Hanoi & Phu Quoc among CNN’s top 17 Asian destinations

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Vietnam’s capital Hanoi and Phu Quoc Island off the coast of the Mekong Delta’s Kien Giang province have been listed among the top 17 destinations to visit in Asia by CNN Travel.

Two centuries ago, trips to Asia were reserved for wealthy merchants, ambassadors and the colonial elite who could afford grand and expensive voyages, but that travel scenario has been turned on its head, CNN Travel wrote. With a proliferation of affordable flights, versatile accommodation, high-speed rail, and increased international connectivity, it’s easier than ever to visit Asia. The site revealed its short list of destinations in the world’s largest continent with its natural beauty, distinct cultural traditions, ancient architecture, and absolutely delicious food.

Hanoi was praised for its history, culture, and endless energy. For first-time travelers, Hanoi the Old Quarter is the best place to start. This labyrinth of lanes reveals French colonial architecture, hardworking hawkers, artisanal crafts, and no shortage of restaurants. It’s busy and chaotic but navigating the crowded streets, where motorbikes reign, is half the fun.

As the capital for more than a thousand years, since 1010, Hanoi is considered to be the cultural center of Vietnam, where every dynasty has left behind its imprint. It hosts more cultural sites than any other city in the country, including hundreds of pagodas and temples. Influenced by the Chinese and the French, the city features an Asian – Western style in architecture and cuisine.

CNN Travel also advised travelers that, after soaking up the history of Hanoi, they can chase the sun to Phu Quoc Island. The 28-island district is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in Southeast Asia, not to mention the world’s longest over-sea cable car. Whether you stay on more developed Phu Quoc Island or ultra-remote Hon Xuong, the region promises island hopping, snorkeling, diving, sandy shores, and more.

Situated in the Gulf of Thailand on the Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand marine economic corridor, Phu Quoc is Vietnam’s largest island and boasts a range of beautiful beaches. Phu Quoc National Park, meanwhile, is home to hundreds of plant species, dozens of which are listed in the Vietnamese and world red books of endangered species. The park is part of the Kien Giang biosphere reserve, which was recognized as a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2006. The cable car route connecting An Thoi town and Hon Thom Island, the largest of the An Thoi island cluster, is the longest in the world at nearly 8 km.

Other destinations on the list include Bali in Indonesia, Luang Prabang in Laos, Kyoto in Japan, Rajasthan in India, Hong Kong, The Great Wall and Xi’an in China, the Maldives, Siem Reap in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Yogyakarta in Indonesia, Chiang Rai in Thailand, Bhutan, Kathmandu in Nepal, El Nido in the Philippines, and Seoul in South Korea.

The total number of visitors to Hanoi in 2018 was over 26 million, including 5.7 million foreigners, up 9.3 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, against 2017. Phu Quoc welcomed 4 million visitors in 2018, including nearly 550,000 foreigners, up 35.8 per cent and 70.6 per cent against 2017.

According to a report on VET

China just blocked The Washington Post and The Guardian

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China adds Washington Post, Guardian to ‘Great Firewall’ blacklist
Other blocked outlets include Bloomberg, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.
China has ramped up censorship in the weeks surrounding the Tiananmen Massacre that occurred on June 4, 1989.

China just blocked articles from The Washington Post and the Guardian from appearing on the country’s internet.

The two newspapers were among the last major English news site still accessible to mainland Chinese residents, according to a report in The Post. Other blocked outlets include Bloomberg, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.

The country recently blocked pictures or keywords related to the Tiananmen Massacre on the social media site WeChat in the weeks surrounding the event’s 30th anniversary on June 4. China had previously blocked social media sites Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp.

China’s robot censors worked overtime to detect and block content related to the 1989 crackdown.

The censorship move signals another shift in China’s authoritarian leadership since the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen. Thousands of residents in the semiautonomous Hong Kong gathered for a vigil on Tuesday commemorating the protest.

Security guard has arm severed by unidentified men in southern Vietnam

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A security guard in the southern Vietnamese province of Binh Duong has had his left arm chopped off by two masked men inside the parking venue of a local apartment complex.

Police in Thuan An Town, Binh Duong Province confirmed on Saturday they were hunting for the two suspects who brutally attacked Le Trung Nghia, 45, a security guard at an apartment complex in An Phu Ward.

