For Ms Vietnam-Universe to land on the top 5 of the 2018 Ms Universe competition surprises no one.
H’Hen Nie already captured the glare of the limelight and the hearts of millions of viewers even before any results of the competition were announced.
Owing to her composed manner and unruffled approach of Ms USA’s racist remarks which specifically mocked her English-speaking skills, she won the adulation of people all over the world. The global audience saw in Ms Vietnam the grace, the poise, and the spunk expected of an international beauty queen, and they loved her for it.
According to a report by Staff Reporter 2 of The Independent Singapore, this beauty queen who came from a place replete with Buddhist pagodas captivated viewers during the pageant’s competition on December 17 when she came out the first candidate from Vietnam to make it to the top 5. She was loved further when she deviated from the classic beauty queen uniform and rocked a pixie cut and a crop-top and pants ensemble.
The video had over 7million views and the interest continues to rise. This fascination in Ms Vietnam multiplied when it was known that she donated the US$10,000 prize she got from the competition to less privileged children so that they can go to school. She likewise did not hide the fact that she worked as a nanny and domestic helper for her to be able to finance her own education and so that she can pursue her dream of becoming a beauty queen.
H’hen is part of the Rade people, a cultural minority in Central Vietnam. She is one of 6 children of farmers, and, as she shared in a video posted by Miss Universe, her parents are still living in their hometown in rural Vietnam.
“From nothing, I am here. You can do it.” This statement was part of Miss Vietnam-Universe’ opening statement after she made it through the Top 20 of the 2018 Miss Universe competition.
The latest FIFA rankings have been released, with quite a few movers and shakers. Among the teams in the ASEAN region, Vietnam retained their spot in the top 100 after a successful 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup campaign while Indonesia were the major gainers.
According to a report on FoxSport Asia, Philippines have not had the greatest month, first crashing out of the 2018 Suzuki Cup in the semifinal and now dropping two spots in the FIFA rankings to 116.
Among the ASEAN teams, Indonesia were the only gainers, moving up one spot to 159.
Thailand, Myanmar, Singapore and Malaysia all remained static at 118, 139, 165 and 167 respectively.
Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and Timor-Leste too saw no changes in their rankings, staying put at 172, 184, 195 and 196 respectively to round off the bottom.
The top 10 teams in the ASEAN region are as follows:
There are over 800 agricultural, forestry and seafood products in the Vietnam’s market, however just 50 have a Geographical Indication, and 140 registered for intellectual property rights.
Among which, just few have been registered for IP protection abroad, inclusive of Ban Me Thuot coffee, Binh Thuan dragon fruit and the Lo Ren star apple.
According to SGGP, many well-known specialties without IP registration have been rampantly faked, like Nang Thom Cho Dao rice and pangasius fish. Some specialties have even been faked abroad, leading to huge losses in time and money for Vietnam to reclaim the brand names.
Foreign firms have imported many Vietnamese farm produce, only to process and market these under their own brand names.
Despite having many delicious farm produce; localities, businesses and farmers have not interested in IP protection registration. Therefore, , Vietnam is still behind Thailand in the Southeast Asia region in the number of products with protected Geographical Indication.
Many products have been registered for name and Geographical Indication protection but their brand names and labels have not been built up.
A representative from Hoang Phat Company in Long An province said that because dragon fruits of the company have good quality so farmers have “borrowed” its variety to grow and market it without paying royalties. The company has had authorized agencies intervene and handle but procedures have been complicated.
Professor Vo Tong Xuan from Can Tho University, told sggpnews.org.vn that currently IP registration procedures are too complicated for farmers. They should be simplified to suit the current situation of Vietnam. Many farmers have created new plant varieties but been short of financial source and knowledge to do registration procedures. That will affect operations encouraging farmers to create new varieties with unprotected study copyrights.
Officials in Danang have raised concerns about the increased problems of flooding and environmental issues in the city.
Nguyen Thanh Tien, head of the urban department under Danang People’s Council, said the authorities had invested VND5.2trn (USD222.66m) in three drainage projects in the past 20 years. However, the city’s drainage system is still out-dated and couldn’t cope with the rains on December 9 and 10.
Urbanisation has reduced the number of lakes from 42 to 30. Meanwhile, the authorities haven’t dredged and maintain the lakes for a long time.
“Over VND80bn (USD3.40m) spent on dredging the sewers so we must inspect the final work. We must review the drainage system, build anti-flood plan and investment wisely,” said Nguyen Nho Trung, chairman of Danang People’s Council.
