VinFast, Vietnam’s first fully-fledged car manufacturer, plans to launch seven new ‘premium’ models. Following the first line of Lux (short for Luxury) automobiles aimed at the high-end segment, VinFast, a unit of Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, Vingroup, has announced it will launch a Pre (short for Premium) car line with the aim of tapping a larger customer base.
The company has opened a polling page for customers to vote on the seven most popular models out of a potential 35.
The seven Pre models will include a hatchback and a CUV (crossover SUV) for the A and B segments; one Sedan and CUV for the C segment; and 1 Sedan, 1 SUV and 1 family car for the D segment.
VinFast will continue to work closely with the famous Italian studios, Ital Design, Torino Design, and Pininfarina on designing the new models.
VinFast showed off its first two car models, a sedan and an SUV, at the Paris Motor Show in France last October just a year after its incorporation, grabbing the attention of the local and international media.
VinFast’s first production models built under its own badge hit the streets in August 2019.
According to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, total car sales in the country topped 288,000 units in 2018, up 5.9 percent from around 272,000 units in 2017.
A court in Vietnam gave the death penalty to a local teacher convicted of drug trafficking on Tuesday.
The man, Vu Ba Xenh, was a school teacher at the time of his arrest in his residential area in Nghe An Province, which borders Laos.
In mid-June 2018, Xenh got acquainted with a person living in Laos who promised to pay him US$200 each time the teacher managed to transport drugs, after realizing that he knew Nghe An like the back of his hand, court records said.
Xenh, 40, accepted the offer and left his phone number for contact.
Later in the same month, Xenh came to a designated meeting spot in Vietnam and received a gun from a group of people who had crossed the border forest at night, the court said.
While Xenh and the group were moving drugs to another place, they were intercepted by Vietnamese police.
Xenh was subdued but the group fled into a jungle after firing several shots at the officers.
Two policemen were injured, one of whom is now confined to a wheelchair as one of the bullets ended up lodged in his spine.
The authorities said they seized a home-made gun, 20 heroin packages, seven kilograms of meth and 12,000 tablets of synthetic drugs.
Xenh alone carried nearly 15 kilograms of drugs, they said.
It is unclear what type of drug was mentioned but in Vietnam trading over 100 grams of heroin, meth, cocaine, amphetamine or MDMA (ecstasy) is punishable with up to 20 years’ imprisonment, life imprisonment or capital punishment.
MoMo cements its position as the number one e-wallet and digital financial services platform in Vietnam with another year of record-breaking growth in 2018 on the back of the Series C investment led by Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm.
The company’s performance has been underpinned by the rapid uptake of mobile payments as the country’s digitally-savvy population embraced the convenience of making cashless transactions on their mobile devices, both online and offline.
“Last year was a transformational period for MoMo,” said Pham Thanh Duc, the CEO of MoMo. “The company posted its largest ever transaction volume and number of active users and we have significantly extended our lead as the platform of choice in the Vietnamese digital payments market.”
The company has just announced that MoMo now serves nearly 10 million users on its e-wallet platform and is the country’s most downloaded e-wallet app in 2018.
The volume of transactions processed on MoMo’s platform has grown by more than three times over the course of the year.
The introduction of new innovative payment features, exclusive merchants and attractive promotional campaigns on MoMo’s platform have led to its record high adoption rates among Vietnamese customers.
Today, Momo has rapidly developed into a lifestyle “super-app” which allows customers to not only buy telco credits, send money or pay their bills but also to buy movie tickets, book airline trips, buy insurance policies and pay for goods and services at more than 100,000 payment points across the country –including popular chain stores such as Circle K, Ministop and FPT Shop.
For its achievements, MoMo was named in 2018 as a top fintech company and the only Vietnamese firm in both KPMG’s Fintech100 and IFC’s Financial Inclusion in Digital Age.
MoMo’s growth was accelerated by its Series C fundraise last year which was led by an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm and the largest private equity investor in Vietnam.
The new funding has equipped the company with enormous resources to significantly expand MoMo’s footprint and realise its ambition to develop millions of payments points across the country.