The incident happened on Saturday night, when Nghia was on duty at the parking lot of the buildings, according to officers.

The two unidentified men arrived at the venue on their motorbike, before attacking the security guard with their machetes.

The victim did not have time to react and eventually had his left arm cut off from the elbow.

The attackers then fled the scene on their vehicle.

Nghia, who lost a lot of blood, was immediately brought to the hospital by local residents.

Police have probed the scene, extracted CCTV footage, and collected statements from eyewitnesses to assist their investigation.

Preliminary information showed that Nghia had recently got into a conflict with one of the residents at the apartment buildings.

The resident did threaten Nghia before walking away from the confrontation.

According to a report on Tuoi Tre News

Foreign fast food in fight to win over locals

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Foreign fast food companies are lagging behind their own expansion plans in Vietnam due to the fierce competition with major rivals in the same segment and local competitors.

KFC entered the Vietnamese market in 1997, but McDonald’s late entry is showing how tough the competition is
Leaving Hanoi’s ­McDonald’s, Tamas Nguyen did not radiate the ­satisfied cheer that people have after finishing a ­delicious meal.

“I took my family to this restaurant because it is not far from where we live and my son was curious about the taste of a McDonald’s burger, but we were absolutely disappointed. It is an insult to real hamburgers,” he told VIR. “When I looked into my burger, I found a single teeny-weeny cucumber on the patty, and nothing else.”

For Nguyen, Vietnam has a wonderful culture of home cooking, with families taking the time to spend their dinners together. The local taste is also remarkably different in the amount of raw or cooked vegetables used, something very different from McDonald’s and other Western fast food franchises.

“If you open a banh mi at any street-side stall, the vegetables and toppings come falling out, whereas when you open your burger, you actually have to look for that one sad slice of gherkin hiding under the mayo,” he added.

As a foreigner living in Vietnam for several years now, he almost always opts to eat at Vietnamese food stalls and only goes to Western fast food joints when he gets a serious craving – and even then he leaves disappointed most of the time.

Competition in fast food

According to London-based market research firm Euromonitor International, McDonald’s in Vietnam has been performing well, registering double-digit growth in 2018, which nevertheless flew below expectations.

What has worked well for McDonald’s was the expansion of its product portfolio with chicken dishes that are especially popular among younger consumers in Vietnam, instead of just the burgers that the franchise is known for.

Deepika Chandrasekar, research analyst at Euromonitor International, said, “To stay alive in the fiercely competitive fast food scene here, McDonald’s has made attempts to incorporate Vietnamese tastes into its products, such as the crispy fried chicken released in November 2018.”

According to the researcher, McDonald’s has had a hard time differentiating its value from local outlets. The Vietnamese are spoilt for choice among numerous street stalls and local vendors who not only serve local delicacies like pho, but also serve faster and at a fraction of the cost of franchises.

“It is also relatively harder for a chain like McDonald’s to plan and execute the opening of a store in second- and third-tier cities in Vietnam compared to the nimbleness of traditional food stalls,” said Chandrasekar.

“Going forward, McDonald’s in Vietnam needs to do more than just refresh its menu: it needs to offer a wider localised menu, expand aggressively, roll out digital innovations, and enhance the in-store experience to merely stay afloat if not outsmart street vendors.”

In contrast to the fall in the demand for Western fast food, Vietnamese fast food joints have developed into imposing opponents to foreign names. By learning from their rivals to standardise the business model and by understanding the local taste, many Vietnamese fast food businesses have been capturing increasing market shares and increasingly expanded chains.

“Foreign competitors are strong in all aspects, but we have our own advantages,” said Nguyen Xuan Vu, representative of snackfood producer Tan Viet Sin Foods JSC. He highlighted the company’s tactic of avoiding going head-to-head with the fast food giants. While McDonald’s and KFC chose the mid- to upper-range segment, Tan Viet Sin Foods operates at a more affordable price level.

Another advantage of local fast food businesses is that they know what customers like. “Food is a big part of success, but the scale of a restaurant chain does not fully depend on it,” a fast food professional told VIR, saying that Vietnamese businesses can compete on an equal footing with foreign ones if they have good corporate governance and unique products, or services that suit the culture and consumption habits of natives.

