The HCMC administration has asked government employees to limit the use of bottled water, plastic bags and straws in the workplace.
Joining the national 2019-2021 anti-plastic waste campaign, government offices and agencies in Ho Chi Minh City are required, starting August 1, not to use bottled water, including for conferences. Instead they should use bottles of more than 20 liters that are easier to reuse.
Disposable plastic bags and one-time wipes are discouraged.
Schools and medical centers in the city have also been asked not to use plastic cups and straws or single-use plastic products in all daily activities.
From 2020, the municipal Department of Finance will not allocate funds to government agencies for buying disposable plastic products.
The government of HCMC, home to 13 million people including migrants, has also set a target for zero disposable plastic use in urban supermarkets, commercial centers, convenience stores, bookstores by the end of 2020.
Traders at traditional markets in the city are also encouraged to reduce the use of plastic bags to pack goods for customers while convenience stores and food shops are asked to have discount policies for customers carrying environmentally-friendly products on their own to pack food, drinks and goods.
The city will include the burgeoning anti-plastic waste problem into school curricula to spread awareness and sound the alarm. Students will be taught how to sort waste at source.
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc said last month that Vietnam should strive for zero disposable plastic use in urban stores, markets and supermarkets by 2021 and for no plastic products to be used in the entire country by 2025.
Earlier, the HCMC Open University and the Medicine and Pharmacy University had announced plans to stop using single-use water bottles and plastic straw.
Starting August 1, Fahasa, Vietnam’s biggest bookstore chain, will use a paper band to wrap books purchased from their shops for customers who bring their own bag.
Bui Trong Hieu, chairman of the HCMC Urban Environment Company Limited, said that of the 8,700 tons of trash discarded in the city daily, plastic accounts for 1,800 tons but a mere 200 tons, or 11 percent, is collected for recycling.
The recent moves by different actors come in the wake of reports that Vietnamese produce a staggering amount of plastic waste: around 2,500 tons of a day.
Vietnam has been ranked the fourth biggest polluter of oceans in the world by U.S. based non-profit environmental organization Ocean Conservancy.
The Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station metro line will receive its first of 10 trains from France next March, railway authorities have confirmed.
The aluminum-alloy trains will be built to European standards. Each train will have four or five cars that are 80-100 meters long and up to 3 meters wide. Handles for standees will be designed to match Vietnamese people’s height.
The trains will cost almost VND3 trillion ($129.37 million), including fees for consulting, designing and assembling. Another VND4.7 trillion ($202.68 billion) will be spent on rail tracks and train depots, taking the total cost to VND7.7 trillion ($332.05 million).
Nguyen Cao Minh, head of Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board (MRB), said Wednesday that they are urging the contractor to step up the speed of work to meet the deadline of operating the elevated section of the line next year.
The MRB had said earlier that the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station section is 51 percent complete. Its elevated sections are 99.5 percent finished and work on these are being prioritized to meet next year’s deadline, while the underground section is only 5 percent complete.
The Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station route, the capital’s second metro line after Cat Linh-Ha Dong, runs 12.5 kilometers from Nhon area in the western district of Nam Tu Liem, via Kim Ma Street to Hanoi Railway Station in the downtown area. It will run 8.5 kilometers on elevated tracks through eight stations and the remaining four kilometers underground. The underground track is scheduled to begin operations in 2023.
Hanoi’s first metro line, connecting Cat Linh Station in downtown Dong Da District to the Yen Nghia Station in Ha Dong District, is said to be 99 percent complete, having missed its deadline several times.
The city earlier this month said it would borrow $1.48 billion from official development assistance (ODA) funds to build a new metro section in 2021.
Nearly 107,000 out of 164,871 or 70.7 percent of mobile service subscribers that registered to change their networks performed the procedures successfully and retained their numbers from July 1-28.
Viettel successfully completed the procedures for 67.7 percent of subscribers that transferred from other networks, while sending 74.8 percent of subscribers wishing to move.
Meanwhile, Vinaphone received more than 60,000 new subscribers and let go more than 56,000 others.
At the same time, MobiFone and Vietnamobile failed to reach technical standards as their successful switching ratio was less than 70 percent.
Regarding difficulties in the work, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said some mobile service suppliers hesitated to help subscribers in switching networks.
To deal with the problem, from May 1, 2019, the ministry assigned a target of 70 percent in transferring ratio to mobile service suppliers. Inspections will be conducted into firms that fail to reach the goal, he said.
A representative from the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority (VNTA) under the Ministry of Information and Communications said from August 2019, network switching will be processed automatically instead of manually.
Alongside, the target network will be allowed to interfere if subscribers have difficulties with the source network during the process.
Mobile number portability (MNP) services, which allow mobile telephone users to retain their numbers when switching from one mobile network operator to another, were launched on November 16 last year.
The Ministry of Information and Communications set an oriented rate for the service at 60,000 VND (2.5 USD).
So far, about 690,000 out of 881,000 subscribers have successfully changed their network, reaching 79.6 percent.
Approximately 5,000 locations in Vietnam have appeared on D.Map, an online map for disabled people, according to Australian Alumni in Vietnam.
Members of the Association of People with Disabilities of Can Tho City have attended the “Access and User Manual of D.Map” training course. After the course, they committed to update on D.Map app some 250 key projects of the state headquarters, cultural, sports and entertainment centers, supermarkets, schools, hospitals and other public venues in Ninh Kieu, Binh Thuy and Cai Rang districts.
Australia Alumni in Vietnam earlier supported the implementation of this project in HCMC and Dalat City in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong. Up to now, Lam Dong has had 885 locations updated on the app.
D.Map, which is available on IOS and Android, provides a solution for people with disabilities to help them find usable and accessible places such as parks, public toilets, offices, hospitals, and shopping malls.
This project was initiated by Dr. Vo Thi Hoang Yen, one of two Australia Awards alumni with disabilities on Forbes’ list of 50 most influential women in 2019.
D.Map is one of many projects that have been funded or partially funded by the Australian Alumni Grant Fund.
Tropical Storm Wipha, which formed west of the Philippines, will have ideal conditions to further strengthen before reaching southeastern China later this week. The tropical storm lay centered 230 kilometers northeast of Vietnam’s Paracel Islands.
Warm ocean water and low wind shear will allow for gradual strengthening as it moves west-northwestward through the middle of the week. The window for strengthening will only last through Wednesday before interaction with land begins to have a negative effect on the storm.
