Sabeco’s bank accounts only frozen, not debited: Ho Chi Minh City taxman

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The Ho Chi Minh City tax department is refuting claims that it coercively debited VND3.15 trillion ($135.77 million) from Thai-run brewer Sabeco’s bank accounts, insisting that the accounts are only frozen and their balance remains untouched.

Saigon Alcohol Beer and Beverages Corporation (Sabeco), the largest brewer in Vietnam, accused the Ho Chi Minh City tax department last week of breaking several laws by collecting VND3.15 trillion in unpaid tax and fines by debiting the company’s Vietnam bank accounts without proper authorization.

Sabeco, now run by a Thailand-based parent company, insists it has violated no tax laws and warns that it will take “immediate legal action” to protect its rights.

Refuting Sabeco’s claims, the municipal tax department claims it hasn’t touched Sabeco’s money and all has only demanded that the company’s accounts be temporarily frozen, according to Tran Ngoc Tam, director of the Ho Chi Minh City tax department.

“The tax department has requested that Sabeco provide information regarding its other bank accounts, but the company has not complied,” Tam said on Tuesday.

Tam added that his department is following official protocol in its attempts to collect Sabeco’s unpaid excise tax and fines worth a combined VND3.15 trillion.

The whopping sum includes more than VND2,645 billion ($113.8 million) in excise tax that Sabeco failed to pay between 2007 and 2015, as well as an additional VND494 billion ($21.25 million) administrative penalty.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Wednesday issued an emergency dispatch asking the finance ministry and the Ho Chi Minh City administration to instruct the municipal tax department to halt and unauthorized collection of Sabeco’s tax and fines.

“Proposals by state auditors and government inspectors concerning the case of Sabeco are being considered,” Mai Tien Dung, Minister and Chairman of the Government Office, said, citing the premier’s order.

“The situation involves a foreign entity, so that must be taken into careful consideration.”

Source: Tuoitrenews

Truck driver to be prosecuted for deadly crash

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The Investigative Police Agency of southern Long An Province has decided to start criminal proceedings against a truck driver following Wednesday’s deadly crash in the province’s Bến Lức District.

The driver, Phạm Thành Hiếu, will be prosecuted on charges of violating traffic regulations. He will be put into temporary detention pending further investigation.

According to a report by the province’s traffic safety board, Hiếu’s truck hit 21 motorbikes waiting at a red light at Nhựt Chánh junction in Bến Lức District on Wednesday, killing three people on the spot and injuring 18 others. One more person died en route to the hospital.

Witnesses said the truck kept driving after hitting the first few motorbikes and dragged some for about 150m before stopping.

Hiếu tested positive for heroin and alcohol, according to Long An General Hospital. The driver left the scene after the accident but then turned himself in the district police station in the evening of the same day and was taken to the hospital for testing.

Two examinations were taken three hours part, but both results showed the driver had heroin in his system. The tests also revealed the driver had high blood alcohol content.

Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hòa Bình, Chairman of the National Committee for Traffic Safety, directed the settlement of the deadly accident. He assigned Vice Chairman of the committee Khuất Việt Hùng to go to the accident site and work with the provincial People’s Committee to determine the consequences. He also called for support for the families of the victims.

On Thursday, Hùng and provincial authorities visited the injured victims who are being treated at Chợ Rẫy Hospital in HCM City.

Hùng said the National Committee for Traffic Safety and Deputy PM Bình asked localities to increase inspections and crack down on traffic violations, particularly drunken driving. They were told to regularly test drivers – especially truck drivers – for drugs to ensure traffic safety.

Source: VNS

Storm Pabuk set to deliver heavy rain, strong winds in southern Vietnam

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Vietnam is set to experience heavy rainfall and strong winds as Pabuk hovers off the southern coast.
 As of Wednesday, Pabuk was stationed around 360 kilometers (223 miles) to the southeast of Con Dao Island off the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, with wind speeds of up to 75 kilometers per hour.

