Deloitte reassessed Amazon's success as one of fragmentation, not con-centration. Accordingly, the online retailing website serves as a platform for millions of tech-savvy third-party sellers who simply pay Amazon a commission to take advan-tage of its distribution platform and consumer reach.Based on this, traditional retailers may find it difficult to keep up with new-wave, smaller-scale competitors that offer unique products and on-demand customisation and retail options.Consumers of the US retail market are now positioned in a way that price, promotions, and product placement are inferior to the unique, "cookie" characteristics of products. This is the reason why innovators are opting to offer a seamless customer experience and product customisation instead of simply 'going big.'Point-in-case illustrations here could be Toys "R" Us, pretty much the world's largest toy retailer, which recently filed for bankruptcy, citing lost market share to Amazon and other online retailers, or Adidas bringing back production to developed markets by constructing fully-automated speed factories that produce after individually cus-tomised orders.Tin nhap 20170928161108Bodega, the startup that would have revolutionised every day shopping, but put its foot in its mouth instead (Source: bustle.com)Albeit the startup eliciting perhaps the most heated negative public reaction through its failed PR programme, Bodega was an initiative that could have made large and small retailers sweat and by revolutionising everyday grocery shopping.Accordingly, the startup came out with unstaffed pantry boxes selling customised, non-perishable items. Payments would be automatic and electronic, and the pantry would be opened through a phone app. In addition, by electronically monitoring cus-tomer preferences in real time, each Bodega could offer what customers at the exact lo-cation would need the most: residential apartments, gyms, and even offices would offer different selections of items in the greatest demand.The difficulties of Bodega came in the face of public backlash following a statement of co-founder Paul McDonald that Bodega's will replace bodegas -- small, family-run grocery shops mainly run by vendors of Spanish origin (hence the name). To date, the success of Bodega remains questionable due to the general uproar that went unslaked by repetitive apologies and corrections.Vietnamese market prospectsDespite ranking as Southeast Asia's smallest e-commerce market only three years ago, Vietnam has been making extreme headways in internet usage among the general populace, as reported by VnExpress. By statistics from Internet World Stats, the coun-try currently ranks as the 18th in the world in terms of internet users, with about 40 per cent of the population having mobile subscriptions.Heightened internet and mobile usage has provided ample momentum for e-com-merce activities, culminating in one of the highest growth rates for the sector across the globe. In 2016, the Vietnam E-Commerce Association forecasted a bright five years ahead for online retailers, expecting that annual sales will increase to $10 billion in 2020, as reported by Thanh Nien News.Nguyen Thanh Hung, vice chair of the association, was reported as saying that the market is well positioned for extended growth as it has finished the first stage of de-velopment and now has the necessary technology infrastructure, legal framework, and workforce in place to initiate the second stage. According to Hung, the e-commerce sector will grow by 30 per cent on-year through 2025.The sector is gaining increasing traction: in 2016, Thanh Nien News cited a growth rate


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of 25 per cent, while industry expert Duc Tam cited a current 35 per cent recently at Vietnam Online Business Forum 2017. According to Tam, this growth is 2.5 times high-er than that of the Japanese e-commerce sector.It is important to note that the growth of the Vietnamese e-commerce sector far out-strips that of the total retail market, which grew by 10.2 per cent in 2016 (still a more than respectable rate), to $118 billion, according to VnExpress, fuelled by the rising middle class and the ever-rising disposable incomes and number of internet users.Of this, various sources quote a $4 billion share for the e-commerce sector, an equiva-lent of 3.39 per cent. By 2020, this ratio is forecast to hit 5 per cent, signifying a growing number of consumers increasingly opting for online retail channels to do their shop-ping. Indeed, according to VnExpress, potentially as much as 30 per cent of the Viet-namese population will be buying goods and services over the internet by 2020, each spending an average $350 a year.While the rise of online retail and e-commerce may summon up concerns over the po-tential impact of new payment and shopping channels and disruptive retail methods akin to the US, the Vietnamese e-commerce sector is at a less developed stage at the moment. While the US already has somewhat of a tradition, or at least a general famil-iarity, with online retailing, Vietnamese customers and retailers alike are only starting to discover opportunities.This can be seen in the fact that the US e-commerce market makes up 7.3 per cent of total retail sales, while the figure is only 3 per cent in Vietnam, according to figures of Q&Me. This is gap is demonstrated to be even bigger when seen in the light that the size of the Vietnamese sector is only 1 per cent of the US sector.Additionally, Thanh Nien News reported Tran Tong Tuyen, CEO of Hanoi-based DKT which offers online technical support for around 15,000 retailers in Vietnam, as saying that Hanoi and HCM City alone make up 75 per cent of the domestic e-commerce mar-ket. In Tuyen's views, once the industry expands on other locations, it will grow five times as big.Consumption habits, as well as the immediate impacts of the rising online retail sector, are patently different precisely due to the fact that the Vietnamese sector is far less de-veloped. This is well demonstrated by the habits of Vietnamese consumers.According to a market research by Q&Me, 67 per cent of respondents have tried online shopping before, and almost half of them (47 per cent) used Facebook for this. Other popular shopping sites include Lazada (54 per cent used before) and HotDeal (34 per cent), with the most popular product categories including fashion (46 per cent of re-spondents admitted to buying such items online), IT/mobile phones (39 per cent), and kitchen/home appliances (34 per cent).A significant point here lies in Facebook's strong presence as an online retail channel, far surpassing its efficacy in the US or other developed countries. The fact that it is such a favoured shopping channel testifies to Vietnamese consumers qualms about quality, as with Facebook vendors it is usually possible to try items upon delivery and deciding on the purchase then.This is generally different from large-scale online retailers' delivery policy. These qualms can also be seen in the fact that 85 per cent of e-commerce users opt to pay in cash on delivery, retaining the option of cancelling the order if the ordered item proves sub-par.Based on these trends, it seems likely that while e-commerce and online retail is a pow-erfully developing trend in Vietnam, it will likely not have as much of an impact on traditional retailers as in the US, particularly due to it being used by a proportionately smaller segment and that the market is less developed at the moment.However, these conclusions are only applicable to the immediate future, as with the expansion of the geographical coverage of online retailers as well as market develop-ment expected in the future, online retail is forecast to become a powerful retail chan-nel by as soon as 2020, where phenomena akin to Toys "R" Us might well occur.http://www.vir.com.vn/e-commerce-disrupting-age-old-retail-habits.html


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Cashew sector a hard nut to crack


Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong has called for greater efforts to address the shortage of raw materials faced by the domestic cashew processing industry, saying that remains the biggest challenge for the sector's devel-opment.Unless that obstacle is removed, Vietnam's cashew industry will not be able to com-pete with foreign growers and producers, Cuong said at a conference last week on sus-tainable development of Vietnam's cashew sector.According to the minister, Vietnam exported the first batch of cashews in 1988. After 28 years, the country is now the biggest cashew processor in the world, making more than 50 per cent of global output.In 2016, Vietnam earned $2.8 billion from exporting 347,000 tonnes of processed cash-ew and expects to reap $3.2-3.3 billion this year. "However, we have to import more than 60 per cent of cashew seeds," Cuong noted."Over the past 10 years, cashew tree planting areas have been shrunk and productivity has declined from 1.1 tonnes per hectare to 0.75 tonne," he said, adding that many cash-ew trees are stunted, while some cashew trees have been replaced with industrial trees such as rubber, coffee and pepper."Is the cashew sector no longer attractive to investors or don't we know how to make it more attractive?" the minister asked.Rising world demandLe Van Lien, an expert in cashew market analysis, said global demand for raw cashew is rising six per cent per a year but supply is only increasing by only 3.5 per cent due to harvest loss, drought and climate change. This, in turn, is hiking prices."The world supply of cashew material is growing slowly, providing Vietnam with a chance to move forward if we can develop high-yield, stable output planting areas."Nguyen Khac Hai, general director of PAN Group, an agriculture and food company, said Vietnam should be active in providing raw material sources for itself by replant-ing.The southern province of Binh Phuoc, for example, has total cashew tree planting area of 180,000ha but the proportion of old and stunted trees accounts for 30 per cent. "We have to find a replanting method to bring more profit to farmers, thereby encouraging them participate in the activity," he said.Hai estimated that after replanting, productivity would rise from 1.4 tonnes to 2.4 tonnes per hectare, and farmers' income would probably double from VND35 million ($1500) to VND76 million per hectare.The cost for replanting 1ha of cashew trees and the first year of production is approx-imately VND30 million, thus the total cost of the whole area in Binh Phuoc is estimated at $246 million, Hai said.He said the group would support the cashew tree replanting on 10,000ha in Binh Phuoc and ensure all the output is consumed.Minister Cuong asked the PAN Group and provincial authorities to continue studying new varieties, training human resources and investing more in production value chains to add value to cashew products.http://bizhub.vn/news/cashew-sector-a-hard-nut-to-crack_289256.html

Green building trending: experts


Investing in a green factory is a strategic factor in achieving sustainable growth, both bringing tangible benefits to investors and enhancing their public image, experts have told a workshop.The Green Factory workshop held at the Long Hau Industrial Park in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Long An on Friday to raise awareness and share experi-ences in building green factories attracted the park's tenants, business groups and the green building industry.Long Hau is known as a green industrial park geared towards businesses' sustainable development.


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According to the Vietnam Green Building Council (VGBC), the organiser of the work-shop along with Long Hau Joint Stock Company, a green building trend is developing in Vietnam.Currently, there are four rating systems for green building certification, LEED of USA, GREEN MARK of Singapore, LOTUS of Vietnam and EDGE of the International Fi-nance Corporation.Vu Linh Quang, deputy director of ARDOR Sustainable Design, said green buildings offer several benefits for investors in terms of lower infrastructure costs, short payback period, low maintenance costs, healthy environment and increased productivity."Some investors think that green buildings only help marketing and sales or are only for foreign and export enterprises."2-5 percent costlierLe Luong Vang, a green building engineer from the Royal HaskoningDHV Vietnam Ltd, said the cost of a green building is only 2-5 per cent higher than that of a normal building."Many businesses still fail to construct green buildings though their benefits are long-term."Nguyen Thanh Tam, investment promotion consultant of the Long Hau Joint Stock Company, said the IP has attracted 160 local and foreign manufacturers.Since it opened in 2006 it has provided significant support to investors in building green buildings to ensure a long-term and sustainable development."It has set a target of having at least 22 factories with green buildings by 2020."A foreign company in the IP, German Deutsche Bekleidungswerke Limited (DBW Ltd) was the first-ever green factory in Vietnam obtaining LEED Platinum and LOTUS cer-tificates.Phung Thi Lan Phuong, HR, admin and compliance manager at DBW Lt., said the task of building green factory had faced many problems caused by difficulty in getting workers with awareness of energy-efficient methods.But she is confident that the green factory model will become the best choice for sus-tainable development.Long Hau IP has a strategic location in the southern key economic zone, near HCM City and served by both waterways and roads.It is the only IP in Vietnam to achieve the Quest for Excellence Award at the Interna-tional Asia Pacific Quality Award (IAPQA) by the Asia Pacific Quality Organisation (APQO) in 2010.Its tenants include big names such as Puma, Lotte and Japan's Tazmo.http://bizhub.vn/news/green-building-trending-experts_289217.html