According to a report by Eric Leister, AccuWeather senior meteorologist, Locations from southeastern China into northern Vietnam and northern Laos will need to be on alert for potential flooding downpours and a heightened risk for mudslides. Locations from northern Hainan Island to the Leizhou Peninsula may take a direct hit from this storm on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning with a second landfall possible in Guangxi or northern Vietnam.
Satellite image shows storm Wipha brewing near northern Vietnam, July 31, 2019. Photo courtesy of the National Center for Hydro – Meteorological Forecasting.
Heavy rainfall will be the most widespread concern with Wipha as downpours can lead to flash flooding and mudslides. Total rainfall of 100-200 mm (4-8 inches) is expected across the region with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 380 mm (15 inches).
Rough seas will also be stirred and create dangers for boaters and swimmers across the South China Sea from the Philippines to China. The Gulf of Tonkin will also be at risk for the same hazards.
The extent of wind damage will depend on the storm’s track and peak intensity; however, at this time, the threat for damaging winds extends from northern Hainan Island to southwest Guangdong, the coast of Guangxi and coastal locations of northeastern Vietnam, AccuWeather reports.
Sustained winds of 65 km/h (40 mph) are possible with gusts of 80-95 km/h (50-60 mph) in exposed coastal locations near and along the track of the storm.
At present, no Indian airline flies directly to Vietnam
IndiGo will operate its non-stop daily flights between Kolkata and Hanoi
India’s largest domestic carrier, in terms of market share, IndiGo on Tuesday said it will launch services to Vietnam from October, making it the fifth South East Asian country in the airline’s network after Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Myanmar. Rhik Kundu reports on Live Mint.
Effective October 3, subject to government approvals, IndiGo will operate its non-stop daily flights between Kolkata and Hanoi, the airline said in a statement.
At present, no Indian airline flies directly to Vietnam. The grounded Jet Airways had a few years ago started flights to Vietnam only to discontinue the service months later.
“We foresee a rising demand for Hanoi, which is famous for its historic architecture and a rich cultural blend of Southeast Asian and French influence,” William Boulter, chief commercial officer IndiGo said, adding that the airline was expecting high demand for the Buddhist tourism circuit from Vietnam as the South East Asian country has a large Buddhist community.
According to Live Mint, the management of IndiGo had last week told analysts over a call that the IndiGo has received 12 departures slots daily, earlier allocated to Jet Airways. The airline is expected to expand its international services in the coming months.
Jet Airways suspended operations in April 2019 due to an acute fund crunch.
“And out of this 12, we have made operational and already gone for sale on seven of that and remaining are still open because of slot issues,” Wolfgang Prockschauer, president and chief operating officer (COO) at IndiGo told analysts during the call. “And then, going further, after there is more clarity about what’s happening to Jet Airways, we will also expect a major boost to our portfolio in domestic and international slots, and the traffic rights, especially,” Prockschauer added.
Vietnam aims for Thailand’s auto-making crown as VinFast, the Made-in-Vietnam cars have just hit the market, the first step in Hanoi’s grand plan to become a new auto-production hub
Vinfast, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Vingroup, the communist country’s largest private conglomerate, last month rolled out its first made-in-Vietnam automobile model, a combustion engine hatchback that at a sticker price of about US$19,000 has taken on Japanese and Korean brands in the nation’s fast-revving domestic market. PETER JANSSEN reports on Asia Times.
The company hopes to launch 12 different models of automobiles including electric vehicles by 2020, aiming at a production of 250,000 vehicles a year in the first phase of a $3.5 billion investment in a 335-hectare production facility in the northern coastal town of Haiphong.
The company aims to ramp up production to 500,000 vehicles by 2025.
“This is the first step into heavy industry,” said Le Thi Thu Thuy, chairwoman of VinFast, in addressing a recent business function in Bangkok. “We will start out with the domestic market but our goal is to turn Vietnam into a manufacturing hub for automobiles. A car company is about supply chains.”
Those might have been construed as fighting words for anyone in the audience from Thailand’s automotive industry, long billed as the “Detroit of Asia” and a crucial component of the nation’s export earnings.
Indeed, Vinfast’s rapid entry (it launched its auto-making project in September 2017) into local production of its own brand of vehicles has sparked concerns among Thai authorities.
Workers operate the car assembly line at VinFast, Vietnam’s first homegrown car manufacturer in Haiphong on June 14, 2019. Photo: AFP/Manan Vatsyayana
Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow under 3.5% this year, whereas Vietnam anticipates another 6.7% surge. Thailand’s GDP per capita per annum is $7,200, whereas Vietnam’s is $2,600. However, that figure is closer to $6,000 for residents of Vietnam’s two main cities, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi.
Economists generally see $3,000 per capita per annum income as the inflection point for consumer booms in emerging markets. Vietnam has 98 million potential consumers, compared with Thailand’s 69 million, many of them aging and already deep in debt.
“I think Vietnam is at the tipping point for car consumption,” said Vinfast’s Thuy Le. “Car ownership is very low in Vietnam, about 20 cars for every 1,000 people. The number in Thailand is ten times that. It is just a matter of time before the take-off comes in Vietnam.”
Thailand’s automotive industry has reason to worry, especially since Vietnam has recently entered two new big free trade agreements (FTAs), including with the European Union, that Thailand has missed.
That owes in part to the country’s status as a military coup-installed regime for the past five years, but now that it has returned to electoral democracy entering new FTAs could be on the cards again.
On June 30, Vietnam entered the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which promises to lower tariffs in both directions, including for Vietnam-made automobiles.
Last year, Vietnam also entered the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPATPP), an offshoot of the TPP initiated by former US President Barack Obama but ditched by current President Donald Trump. The CPATPP will lower tariffs for Vietnam’s exports to 11 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.
Thailand’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office has warned that since Thailand is not a member of either FTA that automotive suppliers in Thailand should prepare for many foreign car-makers to relocate to Vietnam to take advantage of the FTA deals and cheaper labor costs.
Last year, vehicles and vehicle parts and accessories were Thailand’s leading export item, amounting to $38.4 billion in foreign exchange and making the sector Thailand’s top export earner accounting for 15% of total exports, according to Bank of Thailand figures.