Nguyen Manh Tuong, MoMo’s executive vice chairman, said: “Vietnam is entering its next stage of growth which will require a robust and inclusive financial services ecosystem. MoMo is committed to realise that vision by accelerating the adoption of digital payments and enable equal opportunities for all Vietnamese to benefit from the digital economy.”
This January, MoMo is launching its largest-ever “Lucky New Year” campaign for the festive Vietnamese Lunar New Year period in partnership with more than 40 brands which would allow MoMo’s users to not only exchange digital gifts between families and friends but also receive attractive lucky rewards which are redeemable at MoMo’s partner stores.
This campaign follows the massive success of its inaugural red envelope programme last year which became the most viral digital gifting campaign in the country with over three million digital red envelopes exchanged between MoMo’s users.
MoMo will also continue to invest in technology, including in areas such as AI, security and big data capabilities, in order to deliver innovative financial services solution and serve the unmet needs of consumers.
As a home-grown Vietnamese technology company, the company also plans to cultivate top local and overseas talents who share its mission for greater financial inclusion in the country.
A Vietnam-based e-commerce platform has successfully raised US$7 million in series B funding to invest in regional expansion and onboarding new brands, the startup announced on Monday.
Leflair, an online platform that sources branded goods from brands and official distributors to Vietnamese customers, particularly claimed $3 million from South Korean TV home shopping company GS Shop and $4 million from Cambodia-based Belt Road Capital Management last week, according to Deal Street Asia.
The latest round has come about a year after Leflair raised $3 million in series A funding in January 2018, bringing its total financing close to $12 million.
This fundraising also marks GS Shop’s first direct investment in Vietnam’s startup scene.
Loic Gautier, co-founder and CEO at Leflair, said that the platform will use this latest injection to increase the flow of merchandise from South Korea, accelerating multidimensional cooperation with GS Shop.
“We believe cross-border is the future of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and with this additional funding our customers will soon be able to purchase even more brands from international hubs, in particular South Korea and Japan, while enjoying the same delivery experience as domestic deliveries,” Gautier said.
Founded in December 2015, Leflair follows the flash-sales model that has proven successful in Europe with Vente-privee.com from France being an instance.
The startup offers a wide range of worldwide branded merchandise, from fashion and beauty to home, such as Calvin Klein, Botanist and Moleskin, to Vietnamese consumers at attractive prices.
Leflair claims that it has grown 100 percent year-on-year since its foundation.
It has so far closed a total of three rounds of investment from world-class angel investors and venture capital firms from the U.S., France, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong and now from South Korea and Cambodia.
Vietcombank and VIB Bank have become the two first Vietnamese banks which have received approval from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to apply Basel II standards.
Both of them lead the market in service quality, governance capacity and market share.
Vietcombank shares attract many investors, reflect ed in the capitalization value, P/E (price to earnings) and P/B (price to book) ratios, outperforming other banks.
VIB Bank is a rising star, a leading joint stock bank in funding car purchases, and among the top 3 in bancassurance revenue and retail credit growth rate.
Vietcombank and VIB were two out of five banks which first completed the purchase of bad debts they had sold to the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC).
The two banks, in bank governance and risk management, received support from their foreign strategic shareholders, leading banks in Australia and Japan.
Besides Vietcombank and VIB, other banks have announced their roadmaps for upgrading their indexes to meet Basel II standards. They are increasing capital, improving the risk management system, information infrastructure and database.
Analysts predicted that more banks would get approval from SBV in some months, sooner than initially planned.
The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of the banking system as of May 2018, as announced by SBV, was 12.14 percent. The figures were 9.39 percent for state-owned banks and 11.34 percent for joint stock banks, lower than in the end of 2017.
Rong Viet Securities (VDSC), in its latest report about prospects in 2019, emphasized Vietnamese banks’ CAR, saying that this remains a bottleneck of the banking system.
Vietnam’s CAR at around 12 is among the lowest among ASEAN countries, just above Bangladesh.
At present, Vietnam’s CAR is calculated with Basel I standards, while other regional countries are done in accordance with Basel II. If Vietnam recalculates the ratio, the figure would be even lower.