Over the next 24 hours, the storm is expected to move west-northwest at 15 kilometers per hour. At 1 p.m. Thursday, the center of the storm will be around 220 kilometers to the southeast of Ca Mau Province in Vietnam’s southern tip, with wind speeds of 90 kilometers per hour.

Pabuk is projected to move south and cross Ca Mau tip but not make landfall in Vietnam.

Hoang Duc Cuong, director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, said the storm will trigger heavy downpours and strong winds in coastal areas from the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau to Ca Mau.

The rainfall in southeast region, including Ho Chi Minh City, is likely to range from 40 to 80 mm, while Mekong Delta provinces such as Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau and Kien Giang can expect rainfall of up to 200mm. Rainfall of above 180mm a day is considered heavy.

Central provinces from Thua Thien-Hue to Binh Thuan should expect heavy rainfall of up to 100 mm while coastal provinces like Quang Nam, Binh Dinh and Phu Yen will be battered by strong downpours, weather experts said. The region is home to popular resort towns Hoi An, Hue and Mui Ne.

Flood warnings have been issued for rivers from Thua Thien-Hue to Ninh Thuan provinces, and landslides are also forecast along rivers and low-lying areas.

Storm preparations

The Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention has asked local authorities to stay in contact with 76,000 ships and fishing boats in their jurisdiction as a precaution and ensure safety of residents in storm-hit areas.

Southern provinces such as Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, Ben Tre, Kien Giang, home to the famous Phu Quoc Island and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, home to Vung Tau beach town and Con Dao Island, have told all fishing boats not to head out to sea and called for the ships offshore to move to safer areas.

Two fishing boats sank off the coast of Ba Ria-Ving Tau Province on Wednesday, but no human casualties have been reported.

The new storm has formed just weeks after Usagi, the ninth and last storm to hit Vietnam in 2018, prompted Saigon and the entire southern region to close schools and undertake mass evacuations.

Vietnam was struck by 13 typhoons and tropical depressions in 2018.

A report from the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control released late last week said natural disasters, mostly flooding, tropical storms and landslides, killed 181 people and left 37 others missing in 2018.

The disasters caused damage worth around VND20 trillion ($858 million), three times lower than last year’s figure of VND60 trillion ($2.6 billion).

Source: Vnexpress

Business Registration in 2018 in Vietnam, significant changes in the number

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In 2018, there have been significant changes in the number of business registrations as the number of shutdown and suspended companies climbed up while that of newly established ones grew at a slower pace.

The current reforms do not seem comprehensive enough. Small-scale companies are more likely to be affected by the slow progress of reforming the ‘business environment’. VDSC reports.

The number of newly registered companies was 121,248 and total capital VND 1,234.4 trillion in 11M2018, up 4.5% YoY and 9.1% YoY, respectively. That was lower than 11M2017’s growth of 14.1% YoY and 41.9% YoY. The wholesale and retail sale sector accounted for 35% of total new registrations, followed by construction, manufacturing and real estate.

Related topic: Company registration service in Vietnam

Overall, that has been the trend since 2014 because of better economic conditions and easing regulations. In 2013-2016, Vietnam made starting a business easier by allowing companies to use self-printed value added tax invoices and reducing the time required to get the company seal engraved and registered. Recently, the administration published the notice of incorporation online and reduced the cost of business registration.

However, such reforms seem not comprehensive enough for small-scale companies. Most have difficulty surviving three years. Figure 1 shows an increasing increase of shutdown and suspended operations, from 97,969 from 75,413 enterprises, up over 40% YoY in 2018 so far versus 2017. In Vietnam, nearly 96% of enterprises are small and micro in terms of scale. Those companies’ profitability indicators are significantly smaller than medium- and large-scale companies (figure 2). Although their own resources are limited, the access to credit is not easy due to the issue of collateral. According to GSO’s survey, the micro group lost nearly USD 1.5 Bln in 2016 while the amount of taxes and fees paid was nearly USD 2 Bln.