In 2018, Australia was the largest market for Thailand-manufactured cars, with shipments amounting to $5.8 billion, or 55% of total Thai exports to the country. For Thailand-made automotive parts, the largest market was the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with shipments of $6 billion.
Thailand has signed 13 total FTAs, including the ASEAN FTA (AFTA) and a separate TAFTA with Australia.
Thailand has built up its automotive industry since the mid-1990s, and now ranks 12th worldwide as an automotive manufacturer, having attracted all the major Japanese brands including Toyota and Honda, the elite German brands BMW and Mercedes Benz, as well as American maintains Ford and Chevrolet.
There are now more than 2,500 parts suppliers based in the country, providing the largest automotive cluster in the region.
Ambitions to establish an automotive industry as a first step to wider industrialization are hardly unique to Vietnam or Thailand. Most of the main ASEAN economies barring Singapore have taken a stab at becoming auto production bases, with varying degrees of success.
Malaysia took the national car route with the Proton, originally a joint venture with Mitsubishi Motors but now with China’s Geely as its main strategic partner.
After revving its own national car plan, Indonesia has been promoting investment in its Low Cost Green Car (LCGC) model since 2013, providing tax incentives to several Japanese car-makers which are obliged to raise the local parts content up to 80%. LCGC models now account for 20% of passenger car sales in the country.
Although any vehicle with more than 40% local parts content from a fellow ASEAN member enjoys zero import tariffs under AFTA, there is little production coordination within the bloc.
“Each country has their own policy and they compete with each other,” said Titikorn Lertsirirungsun, Southeast Asia manager for LMC Automotive, an automotive market projection house headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Thailand has avoided the national car draw, focusing instead on encouraging all-comers to the kingdom with tax incentives for investments not only in assembly but also in local parts production.
There have been some big success stories, namely the one-ton pickup segment, which accounts for 40% of domestic sales and 20.5% of the country’s automotive exports last year. Thailand ranks only after the United States and Mexico in pickup production worldwide.
In 2007, the government offered tax incentives to attract investment in its eco-car platform, a mini, low-fuel consumption vehicle that meets European emission standards.
Five Japanese brands invested in phase one and six comprising Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mazda and Suzuki have invested in phase two of the program. The scheme stipulates minimum annual production of 100,000 units for each investor, a provision which aims to encourage manufacturers to seek export markets.
Thailand’s latest push has been in electric vehicles, arguably the cars of the future. The Board of Investment (BOI) has offered tax incentives to encourage international brands to invest in assembly of hybrid EVs and battery powered BEVs for the past four years, though with varied success.
The government claims to have attracted $4.7 billion in applications to produce hybrid-electric cars, plug-in hybrid electric and battery vehicle production facilities, as well as EV stations.
Mercedes Benz and BMW enjoyed impressive sales of their locally assembled hybrid and plug-in EVs in 2017-2018, with the new technologies appealing to wealthy buyers.
Given the still inherent high costs of all EVs, most analysts do not see them replacing combustion engine vehicles on the Thai market, let alone the just emerging Vietnam market, any time soon. The battery accounts on average for 30-40% of production costs of EVs, and the global price of lithium is on the rise.
The Bangkok-based Kasikorn Research Center, estimates that BEVs would account for 10% of Thai vehicles sales in the year 2028, and 20% in 2038. BEVs accounted for only 1.3% of total vehicles sales in Thailand in 2018, out of 1,261,000 units sold.
This might raise some questions about Vinfast’s ambitions to launch EV models in Vietnam, where per capita income remains relatively low, although rising quickly.
Analysts suggest Vinfast might have better luck concentrating on two-wheeler EV’s, which it already launched on the domestic market in December. Vietnam’s annual demand for motorcycles is close to 3.5 million, as the motorcycle-clogged streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City attest.
As for Vinfast’s prospects for beating out Thailand as an auto-manufacturing hub, it is still early days. The parent company Vingroup is the largest listed stock on Vietnam’s stock market, while its founder, Pham Nhat Vuong, reportedly has a net worth of $6.7 billion.
VinFast’s logo on a luxury model at the new assembly plant in Haiphong, June 14, 2019. Photo: AFP/Manan Vatsyayana
According to Asia Times, while Vingroup’s revenues come chiefly from property investments (in 2017 total revenue was $4 billion with a net profit of $254 million), in December it launched Vietnam’s first smart phone manufacturing facility and it has diversified into health care and retail.
Significantly, the company appears to enjoy the support of Hanoi, which is keen to create national champions that can compete on a global scale.
“It is a huge investment of $3.5 billion and can be a maker or breaker of Vingroup’s commercial success in the future,” noted Le Hong Hiep, author of the recently published Vietnam’s Industrialization Ambitions: The Case of Vingroup and the Automotive Industry.
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Tencent and Baidu started offering VOD services in Vietnam.
Vietnamese users now can start paying for subscriptions on the video-on-demand (VOD) platforms WeTV, owned by Tencent, and iQIYI, owned by Baidu, at affordable prices. The services have become available to Vietnamese users via Apple and Google’s app stores. Thu Huong Le reports on KrAsia
As reported by local media, the availability of these new premium VOD services operated by Chinese tech giants raised some eyebrows at local providers, who are facing more foreign competitors going after the VOD market in Vietnam.
Users in Vietnam can pay directly in the app to use WeTV for as little as VND 25,000 (USD 1.08) a month or iQIYI for 49,000 VND (USD 2.13) a month. However, WeTV and iQIYI currently only provide Chinese content, with some available in Vietnamese subtitles.
These prices are even lower than what you would pay for Malaysia-based iflix, launched in Vietnam in 2017 and whose premium content comes at 59,000 VND (USD 2.56) per month. Netflix currently charges at least VND 180,000 (USD 7.8) a month for Vietnamese users. Netflix, which does not provide content with Vietnamese subtitles, only has about 300,000 users in Vietnam, a fraction of the country’s 96 million population.
The Vietnamese VOD market is not an easy one to crack. Besides local competitors such as FPT Play, Clip TV, Zing TV, foreign VOD providers have to also compete with popular websites that streaming movies illegally.
And stricter upcoming regulations will make it more complicated to target Vietnamese audiences.
According to KrAsia, Vietnam is currently in the process of amending a decree that will potentially require foreign OTT providers to obtain a license issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications in order to provide services to Vietnamese users.
The VOD industry is expected to have over 400 million paying subscribers across Asia by 2022, according to estimation of AlphaBeta, a Singapore-based strategic and economic advisory firm.