SBV has decided that Vietnam’s banks will begin to officially apply Basel II standards from 2020.
Ten pioneering banks, including Vietcombank, BIDV (the Bank for Investment & Development of Vietnam), VietinBank, Techcombank, ACB (Asia Commercial Bank), VPBank, MB, MaritimeBank, Sacombank and VIB, would begin sooner.
Banks are hurrying to increase their capital to improve their CAR. Vietcombank and BIDV have nearly completed the process.
If the capital increase plans succeed, their stockholder equity would be around $1.7 billion. Meanwhile, the capital increase plan implementation at VietinBank is going slowly.
Many farmers have chopped down coffee trees and shifted to durian and fruit trees after incurring big losses with coffee farming.
The coffee price in the world market fell to its lowest point since Q1 2016 to VND32,000 per kilogram. Phan Xuan Thang, deputy chair of the Vietnam Cocoa and Coffee Association (Vicofa), said that farmers cannot make profits with that price.
Many households in Dak Lak have scaled down investments, destroyed old coffee gardens which give low yields. and have shifted to grow durian and other crops which can bring higher value.
Truong Hong, acting director of the Tay Nguyen Agriculture & Forestry Technology Institute, an experienced farmer, said he can harvest 10 tons of coffee beans per hectare and make a profit of VND70-100 million a year. The revenue remains unchanged, but the real income of farmers is 40-50 percent lower because of the increased input materials and labor costs.
Warning that more farmers are considering giving up farming, Hong said coffee bean collectors, exporters and roasters need to share profits with farmers or the coffee industry will be in danger.
In the supply chain comprising of producers, processors and distributors, farmers earn the lowest profit.
According to Nguyen Do Anh Tuan from IPSARD (Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development), problems still exist in preservation and processing. Vietnam needs to do better so that farmers can have higher income.
Experts have suggested applying PPP model in agricultural production and coffee cultivation. However, it is necessary to manage the state’s money flow. Decree 116 stipulates that banks and businesses need to outline a cash flow management procedure.
Grahame Dixie, CEO of Grow Asia, noted that all the countries with developed agriculture have PPPs and relevant associations to support farmers.
However, big challenges may hinder the PPP model development in Vietnam. That is why Nestle Vietnam is the only firm that has applied PPP, while other enterprises, both foreign invested and Vietnamese, are not interested in the model.
Thai Nhu Hiep, chair of Vinh Hiep Company, thinks it is a good idea to organize a value chain in the coffee industry, but noted that Vietnam would meet difficulties because most coffee growers are households with small scale.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said that coffee will still be a key farm produce for export of Vietnam, but that it is necessary to maintain current output and improve quality.
Vietnam’s trade ministry and e-commerce giant Amazon have signed an e-commerce pact that will see Vietnamese merchants join the Amazon Global Selling network.
“Vietnam has more than 700,000 businesses, 98 per cent of which are SMEs. Therefore, in addition to traditional trade promotion initiatives, developing e-commerce is critical,” Vu Ba Phu, head of the ministry’s trade promotion agency, said in a statement.
According to a report by Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc on DealStreetAsia, under the new partnership, Vietnamese businesses will be entitled to access Amazon’s 300 million customers as well as wholesale buyers across the US, Japan and Europe.
Bernard Tay, head of Amazon Global Selling Asia Pacific, said the US e-commerce major was interested in the Vietnam market due to its manufacturing capacity as well as the thriving startup ecosystem.
The partnership has marked Amazon’s maiden e-commerce operation in Vietnam. Last year, DEALSTREETASIA reported that Amazon might look at opening a Vietnam-based warehouse, as BW Industrial, the logistics joint venture between global investment firm Warburg Pincus and Vietnamese construction company Becamex, had proposed to build a warehouse for Amazon in the future.
Many experts think human bodies are shaped the way they are because we evolved to be extremely effective endurance runners. The shapes of our hips and feet, the length of our legs, our shock-absorbing spinal discs, and our ability to sweat make it possible for us to run mile after mile.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that running is strongly associated with a number of benefits for our bodies and brains.