In our opinion, there are possibilities that the previous reforms are only related to more opened business registration instead of a comprehensive support to the private sector, especially the SME group. According to World Bank’s Doing Business report, the sub-group of ‘starting a business’ scored the second highest number of 84.8 points, just below that of getting electricity. The starting-a-business topic measures the number of procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital required for a small- to medium-sized limited liability company to start up and formally operate in each economy’s largest business cities. As mentioned, such requirement are good in Vietnam. However, the issues of getting credit, enforcing contracts or resolving insolvency have not clearly improved.

In 2019, VDSC believes that better conditions for the private sector is a necessity. The 12th National Congress of Vietnam Communist Party has approved measures to deal with, however the draft of reducing the tax burden on SMEs is still being processed.

Vietnam goalkeeper Dang Van Lam completed a move to Muangthong United

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Dang Van Lam, the goalkeeper of Vietnam has terminated his contract with V League side Hai Phong FC and has completed a move to Thai giants Muangthong United.

Dang Van Lam starred for the Golden Dragons in their 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup triumph, keeping five clean sheets in eight matches. Fox Sport Asia reports.

The 25-year-old goalkeeper joined Hai Phong in 2015, and established himself as a regular starter, helping them to a sixth-place finish last time out.

Hai Phong reportedly rejected multiple offers for their star keeper from Indonesia and even China before relenting and striking a deal with Muangthong.

Dang Van Lam will add even more firepower to a Muangthong side that already consists of the likes of Adisak Kraisorn, Aung Thu and Teerasil Dangda.

Having finished the 2018 season in fourth place, the Kirins will be looking to close the gap on Buriram and Bangkok this time around, and the signing of Dang Van Lam is a statement of intent.

As for Dang Van Lam, he is currently with the national team preparing for the upcoming Asian Cup after which he will link up with his new teammates for the start of the new season.

Vietnam reaches new heights in 2019

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The targets for 2019 will not just revolve around the country’s GDP.

2018 was a great year for Vietnam’s economy.

According to a report on The Asian Post, the country’s business environment grew tremendously at the start of the year with over 26,000 new enterprises established. In addition to that, the government there highlighted that foreign direct investment (FDI) disbursement reached over US$3.8 billion in the first three months of the year, up 7.2 percent from 2017. Overall, the socialist state’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.1 percent year on year in the first six months of 2018 – the fastest growth recorded since 2011.

Among the best performing sectors was manufacturing, with an output growth of 13 percent in the first half of the year. Despite the ongoing trade war between the United States (US) and China, Vietnam’s exports soared. The Communist state recorded export revenues estimated at US$244 billion, an increase of 13.8 percent from the previous year.

Rapid growth

Vietnam’s rapid growth over the past decade is mostly due to the country’s move away from a strict controlled economy to a more liberal system. For the past decade, the country has taken on reforms like deregulation which has seen an influx of private enterprises and foreign investment.

The economic reforms carried out by the Communist Party has made Vietnam one of the region’s fastest growing economies. The World Bank also pointed out in its Global Economic Prospects report that Vietnam is one of six countries in East Asia with real GDP growth of more than six percent.

In 2018, the government announced further reforms to Vietnam’s economy. Earlier in the year, in an effort to make Vietnam more regionally competitive, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc revealed that the country would cut corporate income tax rates from between 20 to 22 percent to 15 to 17 percent. Furthermore, in March, the Ministry of Transport proposed to enhance services in maritime areas and multi-modal transportation by easing business conditions and regulations. If the ministry’s proposal goes through, 314 out of the current 500 regulations will be cut.

Another notable step Vietnam has taken to open up its economy is by signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which the World Bank has estimated will increase Vietnam’s GDP by as much as 3.5 percent.

New targets for 2019

The Communist Party’s General Secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong has called for increased efforts to meet a higher growth rate than 2018. “This will be a heavy task, and all of us must do our utmost to realise this target,” he said.

The targets for 2019 will not just revolve around the country’s GDP, the government has also set various socio-economic goals. For example, it has set a target of reducing poverty by one to 1.5 percent. Last year, the target was between one and 1.3 percent, which the government exceeded at 1.5 percent. Other targets include keeping unemployment below four percent and to increase the percentage of the population with health insurance coverage to 88.1 percent.