Son My, Vietnam (CNN) — Two walls have brought me to tears. They are on opposite sides of the world, 8,600 miles apart. Both are filled with names of people I never knew but who have helped shaped the person I have become.
The first of those walls is the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, DC, where 140 black granite panels are etched with more than 58,000 names of US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen killed or missing in Southeast Asia between 1956 and 1975.
When I first visited it in the early 1990s, standing at its deepest point gouged in the DC earth, I cried for the youth and the promise lost, and at the realization that but for the randomness of birth dates (I was too young to go to Vietnam) my name could have been on that wall. Brad Lendon reports on CNN.
I saw the second wall two days ago as of this writing. It sits in a village in Vietnam more than two hour’s drive from the booming, busy city of Da Nang in central Vietnam. Vietnamese call the village Son My. Americans call it My Lai.
Fifty years ago this November, what happened at My Lai sprang into newspaper headlines in the US and around the world.
More than 500 names are on the wall at the memorial in Son My, all of them people, several as young as a year old, executed by US troops on March 16, 1968.
The US military kept the My Lai massacre secret for 18 months.
But when headlines on My Lai hit newspapers in November 1969, it put new vigor into the anti-war movement in the United States. US troops got tagged “baby killers” as anti-war protests spread across the country. They would eventually lead to the withdrawal of most US forces three years later, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam under the Communist government in Hanoi in 1975.
My memories, even as a 10-year-old in 1969, are vivid. The pictures, taken by a US Army combat photographer, were horrifying. Piles of bodies, looks of terror on Vietnamese faces as they stared at certain death, a man shoved down a well, homes set ablaze.
These were not the US soldiers who liberated Europe just over 20 years earlier, those GIs I’d seen in popular TV shows like “Combat!” and “12 O’clock High.” Americans didn’t do this kind of thing. Nazis did.
Five decades later, those black-and-white scenes of the 1960s appear before me in color in central Vietnam.
Pulling off the main road and heading toward the Son My memorial, we wind through a village where very little could be called modern. Homes and shops are open to the street. The ubiquitous scooters are parked out front or squeezing alongside our SUV on the narrow road, frequently beeping their horns to warn car drivers of their presence.
The vivid red-with-yellow star Vietnam flags hang from many businesses and homes. These few weeks are a time to honor the country’s soldiers, our guide says.
Arriving at Son My is almost a surprise. There’s a sign, but it doesn’t blare out, “war atrocities committed here.” A lone tour bus is in the parking lot, pushed to overhanging trees at the very edge to keep it manageably cool in the blistering sun and heat of Vietnam.
A few Western tourists walk among the My Lai village exhibit. Like us, they look at the markers outside the ruined foundations of the houses that stood here on March 16, 1968.
“House of the Do Phi’s family restored after being burnt down by US soldiers on March 16, 1968. Five member of his family were killed.”
Then the ages — 57 the oldest, 2 the youngest.
We walk into “artillery shelters” built across from some of the ruined foundations. They are L-shaped mounds of earth and concrete, too small for a 5-foot-9 American to stand up in, and maybe 10 adult steps lengthwise. Five, 10, a dozen people would crowd into one when US shells fell on the village, our guide says.
As we walk, what were once dirt paths below our feet are now cement, but with the history of My Lai sculpted within them. There are the barefoot prints of villagers as they would have been on a damp morning. Bicycle tracks crisscross the footprints. And then, the unmistakable prints of American GI combat boots.
The paths lead to a watery ditch at the edge of the village, a field of rice at its end.
It’s late morning, and the air is heavy, quiet and still.
The ditch is a few yards across, maybe a football field long. There’s a marker on the far bank.
“This ditch reminds that US soldiers captured 170 villagers and pushed them down this ditch then shooting them dead on March 16, 1968.”
I’m shaken. The news clips of my childhood are replayed in my mind.
The reflections of visitors look ghostlike from a golden wall containing names of the victims of the My Lai massacre in central Vietnam. Credit: Brad Lendon/CNN
Beyond the ditch, sits a shrine to the dead of My Lai. I get lighted incense and place it in the urns on the altars inside. Sadness and shame well.
At the front of the shrine sits that second wall, a golden one. The names of all the My Lai victims are inscribed here, followed by their gender and age.
This is where the tears can’t be choked back. My own reflection on the gold looks ghostly, asking me for answers I don’t have. It takes me quickly back to that Vietnam Wall in Washington and what I felt decades ago.
Taking a photo of the whole My Lai wall doesn’t seem possible. It’s as if the gold nestles the names, protecting them with light, giving them a place to hide from the horror they saw.
I get up close to get a detail shot. Three ages come quickly into focus — 1, 1 and 1. Tears cloud my view of my phone screen. I walk away to the museum beyond.
The facts, as Vietnam sees them, are in that museum. They present a compelling argument that US forces entered My Lai on that morning, intent on wiping out a village of non-combatants — old men, women, children, those three 1-year-olds.
US military accounts don’t deny the event, though death tolls differ. Some American accounts will tell you My Lai was a village that harbored and aided Viet Cong guerrillas who’d been responsible for dozens of US deaths in the area. Some US soldiers who shot those civilians testified that they were under orders to kill everything in My Lai.
But other Americans ignored those orders. Some, in fact, even turned their guns to face their countrymen and protect fleeing Vietnamese.
Of the scores of Americans in My Lai that morning, only one, Lt. William Calley, was ever found guilty of a crime. Despite receiving a life sentence for murder at a 1971 court martial, he saw it reduced and was eventually paroled after serving only three years.
Many in Vietnam — and in America — decry that as an injustice. But our guide tells us ill will doesn’t linger. Vietnamese look forward, not back, he says, reassuring us that Americans are welcome in 21st century Vietnam.
But as I look back at my photos of that golden wall, I see the shadows looking back at me.
And my throat tightens. And my eyes well.
If you go: Trips to My Lai can be booked easily online or at local travel offices through a variety of operators. Prices range from about $70 to $120 per person, depending on departure location — Hoi An or Da Nang — and include other stops in the package.
Dozens of live pangolins smuggled from Laos were discovered “dehydrated and weak” on a bus in central Vietnam, police and conservationists said Tuesday, in a country where the endangered mammals are a highly-prized delicacy.