After the plan to turn Danang into an environmentally-friendly city was issued in 2008, the authorities have successfully dealt with 7 out of 13 severely polluted locations. VND2.1trn (USD90m) have been spent on 2016-2018 period and VND6.8trn will be the investment for 2018-2020 period.
To Van Hung, director of Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said 900 to 1,000 tonnes of rubbish was discharged every day. The Asian Development Bank estimated that by 2025, the city will discharge up to 1,800 tonnes of rubbish daily. There are over 2.7 million tonnes of rubbish at Khanh Son Dumping Ground and the city will need an average of VND300bn (USD13m) to deal with its annual amount of rubbish.
He went on to say that many people still think that dealing with environmental issues were the responsibilities of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and related agencies alone.
“The public must understand that it’s also their responsibility and other agencies must collaborate to deal with the problems,” he said.
Starting from 2019, Danang authorities will implement litter classification plan at homes across the city as an attempt to cut costs of rubbish disposal.
Hanoi Sewage and Drainage Ltd. Company have recommended using water from the Red River to supply West Lake and to clean To Lich River. The company on Wednesday held a seminar on solutions to improve the quality of West Lake’s water in a sustainable way.
At the meeting, the company chairman Vo Tien Hung said that West Lake’s water level has sharply decreased over the recent years due to evaporation and the underground osmosis. Rainwater is now the only supply for the lake.
However, in the dry season, rainwater is limited, affecting the lake. Meanwhile, West Lake is being severely polluted.
“West Lake could die if the pollution is not dealt with and the water level continues to fall,” Hung said.
According to Hung, adding water into the West Lake is an urgent need. He suggested three main sources for this, consisting of using underground water through wells, water from Nhue River through canal systems and water from Red River.
Scientists agreed on using water from the Red River for West Lake and To Lich River.
Prof. Duong Thanh Luong who worked at Thuy Loi University said that the alluvium in the Red River was on the fall. This is not good for agricultural production but could be used for West Lake and To Lich River.
“The lower alluvium will help to take water from Red River to the West Lake and To Lich River easier, but the Red River’s water level has tended to fall so it is necessary to consider the amount to be taken as well as the suitable time for the work,” Luong noted.
Professor Mai Dinh Yen, vice chairman of the Vietnam Ecology Association, advocated the use of the Red River’s water for the West Lake annually. He, however, said the work needs to ensure the safety for plants and animals in the lake.
Associate Prof. Ung Quoc Dung, former deputy headmaster of the National University of Civil Engineering University, said that Hanoi should have measures to add water to West Lake and clean the To Lich River.
A bank CEO and real estate tycoon have been found guilty in a $154 million graft case. The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court Thursday sentenced former CEO of DongA Bank Tran Phuong Binh, fallen Da Nang real estate tycoon Phan Van Anh Vu and 24 others to various prison terms in a massive graft case that is said to have caused losses of more than $154 million for the bank.
Binh, 59, who was arrested in 2016, will spend the rest of his life behind bars for “deliberately violating state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences” and “abusing position and power to appropriate assets,” the court ruled.
He is held mainly responsible for losses of nearly VND3.5 trillion ($153.8 million) at the partly state-owned bank, which was incurred as the bank had paid interest to customers beyond the regulated rates, committed violations in foreign currency and gold trading, and got involved in a share-buying scheme.
Vu, 43, received 17 years for “abuse of power to appropriate property.”
According to the indictment, in 2013, DongA Bank planned to raise its charter capital from VND5 trillion ($220 million) to VND6 trillion despite having several financial issues. To achieve this goal, Binh convinced Vu to buy 60 million shares in the bank for VND600 billion.
To raise cash for the deal, Vu mortgaged a plot of land with the bank to secure a VND400 billion loan. Binh then had his subordinates falsify paperwork for the remaining VND200 billion ($8.8 million).
However, the plan to raise the bank’s capital fell through, so Binh instructed his staff to transfer VND600 billion plus interest to Vu’s company, although the latter had only paid VND400 billion to the bank in the original share purchase deal.
Investigators concluded that Vu had misappropriated VND200 billion from the bank. He has admitted to this, but claimed he had only been following Binh’s instructions.
He also repaid the money to minimize the damage incurred by the bank.
The rest of the money is no longer retrievable, investigators said.
At the Thursday trial, Nguyen Thi Kim Xuyen, former deputy chief executive officer of DongA Bank, got a 30-year jail term for serving as Binh’s accomplice. Other defendants received between two-year suspended sentence and 16 years in jail as the trial closed after three weeks.