Read full article on The Asian Post

December 2018, manufacturing PMI of Vietnam falls slightly

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The expansion in Vietnam’s manufacturing sector in December 2018 slowed from a near-record pace in November 2018 as output growth eased, according to a survey by Nikkei.

The Nikkei Vietnam Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, fell from 56.5 in November to 53.8 in December, remaining comfortably above the 50-point line separating expansion from contraction. December rounded off a positive year for Vietnamese manufacturers, with its average PMI the highest since the survey began in 2011.

According to latest report on Nikkei, output and new orders remained solid albeit softening from November. New export business also rose at a solid pace. Manufacturers generally expect output growth to continue over the coming year, according to the survey.

The reading “leaves the industry well placed to have a positive 2019 despite headwinds elsewhere in the global economy,” said Andrew Harker, Associate Director at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey.

Read original report on Nikkei

Vietnamese food processing industry expects further expansion, eyes foreign investment

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The Vietnamese food processing industry has experienced rapid growth over the past 5 years, and expects further expansion as it eyes additional foreign investments.

“The country’s industrial production index rose by some 6.8% across the 2013 to 2017 period for the processed food industry, and 9.7% for the drinks industry”, said Do Thang Hai, The Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade

Toward Prosperity, Creativity, Equity, and Democracy vision, the Vietnam’s food processing is also one of the major areas of focus in the country’s development strategy approaching 2025, which will be incorporated into its Vietnam 2035. Food Navigator Asia reports.

The foreign investments are expected to play a major developmental role within this.

Deputy Head of The Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency, Mr. Vu Van Chung, told VNExpress​ that, total foreign investment into Vietnam’s food processing industry has currently hit the US$11.2bn mark, spread across 717 projects and excluding M&A deals.

The attractiveness of Vietnam’s food processing industry to investors has been attributed to favorable tax policies. Technology related to production chains are completely tax-exempt.

Additionally, investors get an enterprise income tax that is 5% lower than conventional tax (25%), prioritised projects are tax-exempt for up to four years then have a 50% lower tax for another nine years.

The majority of investment funds have been channeled to the processing of seafood, beverages and agricultural produce, but currently faces a major obstacle in terms of domestic material supply, meaning that these materials end up being imported, said Chung.

“Despite preferential policies for investors, Vietnam’s food processing industry has not been able to attract investments from markets that strong in this field, like Japan, the U.S., Australia and the EU,”​ he added.

Outstanding food processing market segments in Vietnam

According to the Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the production and processing of milk, beverages, cooking oil and confectionary are expected to grow to become the country’s most productive processing market segments.

Local dairy consumption is expected to hit 27 to 28 litres per person per year by 2020, cooking oil consumption will hit 17 kg in 2020 and 20 kg by 2025, confectionery consumption will rise by 10% per year and beverage consumption will reach 6.8 billion litres in 2020 and 9.1 billion litres by 2025.

In Ho Chi Minh city alone, the food processing industry grew 8.7% from January to October this year, according to its municipal trade department.

An example of a company taking advantage of these growing markets is Korea’s CJ Cheiljedang (CJCJ) Group. CJCJ acquired or bought significant shares in a number of food brands and companies in the country, including Ong Kim, Vissan and the Cau Tre Processing Joint Stock Company.

CJCJ also told Vietnam Economy News​ that it expects to obtain some US$700mn in revenue by 2020 by catering to both domestic and foreign markets post-investment.

More on Vietnam’s food and beverage industry

According to Hai, Vietnam’s annual food consumption makes up some 15% of its GDP, and is expected to expand due to ready-to-eat food trends as well as higher annual incomes.

He also mentioned that things looked hopeful for the industry in the near future, especially after the free trade agreements signed by Vietnam come into force and open up a wider consumer and investor market.

These agreements include the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), amongst others.

Business Monitor International (BMI) ​has predicted that the Vietnamese food and beverage industry will grow by 16.1% between 2016 and 2019.