The small, docile pangolin is the most trafficked animal in the world, and is found across Asia and Africa, with one snatched from the wild every five minutes, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
In Vietnam pangolin meat is considered high-end and hard to find and their scales are used in traditional medicine to treat allergies and impotence.
Police on Monday found 30 pangolins stuffed into boxes on a bus in Ha Tinh province, arresting the driver and his wife on suspicion of trafficking the animals from Laos.
Four were already dead and many of the surviving animals were in bad shape, said Truong Van Truong from the NGO Save Vietnam’s Wildlife.
“Most were dehydrated and weak because they were kept in a tight space for a long time,” he told AFP.
The pangolins were tied into individual sacks and crammed into a box, where they might have been kept for weeks with little water or food, he added.
They will be nursed back to health before the strongest are released back into the wild.
Police said the driver and his wife were paid to transport the animals from neighbouring Laos.
The rescue comes on the heels of major wildlife seizures over the past week in Vietnam, both a consumption and transport hub for illegal wildlife in Asia.
Police arrested a wildlife trafficking suspect and two others after finding seven dead tiger cubs in their car in a Hanoi parking lot Thursday.
On the same day 125 kilograms (275 pounds) of rhino horn encased in plaster was seized at the capital’s airport.
Often described as scaly ant-eaters, pangolins curl into a ball when scared, making them easy prey for hunters.
They once roamed free in Vietnam’s forests, but numbers have dwindled dramatically thanks to rampant poaching and habitat loss.
They are categorised as “critically endangered” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Samsung already assembles half of its handsets in the country, which got a big lift from U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Now Apple is homing in.
Vietnam — No country on earth has benefited from President Trump’s trade fight with China more than Vietnam.
The country’s factories have swelled with orders as American tariffs cause companies to reconsider making their products in China. Now, more big technology firms are looking to bulk up their manufacturing operations in Vietnam, lifting the ambitions of a nation already well on its way to becoming a powerhouse maker of smartphones and other high-end gadgets. Raymond Zhong reports on New York Times.
First, though, Vietnam needs to get better at making the little plastic casings on your earbuds.
Vu Huu Thang’s company in the northern city of Bac Ninh, Bac Viet Technology, produces small plastic parts for Canon printers, Korg musical instruments, and Samsung cellphones and phone accessories, including earbuds. He said it would be hard for his firm to compete against Chinese suppliers as long as he had to buy 70 to 100 tons of imported plastic material every month, most of it made in China.
The Vietnam Precision Mechanical Service & Trading factory near Bac Ninh, Vietnam. When Samsung set up in Vietnam, it bought some of the metal fixtures used on its assembly lines from the company, known as VPMS. Credit: Linh Pham for The New York Times
“Vietnam cannot compare with China,” Mr. Thang said. “When we buy materials, it’s 5, 10 percent more expensive than China already.” And the Vietnamese market is too small, he said, to entice plastic producers to set up plants here.
Negotiators for the United States and China are meeting in Shanghai this week to try to find a way forward in resolving their bruising trade war. But for some companies, spooked by what now appears to be a definitive darkening in America’s relations with China, the appeal of working in the world’s second-largest economy may already be tarnished for good. With smartphones, video game consoles and other consumer favorites potentially next on Mr. Trump’s tariff list, gadget makers in particular are feeling pressure to find new low-wage places to make or finish their products.
Apple has homed in on Vietnam and India as it intensifies its search for ways to diversify its supply chain. Nintendo has accelerated a shift in the production of its Switch console to Vietnam from China, according to Panjiva, a supply chain research firm. The Taiwanese electronics behemoth Foxconn, a major assembler of iPhones, said in January that it had acquired land-use rights in Vietnam and had pumped $200 million into an Indian subsidiary. Other Taiwanese and Chinese partners to Apple have indicated that they are considering ramping up operations in Vietnam as well.
Even so, this nation of nearly 100 million people is not about to replace China as a manufacturing hub overnight. Land here can be expensive, and ready-to-use factories and warehouses are in short supply. Recruiting enough trained workers and managers is another potential challenge.
“It’s definitely stretching Vietnam’s capabilities,” said Frederick R. Burke, a managing director in Ho Chi Minh City for the law firm Baker McKenzie. Even though the country’s labor force is expanding by a million people a year, he added, “people are talking about labor shortages already.”
Vietnam also does not have vast galaxies of companies churning out specialized components, parts and materials like those that manufacturers can call upon in China.
Tran Thu Thuy said that “of course” she would love to work with Apple someday. Ms. Thuy’s firm, HTMP, makes metal molds that factories use to produce plastic and die-cast parts. She gestured toward a nearby MacBook. One day, she said, HTMP might be able to make the molds for metal laptop bodies. But she knows the company has to improve in many ways before that day can come.
“There’s a long list,” she said.
Vietnam is already a colossus in producing shoes, clothes and other types of labor-intensive goods, having long ago begun siphoning business away from its giant northern neighbor.
Nike and Adidas now make close to half of their sneakers in Vietnam. As factories have sprung up, the Vietnamese government has pledged to improve roads, ports and power plants. Hanoi has also signed deals with governments around the world to reduce tariffs, including an agreement reached last month with the European Union.
A Samsung factory in Bac Ninh. The company has closed all but one of its smartphone plants in China, and it now assembles around half of the handsets it sells worldwide in Vietnam. Credit: Linh Pham for The New York Times
The Trump administration has not failed to notice that its import levies have been shifting global commerce in Vietnam’s direction. The Treasury has put Hanoi on a watch list for manipulating the value of the Vietnamese currency, the dong, to help exporters. Mr. Trump suggested last month that Vietnam might be the next target for punitive tariffs, calling the country “almost the single worst abuser of everybody.”
In response, the Vietnamese government said it wanted mutually beneficial trade ties with the United States, and it highlighted its efforts to punish exporters who illegally relabeled their goods as “Made in Vietnam” to dodge American taxes.
Yet even Mr. Trump’s feuding seems unlikely to reverse the broader shifts that are turning north Vietnam into a major hub for electronics. Many of the hulking factory complexes that stretch across the horizon in long, palm-fringed rows are here in no small part thanks to one company.
More than a decade ago, Samsung Electronics, the South Korean titan, set up a plant in Bac Ninh to reduce its dependence on China. The move was prescient. Costs in China continued to increase, and Samsung’s sales there withered after Beijing called for boycotts on South Korean products over Seoul’s embrace of an American missile defense system in 2017.