Promoting tourism Lever to develop Vietnam tourism industry


At the second Vietnam Private Sector Forum (VPSF), according to experts, promoting tourism was identified as one of the three "bottlenecks" of Vietnam's tourism sector that affirms that focusing on improving the effectiveness of tourism promotion is the urgent and long-term solution for tourism development.Lack of professionalismAccording to the General Statistical Office (GSO), Vietnam's tourism industries wel-comed over 10 million international visitors in 2016, rising by 26 percent from 2015 and doubling the figure of 2010, earning approximately VND417 trillion (US$18.3 million) in total revenue.In the first seven months of 2017, the number of foreign tourist to Vietnam reached 7.25 million, up 28.8 percent annually. This encouraging growth rate is due to the impor-tant contribution of tourism promotion activities.Over recent years, the scale, scope and quality of tourism promotion activities has been expanded.Every year, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), under the Min-istry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, participates in around 14 major international fairs, such as Travex, ITB in Germany, MITT (Russia) and Jata (Japan); meanwhile the


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VNAT also organises ten to 15 farm and press trips to introduce the destinations and outstanding tourism services of Vietnam; alongside nearly 15 roadshows in the main foreign markets.In addition, tourism promotion through the media and e-marketing has also been pro-moted.The promotion activities through annual international events, such as the Da Nang Fireworks Festival, Da Lat Flower Festival, Thai Nguyen Tea Festival and the National Tourism Year event, have brought about many positive outcomes.As a result, several of Vietnam's tourist destinations have become famous and have created a brand with foreign travellers, such as Ha Long, Sa Pa, Hanoi, Da Nang, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc and Mui Ne.However, marketing effects from promotion activities are still not commensurate with the tourism potential. Promotion activities through events have not achieved the ex-pected results on investment or connecting business.It's clear to see that Vietnam's tourism promotion activities as a whole are quite monot-onous, whilst lacking of creativity and professionalism.However, according to experts, it is difficult to make any breakthroughs if the budget expenditure for tourism promotion is as tight as it is today.According to Forbes magazine, Thailand's national tourism promotion budget is $ 69 million per year, Malaysia's (US$ 105 million per year), Indonesia's (US$ 200 million per year); while Vietnam's is only $2 million per year which is too low compared to the other Asean countries and others within the region.According to Vu The Binh, Standing vice Chair of the Vietnam Tourism Association, within the confines of the budget, the Vietnam tourism industry can not do enough.The limited budget has limited the use and exploitation of the popular and effective tourism promotion activities in the world, such as creating impressive forms for the national pavilions at international fairs, and advertising the national tourism sector in foreign media.According to director of Hanoitourist Travel Company Luu Duc Ke, Vietnam does not have an office abroad, which is the most knowledgeable force in the market, to pro-mote on-the-spot tourism, meanwhile Thailand has 27 representative offices; Singa-pore has 23 offices; and Malaysia has 35 offices abroad.Therefore, over recent years, information on Vietnam's tourism for overseas visitors has not been adequate; promotion activities in many countries lack specific informa-tion about specific products in order to serve tourists in each key market.Mobilising many resources to create breakthroughsThe Politburo's Resolution No. 08-NQ/TW on developing the tourism industry into a spearhead economic sector, set a target of welcoming 17-20 million foreign arrivals and 82 million domestic tourists by 2020, whilst earning a total revenue of $35 billion, contributing 10 percent to the country's GDP, and creating 4million jobs, including 1.6 million direct jobs.Accordingly, in order to meet the goal, the tourism industry must achieve a growth rate of 15 to 20 percent each year, requiring the industry to make great efforts, espe-cially in tourism promotion, to create breakthroughs in attracting visitors.According to experts, in order to create breakthroughs in tourism promotion, the budget expenditure for tourism promotion should be raised to a sufficiently large and stable level.Aiming to meet the demand, the establishment of a tourism development assistance fund is considered as an expected solution.The fund is expected to be established in late 2017, or early 2018, according to VNAT general director Nguyen Van Tuan and it will have a total capital of approximately VND400 billion (US$17.6 million) to VND500 billion (US$22 million), he added.Initially, the money will be provided by the State, but it will then be supplemented by entrance fees and visa fees in the subsequent years.However, Hoang Nhan Chinh, head of secretary of the Tourism Advisory Board, said that travel enterprises should also commit to donating to the fund.


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Recently, the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) has established a Tourism Investment Club, which has attracted around ten businesses, including large companies such as Vietnam Airlines, Vingroup and Thien Minh Group and HG Group.The club can provide roughly VND25 billion (US$1 million) to support tourism pro-motion. From now until 2020, the club's enterprises are expected to contribute VND70 billion (US$3 million)to the tourism development assistance fund, according to TAB's pledge, while they will actively participate in the promotion activities at important in-ternational tourism fairs.However, in order to maintain the fund, the issues which businesses are most con-cerned about are the rationality, transparency and publicity. Therefore, it is necessary to have a team with expertise and a fund management mechanism that is easy to mo-bilise and use effectively.Increasing professionalismVietnam is in a strong integration process, and for this reason, cooperation with coun-tries within the region and the world is an indispensable trend for economic develop-ment in general, and tourism in particular, including tourism promotion activities.Over the past while, inter-regional coordination activities, such as the connection of the eight Northwestern provinces and the connecting of the three central provinces (Thua Thien-Hue, Da Nang and Quang Nam), has achieved positive results in creating regional tourism brands.Vietnam has bilateral and multilateral commitments in tourism development cooper-ation, with many countries, especially the Asean countries.The relationship is both cooperative and competitive in that it requires Vietnam, on the one hand, to coordinate with the Asean countries to promote Asean as a common des-tination, and on the other hand, to have different policies in order to promote and at-tract visitors to Vietnam.In the context of tourism competition, several countries, such as Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, have made certain adjustments in their tourism development strategy to increase the effectiveness of their promotion activities on the world.Vu The Binh, Standing vice Chair of the Vietnam Tourism Association said that in the immediate future, Vietnam should step up their promotional activities in the Asean re-gion, because according to statistics, since the beginning of the year, Vietnam wel-comed 1.3million visitors from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, but the number of Vietnamese people travelling to these countries reached more than three million.This is an imbalance and it is necessary to have a plan to attract tourists in the region. In addition, for other markets, the promotion plans should be implemented for six months to a year in order to be effective.Focusing on electronic marketingIn fact, electronic marketing in tourism has been paid great attention. Over the past few years, VNAT has advertised many activities and events at vietnamtourism.gov.vn and vietnamtourism.com, vietnamtourism.vn, as well as through Facebook, fanpage Vietnam Timeless-Charm and YouTube channels.The VNAT also organised a mega selfie programme and an online photo contest on Vi-etnam tourism and reality TV shows.The activities saw positive results, for example: after three years of deployment, the Youtube channel has attracted 340,000 views; fanpage Vietnam Timeless-Charm at-tracted more than over 19,000 followers regularly, website vietnamtourism.com at-tracted 2.3 million visitors, and vietnamtourism.gov.vn attracted about 1.35 millions of visitors per month.According to deputy director general of VNAT Ha Van Sieu, in the near future, the tourism industry will focus on applying e-marketing in promoting domestic and inter-national tourism through the organisation of many events, activities on websites, so-cial networks and applications for mobile phones."Boosting tourism promotion in the direction of professionalism, aiming at the target-ed markets, with tourism products and brands as the focus, in addition to attaching


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tourism promotion with the dissemination of the nation's images", is one of the key so-lutions highlighted in the Vietnam Tourism Development Strategy to 2020, with a vi-sion to 2030.The task requires a strategic and systematic approach and action, with the involve-ment of departments from the central to the local level.http://www.vir.com.vn/promoting-tourism-lever-to-develop-vietnam-tourism-indus-try.html

Hanoi apartment market seeing positive performance

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| VN ECONOMIC TIMES

Latest CBRE report notes solid development in capital's apartment market.The apartment market in Hanoi continued to see positive developments in the third quarter of the year, according to the latest report from CBRE.Nguyen Hoai An, director of Research and Consulting Services at CBRE Vietnam, told a recent press conference on Hanoi's real estate market in the third quarter that 8,300 units were launched in 38 projects around the city.The high-end segment has developed relatively cautiously. New supply in the third quarter reached 1,480 units, in areas such as West Lake and the city centre, down 38 per cent compared to the average in the last four quarters.As a result, supply in the high-end segment fell from 25 per cent to 18 per cent of total new supply against the average in the last four quarters. Meanwhile, the mid-end seg-ment continued to expand, accounting for 71 per cent in the quarter and 50 per cent of total supply this year as at the end of the third quarter.A total of 5,440 units were sold in the quarter, coming from new projects in convenient locations, which are costlier in terms of design, infrastructure, and product quality, as well as in projects with attractive sales policies.Since the beginning of the year, a total of 16,200 units have been sold, equivalent to 79 per cent of sales in 2016 as a whole. "It can therefore be expected that sales in 2017 will continue to develop positively due to the normal higher vibrancy seen in the real estate market at the end of the year," An said.New supply will reach 35,000 units by the end of the year, of which sales will total 23,500. "Increased supply will create strong competition in the real estate market, caus-ing developers to launch more preferential and discount programmes to attract cus-tomers," said An. "This will have a strong impact on investors."In terms of pricing, the average sales price decreased in the secondary market during the quarter compared to the second quarter, especially in finished projects, which were down 3 per cent quarter-on-quarter and 12 per cent year-on-year.http://vneconomictimes.com/article/property/hanoi-apartment-market-seeing-posi-tive-performance

Hanoi office rental fees remain stable: CBRE


The market segment for offices and retail space for lease in Hanoi has seen stable rental prices for grade A and B office buildings in the third quarter of the year, according to the CB Richard Ellis Vietnam, Co., Ltd (CBRE)- the world's largest commercial real es-tate services and investment terms.The rental price of A-class offices was 24.1 USD per square metre per month (excluding taxes and service fees), representing a year-on-year increase of 8.6 percent due to lim-ited supply. Meanwhile, that of grade B buildings was 13.7 USD per square metre per month, up 1.4 percent from the same time last year.Notably, there was no new project in the third quarter. The CBRE said that the total supply of office for rent was around 1.2 million squares metres as of the third quarter, including 66 percent of B-class offices.Occupancy of both grade A and B offices in the period was high, at 89 percent and 84 percent, up 0.1 percentage point and 1.4 percentage points, respectively, from the pre-vious quarter.Net absorption during July-September was 13,000 square metres. Most of the demand for offices came from finance, banking, production and real estate sectors that want to


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branch out business or change offices.In addition, demands for new working space of both domestic and foreign business have been on the rise.As new A-class offices will not be rolled out into market until the end of 2018, rosy signs are expected for existing buildings in the near future.Troy Griffths, deputy Managing director of Savills Vietnam, said that office rental fees in Vietnam are rather modest as compared with other regional countries. However, the costs are forecast to scale up in medium term as office occupancy is nearly full, making it difficult for businesspeople to find space.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/hanoi-office-rental-fees-remain-stable-cbre/118829.vnp