According to Hoang Tung, CEO of Pizza Home, the products of foreign giants like McDonald’s and Burger King are a “swing and a miss” when it comes to local customers’ taste. “Burgers are popular in the west, but not in Vietnam. If there is no demand for their products, these brands will certainly face difficulties,” said Tung.

Regardless of the size of the restaurant chain or the strength of the brand, food is seen as the soul of any ­restaurant, satisfying the taste and habits of local customers.

In Tung’s opinion, this is the most important ­factor for the success of a franchise brand, and it is why burger joints have stopped expanding, while Vietnamese banh my has been so far developing rapidly.

Taking it step by step

The Fast Food in Vietnam report by Euromonitor International revealed that many major fast food brands in Vietnam declined in 2017, including Burger King, Popeyes, Subway, Carl’s Jr., Lotteria, and KFC which, despite maintaining their leading positions that year, recorded very low sales growth.

Lotteria and KFC are still the leading fast food brands with hundreds of stores across the country. However, the financial statement of Lotteria showed that the fast food chain recorded after-tax losses of VND118 billion ($5.13 million) and VND135 billion ($5.87 million) in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

By the end of 2016, Lotteria’s accumulated losses were more than VND413 billion ($18 million), while its charter capital reached only VND433 billion ($18.83 million), as reported by local media.

In the meantime, Lotteria’s competitor KFC also reported losses, with a low 15 per cent profit margin in 2016. This was even lower than in the previous year. As a result, KFC lost VND25 billion ($1.1 million) in 2015 and made a profit of VND15 billion ($652,000) in 2016.

US fast food chain Burger King entered Vietnam in 2012, initially opening in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport before progressively moving into suburban locations in the city.

At the time, the company set the target to open 60 stores within five years, but in reality the group has fallen well short, with only 14 being opened. Five of those were subsequently forced to close, giving rise to speculation that the brand may exit the market altogether.

Grace Chia, senior research analyst at Euromonitor International, told VIR, “As Vietnamese people prefer healthy food and are presented with many affordable options at local street stalls, the demand for fast food is low. Sales growth at leading fast food chains KFC and Lotteria has slowed down as the market reaches a point of saturation.”

“Full-service Asian restaurants are expected to be the fastest-growing food ­service category over the next five years, especially ­Japanese and South Korean cuisine,” added Chia. “While Japanese ­cuisine attracts customers with its freshness and healthy image, South Korean food is ­popular for its spicy and ­indulgent flavours.”

In 2014, McDonald’s made a lot of noise in announcing its plan to launch 100 shops within 10 years in Vietnam, but halfway to the deadline only one-fifth of the plan has been reached.

Nguyen Huy Thinh, general director of McDonald’s Vietnam, told VIR that it took the company 10 years to study the market before deciding to open the first store in Vietnam, and the company has built a long-term development plan with numerous different investment periods.

Accordingly, in the early years, the company would focus on investing in training staff team to meet the company’s international standards. In the next five years, McDonald’s will focus on studying dishes which both meet its standards and suit Vietnamese taste, in collaboration with expanding the store system.

However, according to Chia, the demand for McDonald’s has been low as it faces fierce competition from leading player KFC. As KFC has been in the market since 1997, the brand has enjoyed first-mover advantage and reports strong brand familiarity.

KFC’s chicken buckets and family-friendly dining experience resonate with the Vietnamese culture of sharing meals. On the other hand, the core menu burger offering of McDonald’s do not encapsulate the sharing element that Vietnamese customers are accustomed to.

“Since I’ve been living in Vietnam, I’ve only ever gone for fast food when I had the cravings for it,” concluded Nguyen as he stood in front of the McDonald’s restaurant.

“I suppose this is one market segment, expats looking for a binge of fast food once a month, but it looks like a tiny market to me.”

According to a report on VIR

Vietnam Cracks Down on relabelled Chinese-Made Goods Being Shipped to U.S

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Some goods being relabeled as made-in-Vietnam to avoid tariffs
Vietnam exports to U.S. have surged this year amid trade war

Vietnam said it will impose higher penalties on Chinese goods transferred to the country and illegally relabeled as made-in-Vietnam for export to the U.S. to dodge tariff
hikes.

The customs department has detected dozens of fraudulent certificates of product origin and illegal transfers of goods ranging from agriculture and textile to steel and aluminum, the government said in a post on its website on Sunday.