According to New York Times, Samsung has since closed all but one of its smartphone plants in China. It now assembles around half of the handsets it sells worldwide in Vietnam. Samsung’s subsidiaries in the country, which employ around 100,000 people, accounted for nearly a third of the company’s $220 billion in sales last year.
A Samsung spokeswoman said about 90 percent of those sales involved goods shipped from Vietnam to other countries. That implies Samsung alone accounted for a quarter of Vietnam’s exports in 2018, although even that might not fully capture the company’s effect on the wider economy. Samsung’s success in Vietnam helped convince many of its South Korean suppliers that they needed to be here, too.
“When you are a big company and you move to a place, everything follows you,” said Filippo Bortoletti, the deputy manager in Hanoi at the business advisory firm Dezan Shira.
Some Vietnamese business owners say the blessings are mixed, though. Foreign giants, they say, come to Vietnam and work largely with vendors they already use elsewhere, leaving little room in their supply chains for local upstarts.
Samsung has 35 Vietnamese suppliers, the spokeswoman said. Apple declined to comment.
When Samsung first set up in the country, it bought some of the metal fixtures used on its assembly lines from a local firm, Vietnam Precision Mechanical Service & Trading, or VPMS. But then more of Samsung’s South Korean partners started coming into the country, and after a year, Samsung and VPMS stopped working together, said Nguyen Xuan Hoang, one of the Vietnamese company’s founders.
Price and quality were not the issue, Mr. Hoang said, over the hissing and clanging of machinery at his factory near Bac Ninh. The problem was scale: Samsung needed many more fixtures than VPMS could deliver.
Vu Tien Cuong’s company, Fitek, produces industrial equipment for Samsung, Canon and other big firms around Bac Ninh. He acknowledged that most Vietnamese suppliers had quality and productivity issues that kept them from winning business from multinational companies. But he thinks that the root problem is inexperience, not a lack of money or knowledge.
“Day by day,” Mr. Cuong said, Vietnam’s supplier base is improving and “growing up.”
Nguyen Thi Hue, 28, knows a thing or two about growing up on the job. For a long time after starting her own company in 2015, Ms. Hue worked 16-hour days juggling a day job for another firm while getting her new venture off the ground.
Her start-up, Anofa, specializes in surface treatments for metal parts. It has worked with suppliers for foreign brands like the South Korean electronics maker LG and the Italian motorcycle maker Ducati.
“We really look forward” to Apple’s expanding its supply chain in Vietnam, said Nguyen Van Huan, Ms. Hue’s husband, who is also her lawyer.
Anofa has invested in new machines to try to win more business from foreign clients. “They have higher standards and requirements,” Mr. Huan said.
“We can meet them,” Ms. Hue said, beaming.
Chau Doan contributed reporting.
Raymond Zhong is a technology reporter. Prior to joining The Times in 2017, he covered India’s fast-moving economy from New Delhi for The Wall Street Journal.
In 2018-2019, Vietnam continued to witness high-value mergers and acquisitions transactions in a variety of sectors, such as food manufacturing, real estate, banking, and retail.
Foreign investors were involved in almost all of the largest M&A deals in Vietnam. However, It is easy to see that domestic enterprises have also been on the offensive by acquiring foreign companies in increasing numbers.
Here is the list of Vietnam’s 10 largest M&A deals in the 2018-2019 periods selected by Vietnam M&A Forum 2019 announced at the press conference organized by VIR and AVM Vietnam on July 23. Kim Oanh reports on Vietnam Investment Review (VIR)
SK Group, Vingroup, and Masan
Notably, SK Group, through its investment arm SK Southeast Asia Investment, has decided to invest $1 billion to acquire the shares of Vietnam’s leading privately-run conglomerate Vingroup, according to Bloomberg.
Previously, Vingroup has announced a plan of issuing shares through a private placement, aiming to raise at least VND25 trillion ($1.1 billion). The group expected to offload 250 million shares, or 7.8 per cent of the shares in circulation, to a maximum of five foreign investors at a minimum price of VND100,000 ($4.3) per share.
Of the total funds raised from the process, around VND10 trillion ($434.78 million) would be used for debt restructuring, VND6 trillion ($260.87 million) to invest in Vingroup’s subsidiaries including VinFast, VinTech, and Vinsmart, and VND9 trillion ($391.3 million) would be allocated as short-term loans for the operations of the group and its subsidiaries.
Regarding Masan Group Corporation (HSX: MSN), in October 2018, Masan announced the completion of SK Group’s purchase of 109,899,932 treasury shares at the unit price of VND100,000 ($4.4), a total consideration of approximately $470 million. SK Group is now the largest foreign shareholder of Masan Group.
Previously, in September, Masan Group signed a strategic partnership agreement with SK Group. The agreement would enable the two parties to draw on each other’s strengths to accelerate Masan’s and SK’s respective growth strategies. The corporate groups aim to jointly pursue transformational business opportunities in Vietnam and to synergise existing business units.
Saigon Co.op and Auchan
In July 2019, Saigon Co.op and French retailer Auchan announced completing the hand-over process of the entire business operations of Auchan in Vietnam. Accordingly, Saigon Co.op took over 18 stores, 15 of which the French retailer has previously closed and three that have been operating at a profit, along with the e-commerce platform and online application of Auchan Vietnam.
Although the value of the acquisition was not revealed, Saigon Co.op’s representative said that the two sides have ended the negotiations on price. Saigon Co.op will operate these stores until the 2020 Lunar New Year after which the sides will sit down to negotiate further co-operation opportunities, including exporting local products via Auchan’s global retail chain.
Truong Hai and HAGL
In April 2019, Truong Hai Auto Corporation (Thaco) expressed interest in buying approximately 70 million shares to increase its holding in Hoang Anh Gia Lai Agricultural JSC (HAGL Agrico) as per the agreement between the two parties, after spending nearly $100 million on buying convertible bonds from this agricultural company.
Accordingly, Thaco registered buying 69.7 million shares in HAGL Agrico to increase its holding from zero to 7.86 per cent. The transaction was expected to be completed between April 23 and May 22, 2019. However, in reality, Thaco bought 4 million registered shares in June. Besides, HAGL registered to sell nearly 60 million shares in HAGL Agrico. The deal was expected to be completed between July 12 and August 10 and Thaco was considered one of the most promising investors.