Bridges projects boost land prices in Hanoi's eastern area

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| DTI NEWS

Land prices in the eastern area of Hanoi have sharply increased following the news of four planned bridges.After the VND38trn (USD1.72bn) investment plan to build four bridges to cross the Red River and Duong River was announced, land prices in Hanoi's east have in-creased. The bridges are expected to better connect Hanoi and ease congestion during rush hours. Tu Lien and Tran Hung Dao bridges are estimated to be completed in 2019 and Duong 2 and Giang Bien bridges are set to be completed in 2021.According to the locals in Long Bien District, a square metre of land in their areas cost around VND12m (USD528) to VND20m last year. But the land prices have been on the rise because many infrastructure projects are being planned or completed. Many peo-ple came and asked to buy plots of land every day in Giang Bien and Quan Tinh wards in the past three months.In some areas, a square metre of land in Dong Anh District is sold up to VND40m (USD1,760). The most expensive plots of land are in Dong Hoi Commune and Dong Ngan Ward because Tu Lien Bridge has been planned there. Lands in urban areas with good infrastructure, proper water and electricity are generally sold for VND40m to VND50m per square.Three other bridges including Duong 2, Giang Bien and Tran Hung Dao bridges are all located in Long Bien and Gia Lam District. Large plots of land on wide streets in Duc Giang, Thuong Thanh and Viet Hung are also mostly sold out. Land lots under 40 square metres are sold at over VND30m (USD1,300) a square metre.The representative from Commercial Real Estate Services warned against land specu-lation because investors may face loss if the lands are not included in the planning. Buyers are also advised to be cautious of fake price hikes.http://dtinews.vn/en/news/018003/53086/bridges-projects-boost-land-prices-in-hanoi-s-eastern-area.html

Businesses flex their muscle to compete with foreign fast-fashion brands


As more and more foreign fashion brands flock to Vietnam, domestic companies have been forced to change their business strategies to survive the competition.On September 9, more than 4,000 people with bread and umbrellas stood patiently in front of the first H&M shop in HCM City, waiting for their turn to shop.The first shop of the fashion brand from Sweden is located next to Zara which opened one year ago and had turnover of VND5.5 billion on the opening day."Vietnamese now are paying attention to well-known foreign fashion brands which have set up their shops here. They are big and powerful. They can launch sales promo-tion campaigns to crush local businesses. At fashion forums, local businesspeople have talked about the presence of the foreign giants," said Le Viet Thanh, CEO of K&K Fash-ion, a Vietnamese brand.He said there is still much room for domestic businesses because there are many mar-ket segments and Vietnamese businesses can easily adapt to new circumstances. But he said K&K Fashion has to struggle to find more customers.In August 2016, the company decided to use Criteo's cross-device re-targeting technol-ogy and the decision has brought initial results. The number of successful online trans-


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actions in the months between September 2016 and May 2017 increased by 121%.Meanwhile, other brands have allocated big budgets for branding. Biti's, a footwear brand, has decided to reform its image by spending money on two music videos of two famous singers Son Tung M-TP and Soobin Hoang Son."All the products of the shoes that the singer wears in the MV sold out just within sev-en days," said Hung Vo, deputy general director of Biti's Vietnam, about the sale of Hunter shoes in early 2017.Meanwhile, Couple TX which invested in an MV of Hari Won and Ami Fashion, a pop-ular fashion brand, decided to spend VND4 billion to organise a fashion show to honor Lanh My A, a kind of Vietnamese silk.Viet Tien, the 'elder brother' among Vietnamese fashion brands, has been developing the Viettien House store chain since 2016 in the context of large shopping malls favour-ing foreign brands."We will expand the model in other cities and provinces and harmonise the entire dis-tribution system by the end of 2018. This is an important move in our strategy aiming to boost domestic sales," said Phan Van Kiet, deputy CEO of Viet Tien."Branding is a long process. I like the way An Phuoc goes. At first, they distributed for Pierre Cardin. After that, they built brands for An Phuoc," said Nguyen Duc Thuan, president of Thai Binh Shoes.http://english.vov.vn/economy/businesses-flex-their-muscle-to-compete-with-for-eign-fastfashion-brands-359547.vov

Are Vietnamese manufacturers afraid of Thai products?


The first warning about the 'Thai goods threat' was given two years ago when Thai groups took over a number of retail chains in Vietnam.Watchdog agencies said they are alarmed about the increase in the trade deficit with Thailand.Vietnamese manufacturers in the past remained unruffled about the warnings. They believed there was no need to worry about the presence of Thai products in the domes-tic market because Vietnamese products were good enough.But Thai products have been threading their way to every corner of the domestic mar-ket, step by step replacing Chinese products, which once flooded the market.The chair of a Vietnamese owned food company commented that Thais have been very professional in marketing and entering the Vietnamese market. He was surprised when seeing a package of Thail-made dried fruit with Vietnamese words 'Trai cay Thai cang an cang khoai' (Thai fruits the more you eat the more you like).He commented that with the professional market development strategy, Thail prod-ucts appear to have higher quality than Vietnamese and Chinese products, while the selling prices are reasonable.According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), the trade deficit in the first eight months of the year reached $3.5 billion, an increase of 15.6 percent over the same period last year. Of the top 36 product items Vietnam imported from Thailand, 22 could be made domestically.Nguyen Lam Vien, president and general director of Vinamit, a dried fruit manufac-turer, said the problem is the media strategy.He said that articles in local newspapers in 2014-2015 about some Vietnamese food products which could not meet quality standards helped Thai products enter the Viet-namese market. Vietnamese consumers think Thai products have higher safety and quality though they don't have sufficient information.Vien admitted that Vinamit's sales have been adversely affected by the presence of Thai products of the same types on supermarket shelves.He stressed that Vietnamese manufacturers won't succeed if they only provide safe, high-quality products at reasonable prices and moderate media campaigns.He said Thais now hold important links of the distribution chains. Many Vietnamese enterprises have given up production and shifted to distribute Thai products to enjoy a profit of 20-30 percent.


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SVietnam finance & business 3 October 2017

Luong Van Vinh from My Hao Cosmetics also admitted that his company is weak at marketing and branding.Nguyen Dinh Tung, general director of Vina T&T, a fruit exporter, said that flood of Thai fruits in Vietnam is 'worrying'. He called on state agencies to create technical bar-riers to restrict the imports.http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/187198/are-vietnamese-manufacturers-afraid-of-thai-products-.html

Central Highlands Dak Lak province lures numerous projects


The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak has attracted numerous projects by do-mestic and foreign investors in recent years, according to the provincial authorities.In the first nine months this year, the province lured 48 projects with a total registered capital of more than 3 trillion VND (132 million USD), up three projects and marking a 2.4-fold increase in value year-on-year.Most of them focus on farm produce processing, animal feed, commerce, services, in-dustry and renewable energy.The province agreed to present certificates allowing investment to build solar power plants in Buon Don, Ea Sup districts by Xuan Thien Ltd company, TH True Milk and the US's AES Group.It has provided investors with information about the business climate, incentives, pro-cedures and a list of projects in need of capital while clearing arising barriers.Dak Lak is now home to 12 foreign-invested projects worth 171.448 million USD, most-ly in farm produce processing, animal feed, trade and export-driven floriculture.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/central-highlands-dak-lak-province-lures-numerous-projects/118836.vnp

BUSINESSIZ NEWSBusiness Briefs 03 October, 2017

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA |

* Everpia Joint-stock Companyhas (EVE) just issued VND150 billion worth of non-con-vertible bonds under a private placement scheme to Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet-nam. The five-year bond car- ries a first-year coupon of 7.5%, while the interest rate in the following years is the ceiling mobilisation rate at VCB plus 1.7 percent a year, ac-cording to tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn.* The board of director of Techcombank has approved a plan to issue 500 million shares to spur the credit organisation's capital in 2017 to nearly VND14 trillion in two phases. In the first phase, the bank will issue 70 million shares this month at the start-ing price ofVND30,000 a share, targeting to collect VND2.1 trillion. The second phase to sell 430 million shares will take place in the rest of the year or early next year.* Industrial Urban Development Joint Stock Company No.2 (D2) will invest in a resi-dential project in Dong ai Province, according to the company's adhoc shareholders meeting last Thursday. The company, listed on the southern bourse, will spend VND618 billion on the project covering 24.5 hectares in Long Thanh District.* Saigon Commercial JS Bank (SCB) is seeking shareholders' approval to issue over 170 million shares at the face value ofVNDlO,OOO to exsiting individual and institutional investors to raise its chartered capital to nearly VND16 trillion from the current VND14.29 trillion. The capital increase plan will undergo two phases, with the first one taking place right in this year and targeting proceeds ofVNDl trillion.* Gemadept Corporation, listed on the HCM City stock exchange, will transfer all its holding of over 3.35 million shares, or a 100 percent stake, in its subsidiary Gemadept (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd to Gemadept Shipping Holding, which is also an offshoot wholly owned by Gemadept Corporation.* The State Capital and Investment Corporation (SCIC) has picked a consortium grouping Singapore-based USB AG and Saigon Securities Inc. as consultant for a scheme to divest its stake of 3.33 percent in Vietnam Dairy Products Joint stock Com-pany (VNM). The consultant will advise SCIC on a specific divestment scheme, the starting price, the selection of investors, and the performance of required procedures.* IDICO Urban and Industrial Zone Development Co., Ltd will launch its initial public


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offering on October 5 on the southern bourse, selling over 55.3 million shares at the starting price ofVNDI8,000. However, as many as 656 investors, including 25 institu-tional investors and 49 foreigners, have put their names down to buy nearly 270 mil-lion IDICO shares, or over five times the volume on offer, HOSE reports.

HSX continues losing streak, but recovery expected


The HCM City stock market, or HSX, slid last Friday, triggered by losses of many key stocks on the last trading day of the quarter, while Hanoi exchange's HNX-Index chalked up small gain.The VN Index of HCM City Stock Exchange dipped 0.4 point or 0.05 percent to 804.42 points with 139.48 million shares worth more than VND3.09 trillion changing hands, down 27.6 percent and 19.83 percent against the previous day, respectively.The main index dropped due to big losses suffered by key stocks such as SAB of Saigon BeerAlcoholBeverage Corporation, GAS of PetroVietnam Joint Stock Corporation, and MSN of Masan Group Corporation. SAB closed at the intraday low of VND260,000 per share because of abundant supply, down 2.3 percent against the previous day. GAS plunged by 2.3 percent and MSN fell 1.1%.According to Maybank Kim Eng, the increase of some other stocks, including VNM of Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company, and VCB of Vietcombank, was not strong enough to support the HCM City bourse.Meanwhile, Hanoi Stock Exchange seemed to have a bad kick-off on Friday, but its HNX-Index bounced back slightly and finished the trading day with a 0.23 point in-crease, up 0.21%, to 107.66 points. ACB of Asia Commercial Bank became a major booster which helped the Hanoi bourse's index end in the green, as the stock gained 1 percent with 0.92 million shares traded.Liquidity on Vietnamese stock market, however, fell strongly as matched volume on the HSX contracted 17.3 percent at 124 million shares worth more than VND2.7 trillion, while Hanoi bourse also suffered a 15 percent decline on the volume.Foreign investors last Friday remained net buyers on the both bourses with a foreign net buying value of VND30.58 billion on HSX. Meanwhile, they sold strongly shares of SVI of Bien Hoa Packaging Company, and MSN.After poor performance in early hours of the afternoon trade, the market for unlisted public companies (UPCoM) wrapped up the trading day up 0.22 point or 0.41 percent to 54.39 points, with total traded volume of 8.77 million shares worth more than VND114 billion.Despite the losing streak of VN Index, Maybank Kim Eng forecasted a positive out-look, predicting that the downtrend of the stock market will end soon in next several trading days. The company suggested that investors should keep high amount of shares for the coming uptrend.According to tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn, last week was not a good time for the stock market but the bright side is that the declines are quite shallow. Besides, the market is said to need more time for some corrections, and investors are advised to be patient and not to buy out shares.The VN Index is forecasted to continue fluctuating around 805 points this week, giving investors opportunities to buy more high-yield stocks.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56385/HSX-continues-losing-streak-but-recovery-expected.html

Large cap stocks perform poorly


Shares fell further on the HCM Stock Exchange as large-cap stocks continued perform-ing negatively on poor market sentiment.The benchmark VN Index on the southern market lost 0.27 per cent to close at 802.23 points. It was down 0.05 per cent on Friday. The VN Index had rose as much as 0.45 per cent to reach its intraday high of 808.09 points during Monday's session.Nearly 119.5 million shares were traded on the southern exchange, worth VND2.78 trillion (US$123.8 million).