Vietnam’s exports to the U.S. have surged this year at the same time that China’s shipments to America have slumped amid a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. While there’s evidence of rising foreign investment into Vietnam as businesses adjust their supply chains, there are also worries that products from neighboring China may be being rerouted via the Southeast Asian nation to avoid higher U.S. tariffs.

Trade Diversion

Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing sources of American imports

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Do Van Sinh, a standing member of the National Assembly’s economic committee, said Vietnam is concerned it may be punished by the U.S for allowing fake made-in-Vietnam products to be exported to America, according to the government’s post.

Currency Watchlist

Fraudulent cases discovered by the government include packaging on Chinese goods being changed to say made-in-Vietnam before certificates of origin are processed. It cited an example of the U.S. customs department uncovering Chinese plywood being shipped to America via a Vietnamese company.

Customs officials in Vietnam are beefing up their supervision and inspection of goods to crack down on the practice, the government said.

Vietnam is already under scrutiny from U.S. authorities after the Treasury Department added the nation to a watchlist for currency manipulation last month. Vietnam has said it’s exchange rate won’t be used to create an unfair trade advantage.

Authorities in the Southeast Asian nation are concerned the U.S.-China tensions will hurt economic growth. Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh told the National Assembly last week that gross domestic product could drop 6 trillion dong ($256 million) in the next five years because of the trade war.

 

By Mai Ngoc Chau

This article was first appeared on Bloomberg

Technology product distributors try ‘sell everything’ strategy

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The Gioi So (Digiworld), the mobile phone retail chain, is seeking to distribute office equipment, while FPT Shop is trying online sale models and The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World) is focusing on its department stores.

Digiworld’s board of management has consulted with its shareholders about the plan to issue VND150 billion worth of bonds to mobilize capital for new business plans.

One of the plans is distribution of Xiaomi TVs in Vietnam, sources said. However, this has not been confirmed.

“The current TV market is worth $40 billion, half of the mobile phone market. So, this is a fertile land,” said Doan Hong Viet, chair and CEO of Digiworld.

While the possibility of distributing Xiaomi TV remains open, Digiworld will exploit the consumer goods market, also a promising business field.

However, the sale of consumer goods (Nestle’s medical milk, toothpaste, washing liquid and functional food) last year were just 38 percent of targeted level, though revenue was 50 percent higher than the year before, reaching VND75 billion. This showed that Digiword is meeting difficulties jumping into an unfamiliar business field.

The Gioi Di Dong, after succeeding with mobile phone and home appliance distribution, is promoting Bach Hoa Xanh, a department store brand. However, after four years, the revenue of Bach Hoa Xanh remains modest, just 5 percent of total revenue of The Gioi Di Dong.

Explaining this, Viet said CL, a subsidiary of Digiworld, in charge of distributing consumer products, did not perform well and needs restructuring.

As one of the three biggest technology product distributors, Digiworld has begun selling functional food and consumer goods as well, as the technology product market reaches a critical point.

Instead of selling products via distribution channels, large mobile phone manufacturers such as Oppo, Samsung and Apple now are selling products directly to retailers, which has affected distributors’ business.

However, the contribution of new business fields to the company remains insignificant. Laptops, tablets and mobile phones still brought 80 percent of total revenue, VND4.755 trillion out of VND6 trillion.

Facing similar difficulties, Mobile World and FPT Shop are also trying every possible way to expand their markets.

FPT Shop has recently announced cooperation with Fado, allowing clients in Vietnam to buy goods from Amazon in the US, Japan and Germany. This means that clients, who access FPT Shop’s website, not only can order technology products, but also most other products essential for daily life, thanks to the wide range of products available on Amazon.

Prior to that, the second largest mobile phone distributor decided to cooperate with Nguyen Kim home appliance distributor to sell products via its network.

The Gioi Di Dong, after succeeding with mobile phone and home appliance distribution, is promoting Bach Hoa Xanh, a department store brand. However, after four years, the revenue of Bach Hoa Xanh remains modest, just 5 percent of total revenue of The Gioi Di Dong.

According to a report on Vietnamnet

Vietnam has become an attractive beer market

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With sales reaching billions of USD and continuously growing strongly year by year, Vietnam is becoming an attractive beer market that makes both domestic and foreign businesses stand to fight. However, there are many signs that the victory is tilting towards foreign brewers.