Vingroup and Fivimart, Hanwa
In September 2018, Vingroup’s retail arm, VinCommerce, completed the acquisition of 100 per cent of the Fivimart supermarket system. These stores were renamed to VinMart, the supermarket brand of Vingroup.
The deal between VinCommerce and Fivimart came after retail giant AEON terminated its deal with Fivimart after four years due to losses, selling its 30 per cent stake in Fivimart.
Besides, in August 2018, Hanwha Asset Management paid $400 million for 84 million preferential shares in Vingroup. The sale came after Hanwha’s unsuccessful attempt to join the $13.5 billion public debut of Vinhomes, the property arm of Vingroup, back in May 2018.
Mitsui and Minh Phu
In June 2019, MPM Investments Pte., Ltd., a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsui & Co., Ltd., acquired 60 million shares in Minh Phu Seafood JSC (MPC) to raise its stake in the Vietnamese shrimp processor to 35.1 per cent.
The purchase was made through a private placement worth nearly VND3.04 trillion ($130.5 million), equivalent to VND50,630 per share. In late-May, MPM bought 10.2 million shares, or a 7.37 per cent stake, in the shrimp processing company.
Taisho and Hau Giang Pharmaceutical
In April 2019, Taisho Group, one of the five largest pharmaceutical firms in Japan, officially acquired a controlling stake in Hau Giang Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG) after spending VND2.47 trillion ($107.4 million) on buying 20.6 million DHG shares.
Through the purchase Taisho increased its ownership in DHG to 66.4 million shares, equalling 50.78 per cent of the stakes. With the offered selling price of VND120,000 apiece, the Japanese pharmaceutical firm spent VND2.47 trillion ($107.4 million) on the deal. The other major shareholder in DHG is State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) with 43.3 per cent.
The reason behinds the increase of ownership in a local pharmaceutical firm is because Taisho’s market share in the food supplement and hair growth supplement segments is decreasing in Japan, while Vietnam has great potential to develop these products.
Vinamilk and GTNfoods
In June 2019, Vinamilk completed the purchase of 90.06 million of the 116.71 million shares it registered to buy in GTNfoods JSC. After the deal, Vinamilk increased its holding in GTNfoods to 38.34 per cent. While Vinamilk refused to disclose the value of the deal, based on the VND13,000 share price offered by Vinamilk, the dairy manufacturer may have paid VND1.17 trillion ($50.87 million) on the purchase.
Previously, even though GTNfoods JSC refused its previous proposal, Vinamilk remained still eager to acquire more stakes in the firm (which holds 51 per cent of Moc Chau Milk Company) as part of its M&A strategy to expand its market share in the dairy manufacturing sector.
Sojitz and The Pan Group
In September 2018, The PAN Group (HXS: PAN) completed the private placement of 13.4 million shares to Japan’s Sojitz Group for VND61,000 ($2.7) per share. Sojitz invested VND817.4 billion ($35.54 million), becoming a major shareholder with 10 per cent in PAN.
This private placement provides PAN with more financial resources to invest and implement its next M&A projects in its development strategy in agriculture and food industries. More importantly, Sojitz has been chosen as a strategic partner of PAN to co-operate on upgrading Vietnam’s agricultural and food products for distribution to domestic and international markets.
“This is an important milestone in The PAN Group’s development path. Our selection criteria focused on finding a business partner rather than choosing a purely financial investment organisation. Together with the capital contribution, we established a Collaboration Committee which includes key leaders from the two groups and is chaired by the chairman of The PAN Group. The committee will bring together top industrial experts from Vietnam and Japan in order to formulate and promote the implementation of agricultural and food projects of the two parties in Vietnam and other countries in the region. I believe that the co-operation will contribute to leveraging Vietnamese agricultural and food products in international markets,” said Nguyen Thi Tra My, chief executive officer of The PAN Group.
SonKim Land mobilised capital from its strategic partners
SonKim Land Corporation has successfully concluded a deal that raised approximately $121 million from international investors, including Lemongrass Master Fund, ACA Vietnam Real Estate LP, and Credit Suisse in June 2019.
This deal follows the success of two previous deals in 2013 and 2016. Besides, this deal was Son Kim Land’s biggest fundraising ever since 2013. The fact that existing investors continued to participate in the fundraising and attracting a global bank like Credit Suisse proves that the company has produced quality projects and that it has great potential to grow bigger.
Gelex and Viglacera
In March 2019, the Ministry of Construction (MoC), the biggest shareholder at Vietnam’s largest ceramics and tile producer Viglacera Corporation (Viglacera), sold 69 million Viglacera shares for nearly VND1.6 trillion ($69.57 million). The buyers were reportedly shareholders related to Vietnam Electrical Engineering Equipment Joint Stock Corporation (Gelex).
Gelex now holds 112 million Viglacera shares, equal to a 25 per cent stake. Before the sale, Gelex held 44 million shares.
According to the findings on the regional demand for online financing mapped [1] by the analysts of the international fintech holding Robocash Group, residents of South Eastern Vietnam use relevant services more than twice as often as on average in the country. Second place belongs to Red River Delta: the interest in online financing facilities there is 1.4 times higher than the country’s average rate.
To distinguish the demand by regions and cities, the company has studied the data of 466 thousand customers who have used its services in Vietnam in 2019. The analysis has revealed that advanced economic development and urbanization are the main drivers of the penetration of online financing solutions. Thus, South Eastern Vietnam has received an index of 2.21. It means that its highly urbanized local population, which is actively consuming goods and feels at ease with digital technologies, fall back upon online financing more than twice as often as on average in the country. The fact that one-third of the company’s customers come from Ho Chi Minh City confirms the figure.
The second place on the same scale belongs to Red River Delta. However, considering the predominance of the agricultural sector in the region, it becomes clear that its index of 1.4 has been largely affected by Hanoi. Moreover, its residents comprise 21% of the customers of the company in Vietnam. Their interest in online financing services is more than 2.5 times higher than the average rate in the country. Although it is higher than in other provinces of Red River Delta, it is still lower than in the areas of the mentioned South Eastern Vietnam.
At the same time, the analysts have defined 15 major cities whose population comprises more than 71% of potential customers of relevant services. Within the total number of the population in the country, their cumulative share amounts to 27.8%. As a result, it confirms that there is a direct correlation between urbanization and increased usage of online financing throughout Vietnam.