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Monday's trading figures were down 14.3 per cent in volume and 10 per cent in value compared to Friday. These were also the lowest liquidity figures recorded since Feb-ruary 2017.Large-cap stocks underperformed with the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest companies by market capitalisation and liquidity, fell 0.25 per cent to 790.70 points.Seventeen of the 30 largest companies in the VN30 basket declined while 12 others ad-vanced and only one closed flat.The worst decliners included insurance-finance firm Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh Sugar Co (SBT), Sacombank (STB) and food producer Kido Group (KDC).Foreign investors remained net buyers but their net sell value on Monday dropped 5.4 per cent to VND45.8 billion from Friday."The first trading session of October was very bad, with liquidity dropping sharply, gainers being outnumbered by losers by nearly a 2:1 ratio and foreign investment be-ing weak," Vietnam Investment Securities Company (IVS) said in its daily report.The VN Index had weakened considerably in the late period of the last three trading sessions and the benchmark is now only two points away from 800 points, IVS said. "If the VN Index fails to hold onto that level, the stock market will likely go through a hard-correction period."However, there is a chance that the VN Index could move narrowly around the level of 800 points without any positive signals about its future development, the brokerage said. "The market will continue weakening and may extend its correction to the end of the year if demand remains negative," IVS said.In addition, the third-quarter earnings reports were unlikely to provide a strong boost for local stocks as investors had already priced in the gains of those stocks based on forecasts and intel sources of higher earnings results, the securities company said.On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched down 0.13 per cent to end at 107.51 points. It gained 0.2 per cent on Friday. Nearly 52 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VND468.7 billion.http://bizhub.vn/markets/large-cap-stocks-perform-poorly_289247.html

Sluggish days ahead for Vietnam stocks


Vietnamese shares were sluggish in the past week with the benchmark VN Index suf-fering the first loss after four gaining weeks.The current condition is expected to continue in the first two weeks of October.The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange closed 0.05 percent below on September 29 to finish last week at 804.42 points. It posted a weekly loss of 0.3 percent, but still posted a growth of 2.7 percent in September.The HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange gained 0.21 percent on September 29 to close at 107.66 points, increasing 1.1 percent on a weekly basis and enhancing its up-trend since the beginning of the month with a total growth of 3.6 percent.According to securities analysts, the current market trading conditions are quite poor, as investors are unwilling to make new purchases and listed companies are running out of supportive information, until their quarterly earnings reports are published.According to Duong Van Chung, head of brokerage division at MB Securities Compa-ny, there are some problems that could make the market trade cautiously in the first two weeks of October.Firstly, the margin lending balance in Vietnam's stock market is at a high level, and some of the brokerage companies have reached their margin lending limits, he said. "Therefore, the flow of money into the market will be kept under control in the short term."Secondly, the share prices of the large-cap companies have made incredible gains re-cently, and the growth of those shares has been priced in by the investors' expectations for those companies in the third-quarter earnings reports, Chung said."Those shares will stall from making further progress in two weeks at least, until the


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official data on their corporate earnings become public.""If their earnings reports, which may come in the third week of October onwards, show higher results than the previous expectations, then their shares will go up again."According to Chung, the sectors that should release higher-than-expected quarter earnings reports are real estate, banking and brokerage.Nguyen Ngoc Lan, senior specialist at Agribank Securities Company, told tinnhanhc-hungkhoan.vn at a round-table discussion that the stock market was weakening with modest market demand, making the trading liquidity unstable at the moment.An average of 208.3 million shares were traded in each session of the last trading week, worth nearly 3.8 trillion VND (168.4 million USD).The figures were down 6.8 percent in trading volume and 5.7 percent in trading value from the previous trading week."The VN Index will move marginally at the level of 800 points and test the current mar-ket supply/demand conditions before signalling a clearer trend," Lan said.Another factor that could keep the stock market vulnerable in the coming week is for-eign investors becoming net sellers in September after eight consecutive months of net buying.Foreign investors last week posted a net sale value of more than 300 billion VND, rais-ing their net sale value in September to 467.6 billion VND. Foreign investment in the stock market has reached a total of 14.5 trillion VND after nine months.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/sluggish-days-ahead-for-vietnam-stocks/118833.vnp

SSI, UBS AG selected as next Vinamilk's share sale advisors


Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) and the Singaporean branch of Swiss financial services firm UBS AG have become advisors to sell another package of the State's capital in Viet-nam's biggest dairy producer Vinamilk.The selection of the advisory firms was made last week by the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), which represents the government to manage the State's capital in Vinamilk.The advisory firms for the previous deal were the Singaporean branch of Morgan Stanley Asia Limited, Saigon Securities Inc and VinaCapital Corporate Finance Viet-nam Limited.In the upcoming share sale, the SCIC plans to offload another 3.33 per cent of its stake in Vinamilk.In the previous deal that took place in December 12, 2016, the SCIC offered to sell its 130 million shares in the dairy firm but sold only 60 per cent of the shares.The Singapore-based dairy group Fraser and Neave Limited (F&N) was the only for-eign investor that was interested in Vinamilk shares in December 2016.Its two subsidiaries F&N Dairy Investment Ltd and F&N Bev Manufacturing Pte Ltd spent nearly $500 million on the deal.VinaCapital said that the first share sale deal was the most valuable deals in Southeast Asia and one of the most successful deals in Vietnam so far, despite the country's cur-rent economy and short time of preparation.VinaCapital recommended that the Vietnamese government should have prepared better to attract more foreign investors to the deal, focused on selling techniques that meet international standards (book building) and created a more flexible settlement method for investors, if they wanted to make deposits in foreign currencies.http://bizhub.vn/markets/ssi-ubs-ag-selected-as-next-vinamilks-share-sale-advisors_289241.html

VNPT schedules IPO in 2019


Telecom operator Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) expects to hold its initial public offering (IPO) in 2019, according to the group's chair Tran Manh Hung."There is still a lot of work to be done for the group's IPO, such as selecting advisors, valu-ating the firm and seeking a strategic partner," Hung told Dau tu (Investment) newspaper."The selection of advisors alone is a complicated process, as each component of the IPO


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plan will require a specific advisor to work on it. The VNPT will look for cooperation from foreign, reputable IPO advisors."He added that "the company will try to finalise its IPO portfolio and complete all the required procedures in 2018, then do the IPO in 2019", as there were still problems with the firm's IPO plan that required the government to make the final decisions.The preparation of the IPO will be carried out after the restructuring plan, which has been submitted to the Ministry of Information (MIC) and Communications and the prime minister, is approved, he said.To complete the restructuring plan, the VNPT has founded a board, which specialises in the firm's equitisation process, and asked its member companies to compile corpo-rate reports.The VNPT has completely restructured its three corporations, which are telecommu-nication services provider VNPT VinaPhone, network operator VNPT Net and value-added services provider VNPT Media.New corporationThe VNPT has also proposed that the MIC establish a new corporation that would fo-cus on technology development and produce both software and hardware compo-nents. The establishment of the fourth corporation under the management of VNPT has got the green light from the MIC.After two years of restructuring, the information-technology sector of VNPT says it has made rapid and strong development in different fields.The business unit has been able to develop and provide software applications for the government, its agencies and ministries; smart city applications for provinces and cit-ies; and products for other sectors, such as healthcare and education.As part of the restructuring plan, the VNPT also wanted to hold 20 per cent in Mobi-Fone to make up for the reduction of its charter capital when the latter split away in August 2014.Two years later, the VNPT proposed that the government allow it to spend parts of the income from the equitisation of MobiFone on the firm's business activities.Responding to the company's request, the prime minister has assigned the MIC to de-velop the equitisation plan for MobiFone and submit that plan to the government for review.http://www.vir.com.vn/vnpt-schedules-ipo-in-2019.html

HCM City starts tracing poultry origins


HCM City's programme for tracing the origin of poultry meat sold at retail outlets kicks off on Tuesday, according to the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade.Department officials have made site visits to some poultry farms and slaughterhouses in Dong Thap, Long An and Dong Nai provinces to ensure things are ready for the roll-out.Nguyen Huu Tri, quality management director of San Ha Foods Company, said the company is ready to supply traceable poultry meat, and in the initial stages would supply around 20,000 chickens daily through the retail channel, including its own stores.Customers can use the QR Code decoding applications from Zalo or from www.te-food.com to scan the electronic stamp on packages.The stamps will contain information about the poultry strain, breeding period, name of farm, feed, vaccination schedule, when slaughtered and others.The traceable chickens were bred at the company's farm in Binh Duong and other farms with which it collaborated in Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Tien Giang, and Long An provinces.A month after traceable chicken eggs began to be sold, duck eggs are also set to join poultry meat in the programme today.Truong Chi Thien, director of Vinh Thanh Dat Food Co Ltd, the only company to sup-ply origin-traceable duck eggs initially, said 50,000-60,000 eggs would be supplied dai-ly through modern retail outlets.


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Two months later it can increase the number to 100,000 and also supply traditional markets, he said.The company is tying up with poultry farms in Dong Thap, Tien Giang and Can Tho to ensure a stable supply of products, he said.Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade, said it is easier to trace the origins of poultry meat and eggs than that of pork because chicken farms are not small and scattered like pig farms.Once the programme stabilises, traceable poultry meat and eggs would also be sold through traditional markets, he said.The department has instructed each sales outlet to put up banners and instruction boards and post staff to help customers with tracing the origin of products, he said.Thirty five farms supplying chicks, 431 selling chicken meat, 59 selling chicken eggs, 13 slaughterhouses and meat packaging establishments, and nine egg packaging es-tablishments have registered to join the programme.Hoa said the programme managers would continue to study other poultry farms and persuade those with a closed breeding process to sign up.http://bizhub.vn/news/hcmc-starts-tracing-poultry-origins_289250.html

High-tech rate low at industrial zones in HCM City


Hi-technology production at processing and industrial zones has been still low, with less than ten out of thousands of operational enterprises obtaining hi-tech certificates, heard a dialogue held by the HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Au-thority (HEPZA) last Friday.Experts said HCM City used to take the lead in the development of processing and in-dustrial zones for a long time, but the leading role has been on the downturn in recent years.The city's processing and industrial zones have less than 10 enterprises with hi-tech certificates granted, and their hi-tech rate has remained low at around 10%, according to Nguyen Van Kich, former consultant to the minister of Planning and Investment.HEPZA director Nguyen Hoang Nang said the majority of projects at processing and industrial zones have small scales while the number of projects with advanced and value-added products accounts for a low proportion after 25 years of development.Authorities of processing and industrial zones have paid attention to knowledge-in-tensive, high-tech and competitive industries since 2004, and have focused on four ma-jor industries and other supporting ones in line with the city's guidelines. However, they have yet to attract many large-scale projects.The quality of planning has not met the requirements for growth in a timely manner. Especially, zones have small scales and do not create infrastructure connectivity. They do not have enough available land for services and social welfare infrastructure projects.Notably, infrastructure projects outside the zones have yet to be planned and built properly. Besides, the zones are mainly developed for a vast area of business sectors so they fail to establish links among enterprises at industrial parks.HCM City has 17 operational processing and industrial zones, attracting more than 1,300 projects worth around $10 billion and creating jobs for about 290,000 people. Their industrial products make up 40 percent of the city's industrial export revenue.HEPZA director Nang stressed the major tasks for local processing and industrial zones are to gradually change existing zones into green, clean and hi-tech ones, and develop new industrial parks in line with hi-tech and supporting industries by 2025.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56397/High-tech-rate-low-at-industrial-zones-in-HCM City.html

ManpowerGroup Vietnam: number of female leaders remains modest


The number of women serving in leadership positions remains low with 33 percent of the total workforce, and even lower at 25 percent of enterprises' owners, said Le Thi Kim, Country HR manager at ManpowerGroup Vietnam.