In just a very short time, Heineken has continuously introduced two new beers that directly hit the high-end segment. At a new beer launch, Mr. Alexander Koch, Commercial Director of Heineken VN, once said the company put its oldest beer brand in Vietnam before introducing it to regional countries. This is not too difficult to understand because of the attractiveness of the Vietnamese beer market. A recent study by market research firm Statista shows the optimism of the Vietnamese beer market. Accordingly, the total revenue of Vietnam beer market is forecasted to reach USD7.7bn in 2019. In addition, the annual growth rate of Vietnam beer market will increase by 5.6% in the period of 2019-2023. This means that Vietnamese will pay USD9.6bn to drink beer in 2023.

According to Nielsen – a market research firm, by 2020, the average population size will increase three times compared to 2014. This positive signal means that Vietnamese people will spend stronger for products that show class and social status. Therefore, consumption of imported beer products with high prices and good quality is expected to continue to increase in the coming years. This attraction is so great that a trading company named Thien Nam, which has never been a beer trader, recently announced that it has jumped into the beer market by importing high-end beer from Spain with its initial investment more than 100 billion. Thien Nam expects after three years to gain 0.3% market share of premium beer with net profit of 37 billion dong.

Although there are dozens of beer brands on the market today, more than 90% of the market share belongs to big players like Sabeco, Habeco, Carlberg and Heineken. In particular, Sabeco and Heineken alone are two big players in the market with more than 60% market share. This shows that the beer market is not easy to take but fierce competition. For example, Habeco, a big guy in the beer market but started to show signs of decline. The company is considered to be capable of confronting foreign beer firms because the Ministry of Industry and Trade is holding 81.79% shares in Habeco.

Last year, Habeco’s revenue and NPAT reached VND9,100bn and VND498bn respectively. This figure has declined quite a lot, especially NPAT lost VND150bn. Habeco leaders acknowledge that the North and Central markets, the two main markets of the company, show signs of decline in the context of Sabeco and Heineken strongly attacking these markets. For example, in these areas, Sabeco grew 32% with Saigon Lager and 333 products while Heineken VN grew with Tiger products at a rate of up to 71%.

However, not only Habeco but also Sabeco, the leader in the beer market, also see great competitive pressure, especially from the second-ranked competitor, Heineken. Sabeco’s management said that despite increasing market share in rural areas, there is strong competition pressure in urban areas. Therefore, to increase market share, the company must regain its position in urban areas.

Financial and securities expert Tran Dinh Phuong recognized that although the beer market is expected to grow strongly in the coming years, it is not simple to enter this market. In this fierce battle, only the investment units based on the value chain from materials, logistics to distribution systems, along with strong financial resources for new marketing strategies to win in this race.

Market research firm Statista (Germany) said that this year alone, if calculating per capita revenue, each Vietnamese person drinks an average of USD79.55. In a unit by liter, the Vietnamese people will drink 4.6bn liters, equivalent to 47.6 liters per person in 2019 and 5bn liters by the end of 2023.

Looking at the profit structure, it can be seen that brewing companies are benefiting greatly from increasing market capacity and increasing consumption of beer. Recently Thaibev Group (Thailand), which owns 53.59% of Sabeco, said Sabeco made a great contribution to the company’s business results. For example, last year, revenue and NPAT of Sabeco reached over VND35,000bn and VND 4,100 bn, which help Thaibev Group to collect thousands of bn dong in dividend.

- VDSC

How China Routed Mobile Internet Traffic from European Cariers?

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Mobile internet traffic from multiple carriers in Europe took an unintended turn through China Telecom for over two hours on June 6 because of a route leak incident.

Internet traffic uses multiple networks to move across the globe to its destinations. These hops represent an established route through network policies and rules. Autonomous systems, such as an Internet Service Provider (ISP) use the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to exchange the routing information.

A BGP route leak is defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as “the propagation of routing announcement(s) beyond their intended scope” and they can result in redirecting the traffic through a path that could allow eavesdropping or analysis.

The problem occurred at Safe Host, a Swiss data center collocation company identified with the autonomous system number (ASN) AS21217 and resulted in leaking over 70,000 routes to China Telecom (AS4134).