Read original article on Food Navigator Asia

Mother killed over $35 manicure at Las Vegas nail salon

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Las Vegas police are searching for a woman accused of using a stolen car to run over and kill a nail salon worker after failing to pay for a $35 manicure.

The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified the manicurist as 51-year-old Ngoc Q. Nguyen of Garden Grove, California, and said the cause of death was multiple blunt-force injuries.

Police were trying to identify the suspect and were investigating the crime as a murder, Officer Larry Hadfield said. The woman got a manicure Saturday at a salon about a mile and a half from the Las Vegas Strip, but her credit card was declined when she went to pay.

The woman went to her car, telling salon workers she would come back to pay another way but then tried to drive away, according to police Lt. Ray Spencer.

The manicurist ran in front of the car to try to stop the woman from driving off but was hit by the vehicle, police said. The woman drove away, and Nguyen was taken to a hospital, where she died. A GoFundMe page for Nguyen, which said she was the mother of 3 girls, had raised more than $10,000 by Tuesday.

Sonny Chung, who said he lived with Nguyen for 13 years, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he tried in vain to stop the suspect. “I tried to hold the car back, but I’m not Superman,” Chung told the newspaper. “She ran off for $35 and killed my wife — $35 to run my wife over.”

The suspect was in a rental car that had been stolen three weeks ago, Spencer said. The car was found abandoned at a nearby apartment complex.

Investigators don’t believe the person who rented the car was connected to the crime and were reviewing surveillance video to try to identify the woman.

Source: 10tv

Foreign currency lending extended into 2019

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The State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV) has issued a circular to allow credit institutions and foreign bank branches to extend loans in foreign currencies to some borrowers in 2019, rather than cutting them off at the end of last year as planned.

Under the new circular, lenders will be permitted to provide short-term foreign currency loans to exporters who need the capital to import input materials. Borrowers will be required to have sufficient foreign currency revenue from exports to repay the loans.

The short-term loans are also available to those who need foreign currencies to pay for imported goods and services to serve domestic consumption, with the deadline pushed back to March 31, 2019.

Lenders are also allowed to consider the provision of medium- and long-term foreign currency loans for the payment of imported goods and services until September 30, 2019.

According to the SBV, the extension is designed to assist local exporters and producers by reducing borrowing costs, thereby enhancing their competitiveness in international trade, especially in the context of rising global trade protectionism.

Exporters prefer to take out loans in dollars as the interest rate for dollar loans is lower than for those in Vietnamese đồng. Banks currently list interest rates at 2.8-4.7 per cent per year for short-term dollar loans and 4.5-6.0 per cent for medium- and long-term dollar loans. Meanwhile, interest rates are 6-9 per cent per year for short-term đồng loans, and 9-11 per cent for medium- and long-term đồng loans.

Source: VNS

Four killed, 16 injured as truck crashes into motorbikes in Vietnam

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At least four people died and 16 others were seriously injured in southern Long An Province Wednesday after a truck slammed into motorbikes.
 At 3.30 p.m. the container truck was traveling on National Highway 1A when its driver lost control and rammed at least 20 motorbikes waiting at the traffic lights at the Binh Nhut crossroads in Ben Luc District, around 60 kilometers southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.

Many of the motorbikes were dragged for over 150 meters before the truck came to a halt. Some were broken in half.

“It was horrifying,” an eyewitness said.

Three people died on the spot, one died in hospital while 16 others remained hospitalized.

The truck driver, Pham Thanh Hieu, 32, fled the scene after the accident.

Preliminary investigation indicated that he had tried to speed past the traffic light before it turned red.

The police are continuing their investigation.

At 5:15 p.m. traffic was still blocked on the highway.

During the four-day New Year holiday 136 accidents were recorded, in which 111 people died around Vietnam and another 54 were injured, according to the Traffic Police Department.

This was a significant increase in fatalities from last year, when 67 died in three days.

On average, one person dies every hour in road accidents in Vietnam. The country targets reducing road accident deaths to below 20 a day, or 7,300 a year.