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At the public private dialogue on individual action plan for the enhancement of wom-en's representation in leadership as part of the 2017 Apec Women and the Economy Forum from September 26 to 29 in Hue City, Kim said women make up 47 percent of Vietnam's workforce but the gender pay gap remains wide.However, women play an important role in economic development, especially in the fourth Industrial Revolution, as 30 percent of small and medium enterprises which ac-count for 98-99 percent of enterprises in Vietnam are established by businesswomen.Vietnam has obtained major achievements and ranks ninth out of 24 economies in Asia-Pacific region in narrowing the gender gap. To continue promoting gender equal-ity, the government has set many targets such as increasing the ratio of women in lead-ership at all levels by 0.3%-3.23%, creating jobs for at least 40 percent of women and reaching the rate of female entrepreneurs of 35 percent from 2020.Established in 2008 with two representative offices in HCM City and Hanoi City, Man-powerGroup Vietnam is a leading provider of human resource services and a strategic partner of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56383/ManpowerGroup-Vietnam-number-of-fe-male-leaders-remains-modest.html

Vietnam eyes one million Japanese tourists in 2018


Vietnam expects to welcome one million Japanese tourists in 2018, said a local tourism official after launching tourism promotion activities in Japan last month.Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, deputy general director of the Vietnam National Admin-istration of Tourism, said the administration, local enterprises and tourism promotion agencies have just organised tourism promotion programmes in Kanagawa, Tokyo, Sendai and Nagoya cities of Japan. At these events, Japanese travel companies showed strong interest in Vietnam's tourism and discussed tourist exchange and service im-provement with Vietnamese partners.Japanese firms recommended Vietnam to improve quality of tour guides, and tourism products and services, and ensure food and public hygiene, Huong told the Daily.Japan is currently the third largest visitor-generating market for Vietnam's tourism af-ter China and South Korea. Nearly 600,000 Japan tourists visited Vietnam this year to date, up 7.8 percent year-on-year. The number is expected to increase to 810,000-820,000 at the end of this year.The Japanese market may not grow as strongly as China and South Korea but will have a steady growth in the near future, so the target is achievable, Huong added.After the trip, local travel companies said potential products include sea tourism, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) and golf tourism. Danang is the most attractive destination for Japanese guests.At present, domestic air carriers have plans to increase regular flight frequencies and launch new chartered flights between the two countries. Tickets for low-cost flights from Danang and Hanoi cities of Vietnam to Japan launched early last month have been nearly sold out.According to data of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam wel-comed nearly 976,000 international arrivals last month, growing 18.6 percent against the year-ago period.In January-September, foreign arrivals rose 28.4 percent to 9.4 million. China remained Vietnam's largest market with more than 2.9 million tourists, up 47.7 percent year-on-year, followed by South Korea with 1.7 million guests and Russia with over 420,000 ar-rivals, increasing 51.2 percent and 40.6 percent respectively.http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/56382/Vietnam-eyes-one million-Japanese-tourists-in-2018.html

Growth rate of cars in Vietnam goes far ahead of motorcycles

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| ICT NEWS

The data shared at a traffic safety seminar recently held in Hanoi showed that the de-mand for buying and using cars in Vietnam is increasing. In large cities, the car growth rate has surpassed that of motorcycles.


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Statistics show that Vietnam currently has 49 million motorcycles and about 3.2 mil-lion registered cars. Regarding the number of vehicles, every 1,000 people own 22 mo-torbikes and 516 cars.Although the car ownership rate in Vietnam is not large, demand for cars is increasing significantly. In Vietnam, the growth rate of motorcycles is 7.3 percent and that of au-tomobiles is 6.5%. However, in large cities, the growth rate of cars is much larger than that of motorcycles. Specifically, in urban areas, cars' growth rate is 15 percent per year compared to 10%/year for motorcycles (as per the data of the National Traffic Safety Committee).However, the car market will probably experience a more dismal year as sales plum-met. According to a report from VAMA, the sales of the companies in this association market were about 177,038 vehicles, down six percent over the same period last year. Of which, the total number of passenger cars sold were 107,000 units, down four per-cent.Many experts estimate that the car market this year may decline compared to last year and do not reach 300,000 vehicles as expected by manufacturers. The reason is largely because many users tend to wait until 2018 to be able to buy cars at cheaper prices when the import tax in the Asean region decreased to zero percent.

In Vietnam, flight ticket agents sell passenger info to airport transport services

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| TUOITRE NEWS

The practice explains why flyers are often bombarded with phone calls advertising taxi services upon their arrival at local airportsSeveral flight ticket agencies in Vietnam have been caught selling passenger informa-tion to local taxi and transport services.The practice is most noticeable at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, followed by Cam Ranh Airport in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa.On the morning of September 20, Tran Hoang Tung got off his flight from HCM City to Hanoi and received a series of phone calls and text messages advertising taxi serv-ices.Answering one of the calls, Tung talked to a man who introduced himself as a tele-phone operator at Noi Bai Connect.Noi Bai Connect is designed to link flight passengers at Noi Bai with local taxi services."Did you board the Vietjet flight that took off at 11:45 pm? A car will be picking you up at 1:45 am. Please leave your phone on," the employee said.As per the arrangement, Tung was picked up by a driver named Hoang."Noi Bai Connect is well known in Hanoi as it is able to update passenger information after they book a flight." Hoang elaborated.Ten telephone operators at the company work around the clock to call and send mes-sages to introduce transport services to flyers, he added.The cabby said he had to pay VND1 million (US$44) upfront to be granted an account that enables him to access flyer information.After being updated on the flight schedules, Hoang and thousands of other cabbies start a 'reverse auction,' in which whoever names the lowest fare 'wins' a passenger."This ride costs VND280,000 [$12.32], of which I will only get VND190,000 [$8.36] while the rest will be claimed by Noi Bai Connect," Hoang told his passenger.Taxi drivers in Hanoi are also able to obtain flight schedules of passengers via other channels, with Zalo, a Vietnamese mobile-based free texting and calling app, the most common.Drivers are required to pay a fee in advance, with 15 percent of their fare sent to the providers of the passenger information.Khanh, another cabby, revealed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he was using the Hanoi-based VG Company.Every cabby is required to pay the service provider an upfront fee of between VND300,000 ($13) and VND500,000 ($22).The firm receives a commission by deducting the advance payment from drivers.Within the months of July and August, Khanh received the information of 55 passen-


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gers of Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet flights, including names, phone numbers, flight numbers, and times of arrival.The business license of Noi Bai Connect reveals its headquarters are at 352 Buoi Street in Ba Dinh District.However, an investigation revealed that the firm is based on the first floor of a building at 45 Nguyen Trai Street, Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi, which is actually a pizza shop.Trang, an employee of the company, said that it has connected about 2,000 drivers with passengers and been cooperating with local flight ticket agents.A typical ride from Noi Bai to downtown Hanoi provided by Noi Bai Connect costs about VND200,000 ($8.8), Trang said.The driver will claim VND120,000 ($5.3), while the other VND80,000 ($3.52) is shared equally between the company and its partnered ticket agencies.Meanwhile, an employee from VG Company said that all information is only shared internally.Several ticket agents have been cooperating with more than one service at a time, meaning passengers are likely to be contacted by multiple phone numbers after getting off their flights.According to C., a staff member of SM, a Hanoi-based ticket agency, multiple business-es have proposed deals with them."We pick the firm that names the highest commission," C. added.http://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20171002/in-vietnam-flight-ticket-agents-sell-passenger-info-to-airport-transport-services/41840.html

Chinese potatoes still sold as Da Lat produce

03/OCT/2017 INTELLASIA| TUOITRE NEWS

Chinese produce sold under the guise of being from Da Lat is no small potatoes for Vi-etnam's vegetable hubThe rainy season, when Da Lat potato prices surge as supply falls behind demand, is also the peak time for dishonest wholesalers to re-brand Chinese potatoes into Da Lat-grown delicacies.Fresh potatoes are one of the specialties that earn Da Lat, the capital of Lam Dong Province, its moniker of Vietnam's vegetable kingdom.However, not all Da Lat potatoes are actually grown in the Central Highlands hub.The Da Lat wholesale market has become a mecca for the llegal practice of 'washing' away the origin of potatoes imported from China.Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper has recently penetrated the wholesale market and ob-served first-hand how Chinese potatoes are turned into 'Da Lat-grown' produce.Coating trickThe Da Lat wholesale market consists of three rows of booths, two of which belong to potato wholesalers.Approximately three large trucks can always be found parked outside the market, ready to unload Chinese potatoes to wholesalers who buy them for their fraudulent business.The Chinese potatoes, covered in muddy black soil, are first washed to remove the dirt.Wholesalers have machines capable of washing a few hundred kilograms in five min-utes.The dark yellow skin of the washed Chinese potatoes will be exposed, markedly dif-ferent from the red or light yellow skin of genuine Da Lat potatoes.This is when the most blatant stage of the fraud begins: wholesalers will coat the Chi-nese potatoes with the red dirt typical of Vietnam's Central Highlands and wait until the plants become dry and the dirt sticks to their skin before storing them into plastic bags.Some even take an additional step: putting some red dirt inside the bags before sealing them.Trang, who runs one of the largest potato stalls at the market, said the 'dirt coating' phase should be done with great care to ensure that "the dirt stays on the potato skin during transportation."


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"The potatoes must remain wet, while the dirt must be completely dry during the mix-ing process," she added.Wholesalers do not even seem to think the practice of coating the Chinese potatoes with red dirt is something that should be done secretly.Bags of red dirt are openly placed on several potato booths and some even dry the dirt on the street, with no pretense of hiding anything.Van, another potato wholesaler, said they were forced to source Chinese produce and perform the 'coating' trick to meet the demand of smaller markets."If I don't do this, there are others who will," she said.Hard to punishNguyen Xuan Ky, a member of the Da Lat produce wholesale market, said the potatoes are legally imported from China with proper papers and receipts."Even after being coated with the red dirt, the potatoes will leave the market with pa-pers claiming they are Chinese potatoes," Ky said, implying that the produce is only put on sale under misleading labels by smaller markets and traders.Lai The Hung, head of the province's plant protection department, said that while coating Chinese potatoes with red dirt to dupe consumers into thinking they are from Da Lat is the same as producing counterfeit products, there is no official rule to punish the dishonest wholesalers."Wholesalers who properly declare that their potatoes are of Chinese origin in all the relevant papers say that the dirt coating is to help preserve the plants during transpor-tation," Hung said.Hung said authorities can only impose a fine if one is caught selling the Chinese prod-ucts as the Da Lat potatoes, but proof in the form of labels or receipts must be obtained."Unfortunately this is something out of the authority of Lam Dong as the potatoes are only sold to consumers outside of Da Lat," he admitted.Huynh Ngoc Hai, director of the Lam Dong trade department, said that more than 7,000 metric tonnes of Chinese potatoes are transported to Da Lat, via both official and cross-border imports, on an annual basis."Da Lat wholesalers do not deceive traders in smaller markets about the origin of the potatoes, but they are indirectly duping consumers, who may be tricked into buying Chinese potatoes labeled as Da Lat-grown ones," he said.http://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20171002/chinese-potatoes-still-sold-as-da-lat-produce/41830.html