Enlarge / A graphical depiction of Thursday’s BGP leak.
ThousandEyes

Safeguards work, when implemented

Doug Madory, Director of Oracle’s Internet Analysis division says that among the most impacted networks were Swisscom (AS3303) of Switzerland, KPN (AS1130) of Holland, Bouygues Telecom (AS5410) and Numericable-SFR (AS21502) of France.

When China Telecom received the leaked routes, it announced them further on the internet, practically interposing itself in the path between the source and the destination.

There are protections an autonomous system can set up to prevent the propagation of routing leaks, as well as procedures that can quickly detect and restore them whenever they occur.

China Telecom obviously did not implement the necessary precautions and passed the routes along as its own.

“Often routing incidents like this only last for a few minutes, but in this case many of the leaked routes in this incident were in circulation for over two hours.”

Users noticed the different route for the traffic and expressed concerns on Twitter. For instance, a path between two locations close to each other the Netherlands – city of Haarlem and Amsterdam, took a detour through China.

The first thought was BGP hijacking, where the perpetrating AS intentionally advertises the routes of another AS to move traffic through their infrastructure.

The consequences of this incident were slow internet connectivity or impossibility to reach servers.

Sharp moves PC production from China to Vietnam

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Electronics maker Sharp is planning to shift production of personal computers from China to Vietnam for shipment to the United States. The move comes amid intensifying trade friction between Washington and Beijing.

Sources told NHK that Sharp plans to temporarily move its PC production to Taiwan before switching manufacturing to a new plant in Vietnam that is expected to start operation after October.

The company initially planned to make electronic components at the Vietnam factory. But it apparently changed the goods that would be produced in light of the continuing US-China trade friction.

According to NHK, Sharp is also considering shifting the production of multi-function office equipment shipped to the US from China to Thailand.

Mexico has also been under consideration as the company’s new manufacturing base for electronic blackboards that use liquid crystal panels. But the company is now reviewing its plan as the administration of US President Donald Trump threatens to slap tariffs on Mexico.

100 Vietnamese firms chosen to list products on Amazon

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One hundred Vietnamese firms have been chosen to list their products on Amazon from June 6, 2019, under a long-term programme between the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (VTPA) and Amazon Global Selling.

VTPA Director Vu Ba Phu said the programme will be carried out between now and 2021, featuring global export via e-commerce, trademark popularisation with the US e-commerce giant, and e-commerce training for Vietnamese firms.

The companies will learn about Amazon selling process step by step, register to store products in Amazon’s distribution centres and adverts to increase customer base.

Experienced service providers will also partner with them.

Vu added that the most successful sellers on Amazon will be chosen to join a trade promotion delegation to the US in October.

Gijae Seong, Director of the Amazon Global Selling for Southeast Asia and Australia, said e-commerce exports have become an important channel for global trade.

Via Amazon, Vietnamese enterprises could expand their business globally as it has websites in 18 countries with 27 languages, a wide range of goods and 175 distribution centres that ship goods to 185 countries.

Amazon sellers come from more than 130 different countries who reach some 300 million customers.

According to Phu, Vietnamese handicrafts, apparel, footwear and consumer goods will be able to reach millions of customers worldwide, but firms need to prepare thoroughly.

Gijae Seong forecast that e-commerce revenue will surpass 3.3 trillion USD in the next two years. By 2022, it will be six times that from traditional selling.

Source: VNA

UV reaches dangerous levels in Hà Nội, HCM City

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Northern and central provinces would continue to experience prolonged hot weather due to a low pressure system, the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting has said.

Maximum temperatures are likely to reach 35-37 degree Celsius for 11-16 hours per day.

Ultraviolet (UV) levels have reached from six to nine in Hà Nội and HCM City, posing a high level of risk for people exposed directly to sunlight. The disaster risk level due to the hot weather has been set at 1.

Northern mountainous provinces will welcome showers and scattered strong winds with lightning and whirlwinds Friday night.

The area from Thanh Hóa to Thừa Thiên-Huế provinces also has showers and scattered rain with temperature from 26 to 37 degree Celsius.

The same conditions are forecast from the central city of Đà Nẵng to the southern province of Bình Thuận and the Central Highlands.

Southern provinces will be cloudy with scattered rain and strong winds day and night with temperatures of 24-33 degree Celsius.