Many experts consider exercise to be the closest thing to a miracle drug. As a form of cardio exercise that’s easily accessible, running is one of the most straightforward ways to get the important benefits of exercise.
Since it improves aerobic fitness, running is a great way to help improve cardiovascular health. Plus, it burns calories and can build strength, among other things. There’s also a long list of psychological benefits runners gain from their sport. You can also check mk 667 dosage, this can also help you achieve your goals
Getting used to running, if you haven’t done it in a while or ever, can be brutal.
But once your body and mind start to acclimate, running can be blissful, meditative, and provide a sense of freedom. As someone who recently completed his first half-marathon, I can confirm that’s true. One piece of advice from several experienced runners made a big difference during my race: remember that you’re running to have fun.
These are some of the physical and mental health benefits of running.
Even a 30-minute run can lift symptoms of depression and improve mood.
Shutterstock
Spending 30 minutes on a treadmill is enough to lift the mood of someone suffering from major depressive disorder, according to a study published in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. Even participants who moved at a walking pace to received the same mood-lifting benefit.
This shows that no matter what pace you’re going, moving has positive effects and adds to the already significant body of research showing that running and other forms of exercise can improve mood and help fight depression.
Contrary to what many people think, running actually seems to improve knee health.
Rob Ludacer
Knee pain can quickly sideline a runner. It’s often a sign of overtraining or a need to improve one’s form or flexibility. But running probably isn’t the cause of knee osteoarthritis.
In one eight-year study of 2,637 participants, researchers found that the more people ran, the less likely they were to suffer from knee pain or osteoarthritis. While it’s hard to say that running directly caused people to experience less knee pain, researchers think that could be the case since running helps people keep their BMI in check and their leg muscles strong. Running also strengthens bones.
Running helps young people sleep better, improves their mood, and boosts their ability to focus.
Shutterstock
In a study of 51 young people with an average age of 18, half were assigned to add running into their routines, while the other half did not (they did get some exercise, but didn’t add a regular running regimen). To get the benefits associated with running, the group of runners ran at a moderate pace for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for three weeks.
Those in that running group were found to sleep better, show signs of improved psychological functioning, and focus better during the day.The same benefits are likely to apply to runners of any age.
Running can significantly improve cardiovascular health.
Shutterstock
We know that aerobic activity is good for the heart, so it’s no surprise that running can improve cardiovascular fitness. In general, the more people run, the healthier their hearts tend to be. But you can get big benefits without having to do a lot: running just five minutes per day could add years to your life, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
There has been some concern that extreme amounts of running — we’re talking ultramarathon distances — could stress or scar the heart. But a growing body of research seems to indicate that’s not something to worry about. Researchers have found that people who run at least 40 miles per week have healthier hearts than those who run 13 miles a week, for example.
Running can improve your mind at any age and fight age-related cognitive decline.
Simon Bruty/Getty Images
If you want to keep your mind healthy as you age, research indicates exercising is one of the best things you can do.
A review of research on the cognitive-boosting effect of aerobic exercise (which in many studies was either running, jogging, or brisk walking) found that for children, running improved working memory and focus. For young adults, working memory saw a similar boost — as did task-switching ability.
For older adults, this sort of activity provides a long list of cognitive benefits, including working memory, focus, and task switching.
Running changes the brain in ways that make it more resistant to stress.
Shutterstock
A number of studies have shown that aerobic exercise can improve people’s ability to cope with stress — and many of those studies focus on runners. In a review of research about exercise and stress published in Clinical Psychology Review, author Peter Salmon concludes that this “training recruits a process which confers enduring resilience to stress.”
Researchers think this may be because aerobic exercise increases levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine, and causes the brain to generate new neurons.
Running is a great way to burn calories.
Shutterstock
At a pace of 5 mph (about a 12-minute mile), a 160-pound person will burn 606 calories an hour — and a 200-pound person will burn 755 calories in that hour.
Going faster, at 8 mph (a 7:30 mile), those people would burn 861 and 1,074 calories, respectively.
Running and other forms of aerobic exercise significantly reduce your chances of death.