VN dragon fruit wows Aussie consumers


Nearly 100 kilos of dragon fruit were sold during the Vietnamese Dragon Fruit Day held in Sydney by the Vietnamese Trade Office and the Embassy of Vietnam on Sep-tember 30.The fruits' high quality and eye-catching experience helped it sell at AUD30 (US$23.89) per kilo.Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia, Ngo Huong Nam, expressed his hope that entry into the Australian market entry will help the dragon fruit enter a group of fruits earn-ing export values of $1 billion and above.The entry can also be a good launch pad for the fruit to go to other fastidious markets worldwide, Nam said.He said that Australia was a prospective market for the Vietnamese fruit because of the contrast in harvest time.Vietnam will promote negotiations to ship other fruits to Australia, including longan, passion fruit and rambutan, he said.Hoang Huy Khanh, director of the Da Lat Export-Import Company in Australia, said farmers and domestic businesses should abide by strict food safety and quarantine re-quirements set by Australia.Fruits for expert should be harvested from orchards complying with Global GAP standards and undergo proper pasteurising process, he said.Among the three Vietnamese fruit (lychees, mangoes and dragon fruit) that have been


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shipped to Australia thus far, the dragon fruit has better potential because it can pro-duce fruits all year round, and if the importing cost is less, consumption will go up soon, he added.The first batch of Vietnamese dragon fruit was exported to Australia by the Hoang Phat Ltd Co in the southern province of Long An on September 20.Dragon fruit is one of Vietnam's key fruit exports, enjoying revenues of $895.7 million in 2016, accounting for 50.3 per cent of the country's total fresh fruit exports and 36.1 per cent of its total fruit and vegetable exports.Vietnamese dragon fruit has thus far been exported to 40 countries and territories in-cluding China, Thailand and Indonesia.http://bizhub.vn/news/vn-dragon-fruit-wows-aussie-consumers_289223.html

WB pledges to help Hanoi launch more BRT routes


The World Bank (WB) will continue sharing its experience and providing more finan-cial assistance for Hanoi to launch more Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes, a WB special-ist has said.During his working session with the municipal People's Committee in Hanoi on Octo-ber 2, Franz Drees-Gross, director of the WB's Transport and ICT Global Practice, high-lighted the popularity of BRT in the world, saying that it has resulted in long-term benefits in transport and urban planning.He expressed his belief that the BRT model will soon prove effective in Hanoi.The World Bank will continue serving as a bridge connecting Hanoi with other cities in the Southeast Asian nations, he pledged.For his part, vice Chair of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Quoc Hung said the city will continue gathering comments from international experts and the commu-nity to enhance the operation and management of the BRT network to better serve res-idents.He also expressed his hope that the WB will continue providing active support for the city's transport projects, contributing to the development of the capital city.The first BRT route, funded by the World Bank, was launched in Hanoi in late Decem-ber last year, making Vietnam the eighth country in Southeast Asia to carry out BRT.The system has helped ease traffic congestion in Hanoi.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/wb-pledges-to-help-hanoi-launch-more-brt-routes/118870.vnp

Phu Yen designates 14 sites suitable for solar energy plants


The south central province of Phu Yen has announced 14 sites that it deems to have great potential for solar energy plants in order to call for investors.The sites have total area of nearly 5,160ha, of which four sites with 3,900ha cover the water surfaces of four hydropower reservoirs Song Hinh, Song Ba Ha, Buon Duc and Phu Xuan in three mountainous districts of Song Hinh, Son Hoa and Dong Xuan.Vice Chair of Phu Yen provincial People's Committee Nguyen Chi Hien said at a work-ing session with Taiwanese company USAREG last April that 16 investors had asked for permission to conduct surveys on the development of solar, wind and gas energy in the province.Vietnam is among countries that enjoy the most sunlight in the world, with the Central Highlands and south central regions recording between 2,000 and 2,600 hours of sun-shine every year.The country is encouraging investment in solar energy development, with the latest in-centive being a recent decision which took effect in June 2017 stipulating that all output produced by solar power projects will be purchased for 2,086 VND (9.3 US cents) per kWh (excluding VAT)a profitable rate for investors.Investors involved in solar power projects in Vietnam will also be eligible for various incentives related to land, investment capital and corporate income and import tax rates.


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Southern lottery companies report falling profit


Although business remains profitable, the growth rates of lottery companies in the south have shown remarkable signs of slowing down.Southern Lottery Council revealed that the total first half sales of lottery products in 22 member companies have reached VND44.52 trillion ($1.96 billion), up more than 8 per cent compared to the same period last year. Total sales increased slightly as the av-erage consumption rate continued to hover around 78 per cent, equivalent to VND34.921 trillion ($1.53 billion).In the first six months, the pre-tax profits of lottery companies from Binh Thuan to Ca Mau provinces hit VND4.606 trillion ($202.9 million), up less than 1 per cent compared to last year. Financial contributions to the state budget reached VND14.743 trillion ($649.5 million), completing 69 per cent of the target set earlier this year.Due to the aggressive competition posed by Vietnam Computerised Lottery One Member Limited Liability Company (Vietlott), also a member of Southern Lottery Council, while these companies remained profitable, they have reported signs of de-celeration both in revenue and profit growth.The most prominent case is HCM City Lottery Co., Ltd The company's pre-tax profit decreased by more than 9 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year and only reached VND480 billion ($21.15 million). This is also a five-year low for the com-pany. Accumulated revenue in the first half of this year was VND3.238 trillion ($142.6 million), less than 2 per cent increase on-year. The lottery business accounted for 97 per cent of the total revenue, while the rest came from printing and office leasing.In a business report issued in late May, company executives said it was losing out to Vietlott, the new player in the market. In particular, the board of directors said that the main reason for the gradual slowdown in growth was the continuous introduction of new lottery products by Vietlott.By the end of 2016, the revenue of HCM City Lottery Co., Ltd was seriously affected by the strong competition. Accordingly, Vietlott's revenue soared by ten times, going from VND160 billion ($7.05 million) on September 30, 2016 to VND1,600 billion ($70.48 million) at the end of 2016.Throughout the period, Vietlott was reported to gain VND16 billion in revenue each day ($704,845). In 2015, HCM City Lottery Co., Ltd used to earn at least VND15.6 bil-lion ($687,225) in revenue a day.In an attempt to regain market share, the company seeks to maintain its core markets in HCM City and the eastern provinces, while developing more markets in the western region. In the near future, the company will also finalise business and operation plans for some of its investment projects to put into operation two new types of lottery prod-ucts which have been approved recently: self-pick lotto and scratch-off instant tickets.Tien Giang Lottery Co., Ltd is in a similar situation as the company's revenue and pre-tax profit figures were reported to drop by VND13 billion ($572,687) and VND27 bil-lion ($1.189 million) on-year, respectively. In previous reports, it was constantly named in the list of companies producing a stable growth rate of about 5 per cent.As consumption and demand are forecast to encounter a number of difficulties, earlier this year, the executives of Tien Giang Lottery Co., Ltd only set a sales growth target of 0.02 per cent. However, matters are still "out of control" as over the first six months of the year the company only completed less than half of the target for taxed revenues, which was equivalent to VND3.86 trillion ($170 million).In contrast, Vietlott has reported a record profit of approximately VND133 billion ($5.86 million), while in the same period last year, the company incurred a loss of VND4 billion ($176,212) due to the rising cost of facilities, information technology, and personnel recruitment to launch new types of lottery products.Despite being over its super-fast growth spurt, Vietlott's revenues from lottery prod-ucts still reached VND1.884 trillion ($83 million), of which matrix-based electorate games accounted for about 93.5 per cent. This put Vietlott on top of industry big wigs, taking over names like Dong Thap, Dong Nai, and Kien Giang Lottery Co., LtdThe company also does not hide its ambition to seize a 30-per-cent market share of the


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lottery market in the next few years, with about 10,000 units of terminal equipment to be distributed nationwide. From an "underdog," Vietlott has become one of the indus-try's highest earners in 2016.Previously, giving in to the dominance of Vietlott, a number of traditional lottery com-panies in Ha Nam and Thua Thien-Hue provinces decided to cooperate with Vietlott instead of pursuing a confrontation.According to rumours, Capital Lottery Company also intends to cooperate with Viet-lott to improve its business performance. Capital Lottery Company has been strug-gling since Mega 6/45 appeared. The company also launched a computerised lottery to put up a fight, but failed becauseVietlott has been offering much higher jackpot prizes. In the race to gain market share, traditional lottery companies in the south were forced to raise their maximum prize to VND2 billion ($88,260) since January 1, 2017 from the previous VND1.5 billion ($66,195).http://www.vir.com.vn/southern-lottery-companies-report-falling-profit.html

Mekong Capital earns $79m in divestments


Mekong Capital, a Vietnam-focused private equity firm, reported total earnings of nearly $79 million from its divestments this year to date, including the recent sale of its remaining holdings in the agricultural company Loc Troi Group.Mekong Capital on Monday said in the first nine months it has fully divested from Loc Troi Group and Vietnam Australia International School and completed several partial sales of its shares in the biggest local mobile device retailer Mobile World.On September 28, Vietnam Azalea Fund, one of its four investment funds, sold its re-maining 25 per cent stake in Loc Troi Group for $2.8 million. Combining that with the $9.2 million divestment of a 75-per-cent stake in July, the fund earned cumulative pro-ceeds of $12 million at the selling price of VND68,000 (US$3) a share.The divestment has generated for the fund a gross return multiple of 3.6x in USD and a gross internal rate of return (IRR) of about 18.7 per cent after eight-and-a-half years of holding.After completing the exit of Loc Troi Group, the fund's last remaining portfolio com-pany is pharmaceutical firm Traphaco.Also in September, Mekong Enterprise Fund II continued to divest from Mobile World with a partial sale worth nearly $18 million. This is considered one of the most profit-able investments of the fund with a realised gross IRR of 62.6 per cent and gross return multiple of over 133.2x on the shares sold.Previously, the fund sold its entire holding of Vietnam Australia International School for over $25 million in April, resulting in a gross return multiple of 4.5x (including div-idend received) and a gross IRR of 25.8 per cent over the six-year holding period.Last year, Mekong Capital's funds made four full exits from Phu Nhuan Jewellery, FPT Corporation, Intresco, and Nam Long and several partial exits of MobileWorld.Meanwhile, another investment vehicle Mekong Enterprise Fund III (MEF III) has made a sixth investment this year so far. Launched in May 2015 with committed capi-tal of $112.5 million, MEF III is a private equity fund focusing on Vietnamese consum-er-driven businesses in the retail, consumer products and consumer services sectors. MEF III invests between $6 and $15 million in each company.http://bizhub.vn/markets/mekong-capital-earns-79m-in-divestments_289255.html

CJ Logistics pursues Vietnamese expansion ambition


CJ Logistics, formerly CJ Korea Express, proposes a higher price than competitor Taek-wang Industry Company to take over Gemadept, the largest logistics firm in Vietnam, aiming to realise its ambition to become one of the five largest logistics firms in the world, according to newswire TheInvestor.co.kr."CJ Logistics is looking for opportunities to acquire logistics firms in Southeast Asia, aiming to realise the target to become one of five largest logistics firms globally. Thus, we are still interested in Vietnam's largest logistics firm," CEO Park Geun-tae stated.