Source: VNS

Thailand’s Chanathip apologizes to Vietnamese fans, players over Facebook post

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Thai midfielder Chanathip Songkrasin apologized on Friday to Vietnamese football fans and players over a Facebook post believed to be aimed at trolling a Vietnamese footballer, which he uploaded during the Vietnam-Thailand clash at the King’s Cup 2019 on Wednesday.

Hosts Thailand suffered a shock 0-1 defeat at the hands of Vietnam in the semifinals of the international four-team tournament in Buriram.

While Chanathip was absent from the game due to injuries incurred before the tourney, he appeared to have watched it live, with a livestream session of the game being shared on his Facebook that day.

The 26-year-old also posted a status update in Thai, which reads “Slap the damn head. Haha”. As the post appeared right after Vietnam’s Doan Van Hau was slapped by Thitiphan Puangchan during the game, it was believed to be a shot directed at the Vietnamese player.

After the apologizing part, Chanathip went on to say that in his opinions, “Thailand and Vietnam are the most powerful opponents in ASEAN in the present time,” referring to the ten-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“But more important than anything else is the fact that we are friends who work together to develop and better ASEAN football,” he wrote.

“From now on I really hope that players and supporters stop this conflict and work together to help not only Thailand and Vietnam, but also all ASEAN nations in the future.

“Once again, thank you, and apologies [for what I did].”

The Thai player fell short of saying what he was referring to by repeating “what I did,” nor did he mention his Facebook post or the Vietnam-Thailand game at King’s Cup.

Vietnam beat Thailand 1-0 thanks to a header in injury time by veteran striker Anh Duc in a match marred by violence, with five yellow cards given out.

The Golden Stars will play Curacao in the final match, while the hosts compete for the third-place title with India on Saturday.

Source: Tuoitrenews

Lychee harvest season in Bac Giang

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Lychee growers in Luc Ngan District in the northern province of Bac Giang are busy harvesting the fruit.
The litchi productivity in Bac Giang this year was lower than last year, but the fruit price is much higher.

These days, mains roads in Chu Town in Luc Ngan District are bustling from early mornings when people rush to buy litchi, causing traffic congestion.
People often pick up lychee from 4 am for wholesales.
Cao Van Hoan, vice chairman of Luc Ngan District, the district’s litchi productivity this year will be around 75,000 tonnes, down 40% against last year. The litchi price is now at VND30-70,000 (USD1.3-3.04) per kilo, much higher than last year.
“The district is expected to pull in the total litchi revenues of VND3 trillion (USD130.4 million) this year,” Hoan added.
Nguyen Thi Ly, a local resident, said that her family’s lychee productivity would be 10 tonnes. Half of the figure has been harvested with higher prices than 2018.
Spoilt lychee removed
Lychee wrapped for being exported
Many traders bring the fruit to other localities for sale such as Hanoi, Hung Yen and Lang Son

Source: Dtinews

BE Group launches beCare welfare fund

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Fund to provide driver partners with health insurance and other benefits.

The BE Group JSC, the owner and developer of the “be” app, officially announced the beCare welfare fund for “be” drivers on June 6, based on a desire to help drivers’ lives and work and thereby improve customer service quality.

The beCare program is the next step in its long-term business strategy of “getting drivers to be key” to “be” and at the same time realizes the BE Group’s commitment to creating benefits for its driver community.

With beCare, “be” drivers will not only be protected through comprehensive traffic accident insurance built by the company but will also participate in healthcare programs.

BE Group is committed to taking part of its revenue to develop beCare, which includes a health insurance package that is the best of its type in the market and includes inpatient, outpatient, and 24/7 accident treatment, dental care, and critical illness coverage. Drivers in difficult circumstances will soon be able to access loans from beCare with a preferential interest rate of as a low as 0 per cent.

Drivers eligible for the program will be notified at the end of each quarter. It is expected that in the third quarter of this year, beCare will begin buying health insurance for thousands of drivers.

BE Group is continuing its efforts to implement the best policies possible and working closely with authorities to perfect both the legal framework and the care regime for drivers. The company initially bought insurance for drivers and then considered the idea of building a retirement fund for its workforce.

After nearly six months in the market, the “be” app has gradually won over customers amid a ride-hailing market marked by fierce competition from foreign apps. “be” has had more than 4 million downloads on mobile devices and completed about 11 million beBike and beCar trips.