Source: Vnexpress

Three dead as taxi with apparently drunk driver overturns in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

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Three people died as a taxi overturned after hitting a motorcycle in an apparent case of driving under the influence in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong on New Year’s Day.

The taxi, carrying five passengers, was traveling along National Route 20 when it crashed into a motorbike running in the same direction at around 11:00 pm on Tuesday.

The cab, operated by local taxi firm Lado, kept barreling forward before slamming into roadside trees and turned upside down.

Three of the passengers died while the other two, as well as the 23-year-old cabman and the motorcyclist, were seriously injured. The taxi was also severely damaged following the crash.

An official handling the case said the cabbie was allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, adding his blood sample was taken for testing.

Local authorities gave families of the deceased victims VND5 million (US$215) each as support over the tragedy.

The drink-driving limit for drivers in Vietnam is 80 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 millimeters of blood, or more than 0.4 milligrams of alcohol for every liter of breath.

Drunk driving is punishable by a VND16-18 million ($688-774) fine and confiscation of the driving license from four to six months.

Road accidents killed 81 people and injured 41 others on the last three days of 2018 in Vietnam, when multiple people traveled on tourism trips or back to their hometowns, according to the country’s National Traffic Safety Committee.

Source: Tuoitrenews

Are Vietjet’s recent troubles the result of scorching-hot development?

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From a small airline with only three aircraft in 2011, Vietjet Air has become a big low-cost air carrier (LCC) with annual revenue of VND50 trillion.

Vietjet owner Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s development of the biggest LCC in Vietnam has been used as an example of emerging market development in classes at Harvard’s business school.

Vietjet Air has made big leaps in the last seven years. The first images of Vietjet Air, with stewardesses in bikinis, once stirred controversy and raised curiosity in the international press. This gave a push for the first private Vietnamese airline to take off.

Vietjet Air’s revenue began soaring in 2014, reaching VND8.699 trillion, a growth rate of 129 percent compared to 2013. The high growth rate was repeated once again in 2015 with impressive revenue of VND19.845 trillion.

In 2016 and 2017, its revenue growth rates were 38.5 and 53.8 percent, respectively. The big achievements gave Vietjet Air reasons to set a revenue target of VND50.97 trillion in 2018.

There are no official statistics about air carriers’ market share. However, some financial institutions believe that Vietjet outstripped the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airline in market share in 2018.

According to Bao Viet Securities, Vietjet now holds 42 percent of market share, and the figure is still rising.

Before Vietjet joined the market, only 1 percent of Vietnamese could approach air travel, while air tickets were expensive and reserved only for the well-off.

To serve the hot development, Vietjet has ordered hundreds of aircraft, both Airbus and Boeing. It has 61 A320s and A321s, both chartered and owned, a high number for a young airline, according to Planespotter.

The number of airplanes increased from 3 in 2011 to 61 in 2018.

While Vietjet flies in full swing, it has met with troubles recently. The Ministry of Transport (MOT) has given a ‘strong warning’ to Vietjet for multiple incidents that have threatened flight safety.

In the last three months, Vietjet had seven incidents, including five technical problems.

Zing.vn quoted Nguyen Thanh Trung, a veteran pilot, as saying that the air carrier is ‘obviously meeting problems’. He said Vietjet needs to examine the quality of pilots, technical systems, and monitoring.

However, Nguyen Thien Tong, an aviation expert, believes there is no link between incidents and hot development.

“An air carrier with no hot development still has similar troubles,” he said. “It is wrong to think that once development cools down, incidents won’t occur.”

Source: VNN

VDSC 2018 Recap: The Global and Vietnam highlights

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VIETNAM HIGHLIGHTS IN 2018

Vietnam’s 2018 GDP growth reached 7.08%, higher than 6.8% of the consensus which make the country much more attractive for foreign investors.

Vietnam will post a trade surplus of USD7.21 billion in 2018, up 41% compare to 2017.

Vietnam has signed CPTPP, the third biggest FTA in the world, will start from 2019. This is expected to boost Vietnam’s economic growth with more transparent and open policies.