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Park added the firm is renewing its bid to acquire the largest logistics companies in Vi-etnam against its compatriot rival Taekwang.Taekwang seemed to gain the upper hand until June when it signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire convertible bonds from Vietnamese Investment Group (VIG), which was seeking to sell its stakes in Gemadept. Accordingly, Taekwang pro-posed $442 million for the deal.However, Thelnvestor.co.kr reported that the deal between Taekwang and VIG may fall through due to the two parties' failure in reaching a compromise on the price.While CJ Logistics awaits the completion of the purchase with VIG, it completed the purchase of numerous other logistics firms in China and Southeast Asia. Notably, in 2016, it bought a 31.4-per-cent stake in Century Logistics from Malaysia and a 50-per-cent stake in Shenzen Speedex from China for $113.4 million. In April 2017, it also ac-quired 51 per cent of Dubai-based Ibrakom, which specialises in heavy transport, and Darcl Logistics, India's biggest transport company.CJ Logistics is South Korea's largest total cargo delivery company, delivering over 20 million packages a day to over 100 countries around the world.Gemadept was founded in 1990 and now has about a dozen subsidiaries in the areas of logistics, port operations, and real estate development. It is listed on the HCM City Stock Exchange at a VND7.5 trillion ($329 million) valuation.In June, Gemadept put 108.8 million shares on sale with the purchasing price of VND10,640 ($0.46) apiece. It acquired VND1.16 trillion ($50.69 million) from the deal, increasing its chartered capital to VND2.88 trillion.Being considered Vietnam's largest logistics firm, in 2016, Gemadept earned VND3.74 trillion ($163.4 million) in consolidated revenue, up 4 per cent on-year, 43 per cent of which came from port services business and 57 per cent from logistics.It expects to earn VND3.8 trillion ($166.1 million) in consolidated revenue and VND530 billion ($23.2 million) in consolidated pre-tax profit for the whole year of 2017.In recent times, Gemadept has also been divesting from its member companies.On September 27, Gemadept issued the decision to hand over entire its 50 per cent holding, equaling 3.35 million shares, in Gemadept (Malaysia) Sdn., Bhd. to its another 100-per-cent-owned subsidiary Gemadept Shipping Holding Co., Ltd Gemadept's di-vestment from Gemadept Malaysia is part of its restructuring plan.In early July 2017, Gemadept decided to establish two subsidiaries, namely Gemadept Shipping Holding and Gemadept Shipping. According to Bizlive's source, CJ Logistics and Gemadept completed the negotiation on CJ Logistics' purchase of a 51 per cent stake in these two companies for $125 million.Previously, on August 15, it rumoured that Gemadept completed the divestment of a 51 per cent stake, equaling entire its equity capital, from Gemadept-Hoa Sen Interna-tional Port also to CJ Logistics.http://www.vir.com.vn/cj-logistics-pursues-vietnamese-expansion-ambition.html

Samsung backs Vietnamese firms joining global supply chain


A team of experts from Samsung will support three Vietnamese firms to improve their competitiveness and capability to join the global supply chains.Accordingly, Minh Man Printing Trading Production, Nhat Minh Design Manufacture and Vinavit will be provided with the necessary training documents and free consult-ing services from the South Korean group.Vietnamese companies often lack the capability to forecast the market, leading to low sales and slow-moving inventory, so there should be improvements in the inventory management, Chair of Samsung Electronics Vietnam Kim Dohyung said.At the same time, these firms need to improve their quality control management and productivity, he added.Minh Man Printing Trading Production is weak in planning; therefore, it needs to be assisted in setting the standards in the planning process, from receiving orders to de-signing plans for production, Kim suggested.


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He also elaborated on the problems faced by Nhat Minh Design Manufacture. The firm needs detailed plans for each stage of production and should apply key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the performances of the stages, he said.Samsung is committed to providing the best support for the companies, but they should also play a more active role in innovating production to enhance competitive-ness and participate in the global supply chain, the chair said.http://bizhub.vn/news/samsung-backs-vietnamese-firms-joining-global-supply-chain_289245.html

Hoa Phat to cooperate with Italy firm


Hoa Phat-Dung Quat Steel Joint Stock Company and Italy's metal plants supplier Dan-ieli Company last week signed a contract to provide thin slab caster and hot-rolled mill.The products will be supplied to the Hoa Phat Dung Quat iron and steel production complex in Quang Ngai Province.Under the contract, Danieli will be responsible for supplying to the Quality Strip Pro-duction (QSP) line and Compact Endless Cast and Rolling Mill complex, consisting of two casting machines, two tunnel furnaces and one lamination mill.The plant is expected to reach an output of 3.5 million tonnes of steel per year and can be expanded to four million tonnes per year for the second phase.Steel products will include hot rolled steel coil, low carbon steel, high strength low al-loy steel and medium carbon, high strength medium alloy steel. They are used for pro-ducing special steel pipes, roofing and other special products. Currently, these products are being completely imported.Tran Dinh Long, chair of Hoa Phat Group, emphasized that the categories of thin slab caster and hot-rolled mill were most important for the Hoa Phat Dung Quat iron and steel production complex.At present, no Vietnamese enterprise produces hot rolled coils, thus, Hoa Phat would be the first firm in Vietnam to manufacture this type of product, Long added.Danieli's representative Giacomo Mareschi Danieli committed that the project will be implemented quickly, contributing to the overall success of the complex, and insisted it would be Danieli's most important project to date.Danieli is one of the world's top manufacturers of plants and machines for the steel-making industry. The company has supplied a wide range of steel production equip-ment to Hoa Phat since 2000.The Hoa Phat Dung Quat iron and steel production complex has capacity of four mil-lion tonnes per year.Currently, Hoa Phat is deploying the first phase of the project in 21 months from Feb-ruary 2017, with capacity of two million tonnes per annum, producing long construc-tion steel and high quality steel coils.The second phase of the project to produce two million tonnes of hot rolled steel per annum for mechanical engineering was deployed in August 2017.It is expected that the entire project will be completed by the end of 2019.http://bizhub.vn/news/hoa-phat-to-cooperate-with-italy-firm_289243.html

Isuzu Vietnam Auto Care Centre rolls into service


Isuzu Vietnam Auto Care Centre promises to be Isuzu's strategic step in winning Vi-etnamese customers' hearts.Isuzu Vietnam, part of Japanese automotive giant Isuzu Motors, officially inaugurated Isuzu Vietnam Auto Car Centre (IAC) on September 29 at Tan Phu Trung Industrial Zone in HCM City's Cu Chi district.Kicked-off construction on March 23, 2017, after six-month intensive construction, IAC which is located at lot B6-6, Bloc B6, D2 Road in Tan Phu Trung IZ, has completed con-struction and is slated to commence operation from this month.IAC is designated to handle three core functions: a training base of repair and mainte-nance skills for truck and pickup lines for Isuzu agent technicians; a warehouse centre


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where genuine components and parts are kept in a big volume to meet burgeoning market demands; and providing support to Isuzu sales agents in major overhauls go-ing beyond the agents' capacity.Isuzu Vietnam has been developing by leaps and bounds in the Vietnamese market in recent years, attesting through its strong investment commitments.Besides expanding the agent network and promoting commercial and family-oriented vehicle lines the company has been constantly trying for perfection in the components and after-sales service aspect.In addition, with the commitment of Northwest Saigon City Development Corpora-tion (SCD)the developer of Tan Phu Trung IZ in providing utmost support to the in-vestors, IAC promises to be Isuzu's strategic step in satisfying Vietnamese customers' demands.Isuzu Vietnam is a joint venture operating in assembling and distributing vehicles with the brand Isuzu, the world leading brand for commercial vehicles and diesel en-gines.The company chose Tan Phu Trung IZ as the location for its auto care centre due to the latter's convenient location, smart planning and investment incentives that have made the IZ very appealing to both domestic and foreign investors.http://www.vir.com.vn/isuzu-vietnam-auto-care-centre-rolls-into-service.html

VinFast announces collection of sedan vehicles, SUVs


VinFast, the first Vietnamese automobile manufacturing complex opened by Vin-group, presented 20 sedan and SUV designs and officially launched a public contest to select the most favourite car models in Vietnam on October 2.This is the first time that the Vietnamese people have been asked for their inputs, along with the automaker, to find modern cars matching with the world trend and is suitable with the tastes and demands of the Vietnamese market.The 20 vehicles designed specifically for VinFast come from four world renowned car design studios -- Pininfarina, Zagato, Torino and Ital Design -- who have brought to VinFast an impressive collection.Interestingly, despite different design styles, the cars have three things in common lux-ury, modernity and following the global trend of high-end cars.The competition is aimed at understanding the expectations of the majority of domes-tic customers to find two luxurious and useful models of sedan and SUV that reflect the spirit and philosophy of the Vietnamese people.From October 2 to 16, the customers can vote on website http://www.binhchon-mauxe.vinfast.vn. Each sample has a variety of images from different angles to show-case the car's style and parts. Besides this, participants also have the opportunity to win attractive prizes. The first prize is worth up to VND500 million for those who have selected the best models under the two categories of sedan and SUV.In addition, VinFast will also host many interesting mini-games on its fanpage so that customers can directly share and comment on the models."We want consumers to put their minds to the question "What type of VinFast car do you want to own in the future?" The comments will be valuable motivation for us to produce cars which are not only safe and of high quality but also sleek and modern in line with the world trend and suitable for the people and topography of Vietnam," vice Chair of Vingroup Nguyen Viet Quang said.With the motto StyleSafetyInnovationInnovationPioneer, VinFast is utilising all its re-sources to roll out the first car in September 2019. Besides the selection and approval of vehicle designs, the company is also working with its partners, who are leaders in technology and consultancy, and market research companies to realise the dream of making a Vietnamese car that meets international standards.http://bizhub.vn/wheels/vinfast-announces-collection-of-sedan-vehicles-suvs_289226.html


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Chair of FPT Software: 'I do not need a degree'


No matter what the degree is, the measure for employees in the digital era is the eval-uation of the employer: that is the common view of the participants of VietNamNet's online roundtable talks with theme "Human resource challenges in the digital age".On the occasion of the 2nd Apec Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 2) held recently in Ha-noi, VietNamNet cooperated with the World and Vietnam newspaper to organise the online roundtable talks with theme "Human Resources in the Digital Age: Challenges in Vietnam" in order to provide a multi-dimensional perspective on this issue. This is also a major topic for high-level policy dialogue within the framework of SOM 2.The talks were broadcast live at 10am on May 23, 2017, and streamed live via fanpage Vietnamnet.vn with the participation of four guests.- Vu Khoan, Former deputy prime minister- Dr Dao Quang Vinh, director of the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs, Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs- Ass. Prof, Dr Huynh Quyet Thang, vice Rector of the Hanoi University of Technology- Hoang Nam Tien, Chair of FPT SoftwareThis is the content of the first part of the talks.Journalist Pham Huyen: Dao Quang Vinh, are there any numbers that address Viet-nam's fundamental challenges that will increase in the digital era with respect to hu-man resources?Dr Dao Quang Vinh: Our recent studies show that there is a great gap between the need for skills and the ability to satisfy that demand.It is clearly shown through the number of unemployed university graduates at the end of last year, which reached more than 200,000 people.Demand for IT workers from 2012 to 2015 doubled. It is forecast that by 2020, Viet-nam's IT industry will need up to 80,000 workers, while domestic training institutions will only be able to train about 30,000 people. It means that we now have a considera-ble distance between the training capacity and the recruitment needs of enterprises.In the world, recent studies also show that in the context of the Fourth Industrial Rev-olution, with the increasing use of new technologies, the demand for human resources in the data analytic field will increase very fast.For example, in Malaysia, from now to 2020 the demand for data analysis will increase fourfold, about twofold in the Philippines. In Singapore, the number will increase from 9,000 to about 15,000 people, and from 2.4 million to about 2.7 million people in the US.In Vietnam, some recent studies suggest that the number of data analysis staff can in-crease to tens of thousands. However, our training facilities are not ready to meet this high demand.That is not to mention the middle-level technical human resources to serve businesses, because the application of new technology in production facilities is very fast, with lot of breakthroughs. If the labour market is not ready, it will be very difficult to provide human resources for businesses. Hoang Nam Tien: People often say that in this age, robots will replace people and that is true. For example, 2.5 million workers in the garment industry will face the possibil-ity of losing their jobs in the next few years.But in the opposite side, we need thousands, tens of thousands of employees. In this age, our company needs the workers who know about cloud computing, mobile com-puting, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, etc. In the next 3 months, when stu-dents graduate, FPT software will recruit 2,500 people and I'm afraid there will not be enough qualified people to recruit.Journalist Pham Huyen: Huynh Quyet Thang, as a representative from the Hanoi Uni-versity of Technology, what do you think about the number of employees more than 2,500 peoplethat Tien's company needs to recruit in the upcoming time?Dr Huynh Quyet Thang: In the field of information technology, the Hanoi University of Technology and the Institute of Information Technology and Communications cur-rently recruit about 800 students a year, and about 700 students in the field of electron-ic telecommunications. Meanwhile, the number assigned by the State is about 1,500