[1[ Methodology: the demand for online loans for each region is based on the correlation between the share of the region in the country’s total number of applications and its share of the population in the country. The indexes that are higher or lower than “1”, which means an average rate, directly indicate the demand for financing on the country scale. In accordance with the results, the regional demand for online loans has been divided by the following levels: >2,00 — very high, 1,51-2,00 — high, 1,21-1,50 — above average, 0,81-1,20 — average, 0,51-0,80 — below average, 0,11-0,50 — low, 0,00-0,10 — very low.
The report titled “Competition Benchmarking in Vietnam Pumps Market – HAPUMA, Ebara Vietnam, Grundfos Vietnam, WILO Vietnam, KSB Vietnam, IWAKI Vietnam, TSURUMI Pump Vietnam Company, INTECH Pump, SAIGON Industrial Pump JSC Vietnam” provides a comprehensive analysis of Vietnam pumps market.
The report focuses on overall market size, segmentation by type of pumps (Centrifugal, positive displacement, submersible non submersible and others). The report also covers the overall competitive landscape and Market Share of Major Players. The report concludes with Key Metrics and Profiles regarding Major players of the Market.
Vietnam Pumps Market Overview and Size
Vietnam Pumps Market in terms of revenue has increased at a positive double digit CAGR during the period 2013-2018. Currently, the market is at growing stage, with few major companies operating in this space which has provided manufacturers the freedom to decide pricing patterns for various centrifugal and positive displacement pumps. End customers had mainly focused on important parameters such as quality, efficiency and after sales service of pumps rather than price while purchasing pumps. The increasing demand for Water filtration projects and new industrial Manufacturing units led to an increase in sales of Pumps in Vietnam. Global players started entering the market through 100.0% owned subsidiaries, some even stared Manufacturing Plants such as Ebara in the year 2013.
Vietnam Pumps Market
Market Segmentation
By End Users: Commercial and industrial sector accounted equal revenue share, whereas government sector accounted least revenue share in the overall Vietnam pumps market. Government has started Public Projects in Water treatment from the year 2011 which has fuelled the demand of pumps from commercial and industrial sectors.
Competitive Benchmarking in Vietnam Pumps Market
The market is moderately fragmented, with international players currently dominating the market.
Major Players which has been covered in the market include (International Players) Grundfos Vietnam, KSB Vietnam, Ebara Vietnam, WILO Vietnam and (domestic players) HAPUMA, Sai Gon Industrial Service and others. These market players compete on the basis of Price, In House Production Vs Imports, Industries Served, Warranty and Quality of Products.
The report covers market share, revenue and revenue mix, number of plants, production area, certification, number of employees and distributors, warranty, strength and weakness, best selling products, product portfolio.
Key Segments Covered:
By Type of Pumps
Centrifugal Pumps
Submersible Pumps
Single Stage Submersible Pump
Multi-stage Submersible Pump
Non-Submersible Pumps
Positive Displacement Pumps
Rotary Pumps
Reciprocating Pumps
By End Users
Industrial Sector (Manufacturing, Mining, Power and Oil etc)
Government Sector (Government Projects)
Commercial Sector (Building Construction)
Key Target Audience:
Distributors
Infrastructure Companies
Government Associations
Private Equity and Venture Capitalists Firms
Pump Manufacture
Time Period Captured in the Report:-
Historical Period: CY’2013-CY’2018
Forecast Period: CY’2019E – CY’2023E
Companies Covered:-
Grundfos Vietnam Co., Ltd.
KSB Vietnam Co., Ltd.
EBARA Vietnam Pump Company Limited
WILO Vietnam Co. Ltd
Hai Duong Pump Manufacturing Joint Stock Company
Intech Pumps
Tsurumi Pump Viet Nam Co., Ltd.
Iwaki Pumps Vietnam
Sai Gon Industrial Service
Datapoints Covered on Competition
Market Share
Revenue and Revenue Mix
Number of Plants
Production Area
Certifications
Number of Employees and Distributors
Warranty
Strength and Weakness
Best Selling Products
Product Portfolio
Key Topics Covered in the Report:-
Executive Summary
Research Methodology
Vietnam Pumps Market
Vietnam Pumps Market Ecosystem
Competitive Scenario of Major Players in Vietnam Pumps Market
Vietnam Pumps Market Service Matrix
Key Metrics For Major Market Players
Market Share for Major Players Operating in the Vietnam Pumps Market
Competitive Landscape of Major Players in Vietnam Pumps Market
Analyst Recommendation
Hong Kong retained its crown as Vietnam’s leading source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first seven months of this year, pouring US$5.44 billion in the Southeast Asia country, the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency said in its latest report.
South Korea ranked second with more than $3.13 billion. Mainland China came third with $2.45 billion while Singapore and Japan followed with $2.29 billion and $2.25 billion, respectively, the agency said.
According to a report by Vietnam News Agency, in total, foreign investors pumped $20.2 billion into Việt Nam in the seven-month period, down 13.5 per cent compared to the same period last year. Of the sum, nearly $8.27 billion came from 2,064 newly licensed projects, $3.42 billion came from 781 existing projects raising their capital and the remainder of more than $8.52 billion was spent by foreign players to acquire shares in Vietnamese companies.
Despite the reduction in new investment, disbursement of FDI saw a positive increase of 7 per cent to $10.6 billion compared to the same period last year, the agency noted.
From January to July, the manufacturing and processing sector remained most attractive to foreign businesses as it lured $14.46 billion, accounting for 71.5 per cent of the nation’s total FDI. It was followed by real estate with $1.47 billion or 7.3 per cent, wholesale, retail, car and motorbike repairs with $1.09 billion or 5.4 per cent and science and technology with $930 million or 4.5 per cent.
Among localities receiving FDI, the capital city ranked the top with more than $4.85 billion, followed by HCM City with $3.54 billion and two southern provinces of Bình Dương and Đồng Nai with $1.73 billion and $1.43 billion, respectively. Vietnam News Agency reports on Monday.
Foreign-invested firms exported more than $100 billion worth of goods in the period while their imports hit $82.5 billion. That has resulted in a trade surplus of $18.63 billion.
Earlier, Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC) predicted that FDI flowing into Vietnam would likely hit $22 billion by the end of this year, up 13 to 15 per cent year-on-year.
The main sources for FDI growth in the near future would come from South Korea, mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, said BVSC in its latest report.