“be” is now present in six cities and provinces – Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Vung Tau, and Can Tho. It will to expand at Da Nang on June 10.

Source: Vneconomictimes

Vietnam’s growth likely to face new threat

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By Jason Thomas

Pressures from population growth and an economic boom have increased demand for water in Vietnam, risking depletion of the valuable resource and threatening the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by up to six percent by 2035 – a year’s worth of GDP growth.

About 8.5 million urban citizens in Vietnam lack access to clean water, and in rural areas, about 41 million dwellers do not have clean water supply. Water outages in Vietnam expanded nearly threefold between 2009 and 2015, and within 25 years, the urban population is expected to require twice the daily water supply that current systems can provide – a worrying prediction considering Vietnam’s population is steadily growing, rising from about 60 million in 1986 to 97 million in 2018.

Even in the country’s largest urban centre, Ho Chi Minh City, nearly a quarter of its 8.6 million people depend on water tankers as their primary source of water.

As the World Bank noted in a press release last month, ensuring future water security in Vietnam will depend on meeting a host of critical challenges including emerging water stress, fast deterioration of water quality and rising water-related disaster risks.

Vietnam’s rapid increase in water demand will lead to water stress in 11 out of 16 river basins in the country by 2030 during the dry season, and there is growing competition among multiple sectors for water against a backdrop of worsening water quality. In addition, climate change is intensifying water challenges, creating an even greater need to manage water effectively.

“Unless decisive steps are taken, water, which has been a driving force behind Vietnam’s rapid growth, will become a brake on development,” warned the World Bank’s country director for Vietnam, Ousmane Dione.

Vietnam’s rapid increase in water demand will lead to water stress. Source: World Bank

Strong economy

With the state playing an increasingly important role in Vietnam’s economy since the mid-1980s, more than half of the country’s population has been lifted out of poverty. Vietnam’s GDP per capita has also multiplied 10-fold since 1985.

Fast-forward to 2019, and Vietnam is the biggest winner from the trade war between China and the United States (US). Japanese investment bank Nomura this week stated that Vietnam gained almost eight percent of GDP over the past year as importers from the world’s two largest economies change suppliers to avoid paying increased tariffs with most of the gains coming in Vietnam’s electronics industry.

All this is now at risk.

Apart from the possible six percent dent to its GDP by 2035 as pointed out by the World Bank’s ‘Vietnam: Toward a Safe, Clean, and Resilient Water System’ report released last month, other findings include the low productivity of water use in the country – particularly in the agriculture and aquaculture sectors which account for 92 percent of Vietnam’s water usage.

One cubic meter of water produces just US$2.37 of GDP in Vietnam against a global average of US$19.42, proving that the country has potential to generate far greater economic benefit from its water.

Threats

While the four river basins that generate 80 percent of Vietnam’s GDP — the Red-Thai Binh, Mekong, Dong Nai, and South East River Cluster — are all expected to face water stress in the dry season by 2030, there are further water related challenges to sustainable socioeconomic growth including ground-water overexploitation, surface and groundwater pollution, aging water supply infrastructure, emerging water-sharing conflicts and increasing natural disasters.

This file photo shows workers preparing to pump up water from a newly built well. Source: Internet

Water pollution, though, is the greatest threat to GDP and it could cost Vietnam up to 3.5 percent of GDP annually by 2035. Urban development, discharge of untreated industrial wastewater and use of agricultural fertilisers and pesticides are placing unrelenting stresses on water bodies, and according to data from Vietnam’s Ministry of Construction, only 46 percent of urban households are connected to the drainage system.

Just 12.5 percent of domestic wastewater is being treated, a figure which does not include the untreated wastewater from industrial facilities outside industrial zones.

Reverse trends

In order to reverse these trends, it is vital that the government of Vietnam strengthens and enforces regulations to improve water quality along with use of cost-effective solutions to control pollution.

Opportunities to use water more productively, such as by switching to crops and irrigation systems that give ‘more income per drop’, are also key, as is reducing water usage through the implementation of innovative technology and having appropriate tariff mechanisms to create incentives for efficient and productive use of water.

As Tran Hong Ha, Vietnam’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment stressed last month, Vietnam will soon have no water unless its water resources are managed in a uniform and coordinated way and shared and used reasonably and effectively.

This article was first posted on The Asian Post
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