Shutterstock
Getting 30 minutes or more of aerobic exercise on a regular basis makes people significantly less likely to die from any cause. Getting an hour or more of movement is even better, according to some research.
People who meet these exercise guidelines are significantly less likely to develop a number of forms of cancer, according to a major review of research.
For many people, the easiest way to get all these benefits of exercise is to get out and start running, according to Business Insider
Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways completed its long-delayed maiden commercial flight on Wednesday, heightening competition in the aviation sector of the Southeast Asian nation that is emerging as a popular tourist destination.
The inaugural flight of the airline, owned by property and leisure firm FLC Group, landed at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International airport at 0830 local time after taking off from Ho Chi Minh City, Bamboo Airways said in a statement. It carried 180 passengers and five crew members.
The startup airline secured an Air Operator Certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam earlier this month, allowing it to start services after having postponed its launch date twice.
Bamboo Airways becomes the fifth Vietnamese airline, at a time aviation competition in the country is heating up while its aviation infrastructure is getting overloaded. Other domestic airlines are Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific Airlines, Vietjet Aviation and Vietnam Air Services Co.
CPTPP would create fierce competition in the domestic market in 2019.
According to calculations, CPTPP could help Vietnam’s GDP and exports increased by 1.32% and 4.04% to 2035 respectively. In general, the overall implementation of CPTPP is beneficial for Vietnam. If there are larger openings on services, the increase in GDP growth may reach 2.1%.
The textiles and footwear industry would be the sectors rated as having the highest benefit. The export growth rate of the textile and garment industry would increase from 8.3-10.8% due to greater price competitiveness in new markets in CPTPP, while maintaining the main market of the US and EU. Most light and labor-intensive industries still benefit from CPTPP. The agreement could create additional growth for this sector from 4-5% and the increase in exports could reach from 8.7-9.6%.
Due to the impact of CPTPP, the output growth rate of some industries may decrease, including animal husbandry, food processing and insurance services. Animal husbandry is a sector that is heavily affected by CPTPP due to its weak competitiveness. In agriculture, except for rice, the current tariffs of countries with livestock products are not high, so lowering tariffs in CPTPP does not create much export impact. The growth rate of the food processing industry decreased at 0.37% -0.52%. However, it helps to increase exports by 2.18% to 2.35%.
Vietnam macro-economic outlook for 2019 in numbers.
GDP growth: GDP in 2018 surged at 7.08%, thanks to contributions from manufacturing and processing. Forecast of GDP growth in 2019 would reach 6.6 – 6.8%.
Inflation: The average CPI in 2018 reached 3.54%, under the increasing pressure of gasoline, medical and food prices. CPI in 2019 is forecast at 3.8 – 4.0%.
Monetary policy: Monetary policy in 2018 is prudent with M2 growth and credit decline sharply compared to 2017. It is forecasted that in 2019, monetary policy would continue to be carefully controlled by the State Bank, M2 growth and credit are forecast at 11-13% and 13-15% respectively.
Exchange rate: VND depreciated by 2.4% in 2018 due to the influence of peripheral factors. The estimated depreciation in 2019 would be about 2.3 -2.5%.
By 2019, competitions in the e-commerce industry would be more intense.
2018 was a vibrant year of e-commerce development in Vietnam. With a number of users of more than 50 million, E-commerce in Vietnam is being highly appreciated in the international arena, located in the three countries with the fastest e-commerce development in the region. As forecast, with the growth rate of over 20% per year, the scale of Vietnam E-commerce market could reach 10 billion USD by the end of 2020.
The highlights of E-commerce 2018 can be summarized in 4 main keys.
Firstly, the fierce competition among typical e-commerce exchanges such as Lazada, Shopee, Tiki, Sendo, Adayroi, etc.
Second, online advertising was increasingly competitive.
Third, non-cash mobile payment had developed strongly, reaching the goal by the end of 2020.
Fourth, the war of delivery services among e-commerce transport units.
11 illegal Vietnamese migrant workers have been caught hiding in a cargo truck in Taiwan’s Taitung County.