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students. It is our school's responsibility to train these students with good knowledge and soft skills to meet the needs of business.However, I thinkwe need to have more accurate forecasts of the needs of human re-sources of industries so that we can allocate reasonable quotas for training facilities. This is a macro level task. But within the framework of our university, we will do our best to fulfill our responsibilities.Journalist Pham Huyen: I have a concern to share with Hoang Nam Tien. It is often said that many manual workers will later face unemployment because of the replace-ment of robots and smart applications. Do you think that in the near future, Vietnam's labour may be unemployed because of the rise of the fourth Industrial Revolution? From the anger of a business, do you have any initiative to solve this problem? Hoang Nam Tien: It is true that the fourth industrial revolution has been recently men-tioned in Vietnam but actually in other countries it has traveled a relatively long dis-tance.The term "dark factory" means a factory without lights because the factory employs only robots so it does not need lights anymore. Just recently, Foxconn, one of the com-panies that provide assembly service for Apple, put into work 60,000 robots that can replace millions of workers. Such things have happened, so what do we do?When we return to this issue, we still face the old story, how to have labourers suited to the international environment. Here I want to talk about the most advanced envi-ronments in the world, such as America, Japan and Europe.Therefore, we have suggested some methods and we are currently implementing them: We are testinga fast-train and fast-work model. Specifically, we still train college students but we change the education process so that our students can go to work after only two years of training.We affirm that under the current curriculum, after only two years students can go to work, of course, with certain conditions. After going to work, they can choose not to graduate from college, or return to college to study for two more years to earn a college degree.Here the views of businesses and also state agencies of neglecting degrees is very im-portant. You can do the job, no need for a degree. But this is very difficult because it is contrary to what we still think about, the traditions of learning in our country: if you go to school, you must have a degree!The second suggestion is that our training is career change training. At present, society is changing quickly, the economy requires different skills. There are many people who study electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, but when they graduate and go to work for a number of years, they are not used properly. Their income is also not good, so they have a need to switch professions.We strongly recommend universities, especially large universities such as the Hanoi University of Technology, to offer a 12 to 14 month training programme for those who wish to have a second university degree. These people will be provided with the most up-to-date skills, so that they can work immediately after graduation.These are the two proposals that we are implementing right now. I believe that if they can be done, within a very short time, about two to four years, we will have hundreds of thousands of people ready for the demands of this new shift.Journalist Pham Huyen: What do you think about Tien's proposals, Huynh Quyet Thang?Dr Huynh Quyet Thang: From the perspective of a university, the school needs to train in the form of layers.According to some surveys, for example at our Hanoi University of Technology, about 5-15 percent of the best students can get overseas scholarships, or are employed with very high salary. The remaining 35 percent work in businesses with specified direc-tion. About 50 percent of the rest go to work in the businesses with the orientation and specification are less than those required by the two kinds of the businesses above.At present, the Hanoi University of Technology enrolls about 6,000 students each year, so we also have to find the businesses that can meet the best of demands for jobs of


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about 3,000 students, corresponding to the other 50%. We also have to make sure that the top 15 percent of the other students can earn very high incomes, have in-depth knowledge and can apply for scholarships immediately. We consider it the responsi-bility of our school.Thus, our university need to work with businesses to understand businesses' require-ment for skills so that we can train qualified students. At the same time, we must have laboratories and international cooperations that suit the current situation, when new technologies are released on a daily basis and the frontiers of research between labs will be gone. Therefore, our students need to integrate into the world.We also set very clear orientation, and our staff members are classified by such groups. Teachers who studied abroad, have good international relations and have good re-search ability will join the research group of the top 15 percent of students. Teachers who have good relations with businesses, good practical knowledge will train 35 per-cent and 50 percent of students of the second and third group. The school will create conditions for the teachers to work with their true desire, aspirations and properly promote their strong points. Our school is now promoting the ownership and master-ship of not only the students, but also the school leaders.Secondly, we want to promote cooperation with businesses to identify the demand and the skill standards of employees that they want so as to help our students have the best working skills upon graduation.Thirdly, we want to try to strengthen international cooperation in training, actively use the network of alumni of the Hanoi University of Technology to connect with former talented students who are currently working abroad.According to our statistics, in the past 10 years, about 5 percent of graduates of the Ha-noi University of Technology got very good scholarships in other countries and about 80-90 percent of them stayed abroad for work or study. We consider them a very good network to support our lecturers and our labs on how to advance in this digital age.There are many challenges but the opportunities are also great. I very much agree with Tien's proposal about the two-year training programme and then students can work immediately. Vietnam has overemphasized degrees and our vocational training col-lege system cannot develop partly because of that thinking. There are professions that earn good money without requiring degrees, so, why not direct students to study in such fields?Of course universities will not accept the two-year training without a degree model. This is not the thinking of universities. The social responsibility of each university will be different from that of colleges and businesses.Journalist Pham Huyen: Vu Khoan, you attended the High-Level Policy Dialogue on Human Resources in the Digital Agean event within the framework of the recent Apec SOM 2 in Hanoi. Could you share with us the big issues that Vietnam are facing as well as the concerns of businesses, researchers and educators which were presented at the dialogue?Former deputy prime minister Vu Khoan: This year the Apec SOM 2 took place in Vi-etnam at a time when the world economy was transforming deeply under the influ-ence of new and powerful inventions of science and technology. Therefore, the content of cooperation in science and technology, including cooperation in training Human Resources, was a focus. That was the initiative of Vietnam. Vietnam was aware of this issue and during the preparation of Apec meetings it put the issue of scientific and technological cooperation as the new content of Apec.I think, perhaps Apec has long talked about three pillars, but it has only focused on trade as the main topic.With regard to human resources, I think we should not just think of the employers. There are three issues that, in my opinion, should be noted.The first is the trainer, the inventor of invention, not just the user. In this group, our distance is even further.The second is the users of invention. We should not just think of big companies like FPT, the Hanoi University of Technology, or the Institute of Labour and Social Scienc-


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es, but the people themselves. People now have direct access to those, and among them, there are government officials.The third is training to deal with new ones. When we talk about this issue it should also be extended to all three subjects. If we only train the users, for example, the soft-ware makers of FPT, it is important, but it is also very important how more than 90 mil-lion people will approach it. What should we do if several million people do not know how to use it?I think this is too new, too complicated, and we have only mentioned it without doing much yet.Even Apec has just approached the issue. In that situation, how can we utilise interna-tional integration and Apec integration in particular? It is through the bilateral chan-nels and multilateral fora that we can train human resources, as well as through FDI enterprises because the vocational schools of the Ministry Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs are not enough. We have to rely on international cooperation for train-ing. It is very difficult to do it alone.http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/special-reports/187547/chair-of-fpt-software---i-do-not-need-a-degree-.html

Start Jerusalem 2017: Drop Deck wins VN challenge


The final round of the contest in Vietnam took place in Hanoi on Sunday with dramatic competition among the six best teams from across the country.Following nearly two months of competition, the six best teamsDrop Deck, Finsify, Re-poto and Putatu, as well as Abby Card and SafeSaiwent into the final round.Along with Drop Deck, the other five teams also won similar awards and certification from the competition.The Embassy of Israel in Vietnam along with the National Agency for Technology En-trepreneurship and Commercialisation Development under the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Business Studies and Assistance Centre organised the contest.Start Jerusalem is a global competition organised by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs and the Jerusalem Development Authority, which brings together startups from different countries to compete for the opportunity to take part in a five-day innovation experience in Jerusalem, Israel -- one of the world's leading tech ecosystems.The startup competition was organised to find a winner for Start Jerusalem 2017, which takes place in November.Israeli Ambassador Nadav Eshcar said this year's teams surprised him with their good quality and useful products.The contest affirmed the support of the Israeli government and its startup community for Vietnamese startups.http://bizhub.vn/tech/start-jerusalem-2017-drop-deck-wins-vn-challenge_289251.html

200 exhibitors to join Hanoi Textile, Garment Industry Expo


Some 200 local and foreign exhibitors will gather in the 2017 Hanoi Textile and Gar-ment Industry Expo (HANOITEX) at the International Centre for Exhibition on Tran Hung Dao street, Hanoi, from November 1-3.Companies from 15 countries and territories such as China, Germany, Japan, the Re-public of Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan (China), and Thailand will showcase their textile-garment machinery and equipment, high-quality silk and fabrics, dyeing equipment and chemical dyes, materials and accessories, and more, across the 6,000sqm exhibi-tion.The annual expo will also provide an opportunity for textile-garment producers in northern Vietnam to access the latest technologies of the industry.The event will be organised by the CP Exhibition Hong Kong, VCCI Expo, and Viet-nam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), under the patronage of the Min-istry of Industry and Trade and the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association.Meanwhile, about 500 firms will join the 17th International Textile and Apparel Acces-


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sories Exhibition held in HCM City from November 22-25, featuring new solutions, technology and equipment for the apparel sector.http://english.vov.vn/economy/200-exhibitors-to-join-hanoi-textile-garment-indus-try-expo-359566.vov

International water, energy expo to open in HCM City


Two exhibitions on Vietnam's water sector and renewable energy will open at the Sai-gon Exhibition and Convention Centre in HCM City from November 8 to 10.The Vietwater 2017 provides an opportunity for visitors to access modern technologies and solutions in water supply, sanitation, water resources and purification, as well as services and products of wastewater treatment.Meanwhile, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency VietnamRE & EE Vietnam 2017 will introduce various industrial technologies, innovations, solutions and new products in renewable energy industry such as solar, hydro, geothermal, wind and bi-omass energy.According to the organisers, the two events are expected to draw over 480 businesses from 38 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Japan, Chi-na, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Hungary and Thailand, among others.More than 14,000 local and international delegates will participate in the exhibitions along with various seminars and conferences designed to provide latest business ex-perience and technical knowledge in the fields.https://en.vietnamplus.vn/international-water-energy-expo-to-open-in-hcm-city/118825.vnp End


finance & business news 3 October 2017 · 2017-10-03 · finance & business news FINANCE Reference...

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Transcript of finance & business news 3 October 2017 · 2017-10-03 · finance & business news FINANCE Reference...