In November 2018, Vietcombank and VIB were permitted to apply the BASEL II. This is a milestone to the developments in application of international standard in Vietnam. In 2020, government expects 12-15 banks to apply the BASEL II.

VNIndex reached an all-time high of 1,204.3 on 9 April 2018.

Trading liquidity improved 23% from USD149,8mn/day in 2017 to USD183,88mn/day.

Vietnam’s stock market capitalization rose 13.5% against the end of last year, reaching a record high of VND3.98 quadrillion (USD170.93 billion), equivalent to 79.6 percent of the country’s GDP.

Foreign capital inflows into the stock market were estimated at USD2.8 billion USD, slightly lower than the USD2.92 billion recorded in 2017.

Improvement in derivatives: average number of contracts reached 58,613/day in 2018, 5.3x times compare to 2017

FTSE listed Vietnam market into the upgrade list: from frontier market to secondary emerging market. Although it would take few years to get into secondary emerging market list, investors which keen on this sector would start their research about Vietnam and buy shares when the time comes.

Vietnam surpassed Singapore as largest IPO fundraiser in Southeast Asia, raising USD 2.6bn across 5 deals.

The most popular one was Vinhomes (HSX: VHM) being able to raised USD1.35bn which is the biggest ever issue in Vietnam and the second biggest deal in Southeast Asia in 2018. Another big deal in 2018 was Masan Group (HSX: MSN) signing a strategic partner with SK Group – the company invested USD470mn to buy back around 110mn treasury shares of MSN which is equivalent to 9.5% of total voting shares.

GLOBAL HIGHLIGHTS IN 2018

2018 China – US Trade War

China and the United States are engaged in a trade war as each country continues to dispute tariffs placed on goods traded between them. Donald Trump had promised in his campaign to fix China’s “longtime abuse of the broken international system and unfair practices”.

China set to convene meeting to discuss response to US tariffs

World Oil Price Fell Sharply In 2018

World oil prices plummeted below USD70/barrel (down more than 40% compared to the price of 115 USD / barrel in June) has caused many oil exporting countries to suffer.

This is the deepest decline in nearly 5 years in the world oil market. On November 27, the Vienna meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which controls nearly 40% of the world oil market, failed to reach an agreement on cutting production.

Energy demand is closely related to economic activity. In addition, this demand also increased sharply in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and during the summer in countries that use air conditioning. Sources of supply may be affected by weather (hindering the loading of oil tanks) and geopolitical turmoil.

CPTPP Signed And Takes Effect In 2019

At the end of October 2018, Australia became the sixth country to ratify the Comprehensive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Agreement, meeting the necessary conditions for this agreement to be implemented from January 2019. .

The 11 country trade agreement is expected to promote economic growth, create more jobs, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of the people of member states. This agreement will create one of the largest free trade blocks in the world with a market of about 499 million people and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about USD10,100 billion, accounting for 13.5% of world GDP.

Tropical Storm Pabuk to threaten Vietnam with flooding rain

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After inundating the Philippines with deadly flooding, a strengthening tropical cyclone has its sights set on Indochina.

Strengthening on Tuesday brought the cyclone to tropical storm status, and it was given the name Pabuk.Faith Eherts, AccuWeather meteorologist reports.

Additional strengthening is forecast on Wednesday and Thursday as the storm tracks over the open water south of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Even though the storm is not expected to make landfall in Vietnam, heavy rain, rough seas and coastal flooding will impact the South Central coast, Southeast and Mekong River Delta regions of the nation through Thursday.

In Ho Chi Minh City, 50-100 cm (2-4 inches) of rainfall could lead to localized flooding at midweek.

Tropical Storm Pabuk to threaten Vietnam, Thailand with flooding rain

Rain bands from Pabuk will also drench southern Cambodia where localized flooding will be possible on Wednesday and Thursday.

The storm is expected to remain a dangerous cyclone as it moves into the Gulf of Thailand by Thursday, creating dangerous seas throughout the region and heightening the risk of coastal flooding in Cambodia and southern Thailand. Coastal operations could come to a halt.

Read full report on AccuWeather
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