The Central News Agency reported Monday that nine of the immigrants were among the 152 who went missing in a dramatic vanishing act last month, citing county police.
The 11 people were discovered when the cargo truck was stopped on Heping Road in Pingnan Township. Police got suspicious on detecting movement under the black tarp that the truck was covered with.
One of the 11 had absconded from his workplace, one woman had entered Taiwan illegally on a tourist visa and the other nine were the aforementioned ‘missing’ tourists. The 11 Vietnamese nationals were not able to provide proper identification documents, local police reported.
They told police they were on their way to do some weeding on a farm when they were detained. They were dressed in farming work clothes with rain boots, police said.
However, initial investigations have revealed that most of the detained people weren’t hired by local farmers, but by brokers who rented land for planting, police said.
Last month, news of the 152 Vietnamese tourists who ‘vanished’ in Taiwan made global headlines, shocking the public and authorities in both Taiwan and Vietnam. They initially went to Taiwan via a special visa program with simplified procedures.
Later investigations showed several of the ‘missing’ tourists were actually looking to stay and work in Taiwan illegally.
In response, Taiwanese authorities temporarily suspended visa applications of the travel agencies responsible for the missing tourists, and shortened the length of visas issued to Vietnamese, among other measures.
As of last Sunday, 70 of the 152 Vietnamese tourists were still at large in Taiwan. Authorities have said they will be deported and banned from re-entry for an unspecified amount of time for violating Taiwan’s Immigration Law.
In recent years, Taiwan has emerged as a promising destination for Vietnamese workers looking for jobs overseas. Last year, Vietnam sent around 65,000 workers to Taiwan, nearly half of all the workers it sent overseas.
Hotel room rates in Hanoi and HCMC, at around $110 a night, are the second most expensive in Southeast Asia behind only Singapore. Real estate services firm CBRE Vietnam said at a recent conference that the performance of the four- and five-star hotel segments was very strong in 2018 due to limited supply but constantly increasing demand.
By the end of the year the average rent in this segment reached $112.6 in Hanoi and $114.1 in HCMC.
High-end rooms in Hanoi number 7,770, of which two thirds are in the five-star category, and their average occupancy rate last year was 78.4 percent.
Most of them are concentrated in the downtown area and Ba Dinh, a central district where most government offices and embassies are located.
CBRE said in recent years sharing economy models like AirBnB have been trending, with AirBnB supply in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City topping 24,000 units compared to 17,500 four- to five-star hotel rooms.
“However, despite the rapid growth of this model, room-sharing has not a clear impact on business in the four-five-star segment.”
As of 2017 there were 118 five-star hotels/resorts in Vietnam, almost twice the number in 2013.
They had an occupancy rate of over 75 percent, 5 percentage points up from 2016, according to global consulting firm Grant Thornton.
Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) statistics show an upsurge in the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam in the last few years. Last year 15.5 million came to the country, a 20 percent rise from 2017.
The central coast is being damaged by too many resort projects.
A large area in Vinh Hai Commune, Thua Thien-Hue Province, eroded and swept away by a huge wave. The locals have to use sandbags and bamboo sticks to create a makeshift dyke.
A coastal section in Vinh Hai Commune is still eroding despite reinforcement. The restaurants by the beach are mostly deserted, a part of the beach in Phu Loc District and the casuarina forest have been damaged by the waves.
The sea already encroached upon the beach restaurants along Hoang Sa and Vo Nguyen Giap streets in Danang City. Several beaches including Sao Bien and Son Thuy are no longer used.
Cua Dai Beach in Quang Nam Province has been heavily damaged for years. In the past day, erosion continued to occur from Hoi An Beach Hotel to Marriott Hoi An Hotel Project. The embankment was damaged and restaurants were empty as five metres of erosion occurred.
Hoi An Chairman Nguyen Van Dung said a 7-km-long beach had eroded because ocean currents had moved differently due to sand dredging projects and random embankments made by various resort projects. “Once we have a comprehensive solution to deal with erosion, the resorts’ embankments must be destroyed and rebuilt,” he said.
Tang Quoc Chinh from the General Department of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said beach erosion in the central coast had become more severe and complicated. There are at least 45 erosion spots on just 80 kilometres of beach. 25 of the spots, such as Cua Dai Beach, are facing so severe erosion that the local lives, belongings and infrastructure can be damaged.
According to Chinh, there are numerous reasons for such severe erosion, from building canals to destroying protected forests. Too many resorts on the beach also prevent accretion of sand. He went on to say that the investors built random erosion control constructions which were not guided by local authorities and worsened the situation.
“There used to a vast casuarina forest and sand dunes along the central coast which kept everything in balance until hotels and resorts sprouted up,” he said.
Ho Duy Diem from the Vietnam Association for the Protection of Basin and Sea Strip added hydropower dams on the Vu Gia-Thu Bon River system to the list. The hydropower dams may be hindering sedimentation downstream and were responsible for severe erosion at Cua Dai Beach.
He also agreed that too many resorts with embankments were ruining the natural balance. He suggested trying to prevent hydropower projects and those affecting the coast.
Bamboo Airways has set 16 January as its launch date, one week after gaining its air operator’s certificate (AOC) from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), and sticking to its previous announcement of a mid-January launch.
In a statement, the carrier states it will operate on a hybrid business model, offering economy and business class cabins on its aircraft. Flights will operate out of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to various domestic points in Vietnam. Subsequently, it is looking to operate international services.
Prior to obtaining its AOC from the CAAV, the airline was also approved as an aircraft maintenance organisation, it adds.
Bamboo’s own booking engine indicates that the initial flights will be operated out of Hanoi to seven domestic points. For flights out of Ho Chi Minh City, it will be linked to Hanoi and Quy Nhon.
Flight Fleets Analyzer shows that five Airbus A320 family jets – one A319 and four A320s – will see leases start with the carrier on 15 January 2019. The lease of another A320 will commence on 25 January.
Two A320s and the A319 are managed by Standard Chartered. Dragon Aviation Leasing manages one of the remaining A320s, and Aviation Capital Group another A320. The last A320 is managed by Lithuania’s Small Planet Airlines.
None of the six jets has received a Vietnamese registration. The A319 is equipped with 128 seats in a two-class configuration, with eight in business class and 120 in economy. Three of the A320s have 180 seats in an all-economy configuration. The remaining two A320s have 159 seats in an all-economy configuration.
In addition, three on-order A320neos managed by CDB Aviation are scheduled to start their leases in October 2019.
The airline also has letters of intent for 24 A321neos and 20 Boeing 787-9s.
After Cathay Pacific accidentally listed some first-class and business tickets at a discount of up to 95% at the start of the month, the airline tweeted a sheepish “#lessonlearnt.“
Except, it would seem, the lesson hadn’t quite sunk in. The Hong Kong-based airline has repeated the blunder, selling business class tickets from Portugal to Hong Kong at about 14% of their usual price. Screenshots obtained by the South China Morning Post show a one-way business class flight from Lisbon to London on a partner airline, followed by a Cathay Pacific flight from London to Hong Kong, listed for sale at just $1,512.
For comparison, a business class flight January 18 on the same route is now on sale at $10,950.60, while flights in the following months are priced similarly.
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the airline attributed the unusually low fares to an “input issue” and said they were withdrawn from sale once the error became apparent. “We are looking into the root cause of this incident both internally and externally with our vendors,” the spokesperson said.
Good news for the keen-eyed passengers who bought the discounted tickets, however: mirroring its response earlier this month, Cathay Pacific will honor the erroneous prices. “For the very small number of customers who have purchased these tickets, we look forward to welcoming you on board to enjoy our premium services,” the spokesperson confirmed. On January 1, the airline inadvertently listed heavily discounted flights between Vietnam and North America. A business-class ticket from Da Nang to New York’s JFK airport, for instance, was offered at $675, compared with a normal price of about $16,000.
Others found business-class fares from Hanoi to New York for only $1,100, and first-class tickets between Hanoi and Vancouver for just $988. “We made a mistake but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued,” the airline tweeted on January 2.