Dong A Bank came under the spotlight in 2014 when it posted a pre-tax profit of just VND35 billion ($1.5 million), down 96 percent from 2013.
The bank was placed under special monitoring in August 2015 after an investigation by the central bank uncovered several violations in financial management, lending and other business activities, seriously affecting the bank’s financial situation and operations.
Vu was one of the biggest property investors in Da Nang. He was the chairman of three major property companies and a shareholder in a number of other projects in the city, usually considered the third most important locality in Vietnam after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
He was arrested in January after being deported from Singapore, and is already serving an eight-year sentence for “deliberately disclosing state secrets.”
Since his arrest, Vietnam has arrested or opened probe against several senior officials accused of involvement in businesses or schemes controlled by him, including two former chairmen of Da Nang, a former deputy chairman of Ho Chi Minh City and two former deputy police ministers.
The anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Party chief and President Nguyen Phu Trong started with the state-run oil industry, but has since expanded to security, banking and land sectors.
Many deals struck this year to come to completion next year, according to Baker McKenzie report.
M&As in Vietnam are forecast to reach $4.1 billion in 2019 and domestic IPOs $4.5 billion, according to the recent Global Transactions Forecast Report from Baker McKenzie.
“Notwithstanding a solid domestic economy, Vietnam still sees some cooling in M&A deals during 2018, and we now expect completed M&A deals to come in at under $3 billion for the year,” the report noted. “But a number of deals announced in 2018 will be completed in the coming year, indicating that M&A deal numbers will rebound in 2019.” With reforms to further facilitate foreign investment now underway and with the ratification of the CPTPP, inbound investment in particular is expected to accelerate through 2019-2021. Meanwhile, the report added, the strength in IPOs seen through 2018 is set to continue, and more State divestments from major State-owned firms will be seen in the coming few years.
M&As in the Asia-Pacific have increased in value in 2018, in line with Baker McKenzie’s expectations. Chinese domestic M&As cooled, partly driven by tighter credit conditions, but inbound M&As have gathered pace as overseas firms’ move to protect access to the Chinese market in the event of future trade barriers. India has seen a particularly strong year, with total M&As of around $80 billion. Japan and Australia have both seen stronger inbound and domestic activity this year.
Moving into 2019, underlying conditions for M&As appear solid, with most emerging Asia-Pacific economies being better insulated against US Fed rate hikes than in the past, though they remain vulnerable to US protectionism. Japan is set for an economic rebound and Australia is expected to enjoy robust growth. M&As in Vietnam and India will benefit from important policy reforms, which should make inbound investment more attractive, according to the report. Meanwhile, in China, consolidation in heavy industry and upgrading manufacturing capabilities will be key structural drivers of M&As in 2019 and beyond. But with growth shifting towards a new normal of around 6 per cent and the government seeking to further reduce financial risk via slower credit growth, M&A value in China is forecast to remain noticeably lower than in 2015-2016.
The depreciation of several key currencies in the region (including China’s renminbi) against the dollar in the closing stages of this year will also undermine the dollar value of Asia-Pacific deals in 2019. “We forecast total M&As in the region to rise to $751 billion in 2019. But as in other parts of the world, growth is slowing, meaning equity markets and deals are likely to take a pause in 2020. A modest upturn in growth in 2021 and the stabilization of global liquidity conditions point to a cyclical deal upturn the following year.”
For years, Facebook gave many large technology companies special access to users’ information. Here’s how it worked.
Facebook for years gave major tech companies, including Yahoo and Netflix, greater access to people’s data than it disclosed, a New York Times investigation found. The partnerships helped Facebook draw new users, ramp up its advertising revenue and embed itself on sites across the web.
This is how some of the key deals worked.
Yahoo
In 2011, when Yahoo and Facebook announced their partnership, social networking features were seen as crucial to attracting users to existing websites. In a news release that September, Yahoo announced that it was “putting people’s friends front and center to usher in an innovative way of connecting around content socially.”
Yahoo said people who opted in to its new features would see their Facebook friends and the articles those friends had read, in a “facebar” at the top of the Yahoo News site.
As with many social features from that time, the integration did not work as well as the companies had hoped, and it soon ended. Yet Yahoo maintained special data access for more than 80,000 accounts, according to internal Facebook documents reviewed by The Times. As recently as this summer, Yahoo was able to view a stream of posts from these people’s friends, and it is unclear what the company did with that information. A Yahoo spokesman said the company did not use the information for advertising.
Netflix and Spotify
A man scrolls through a selection of viewing choices on the Netflix Inc. application on a tablet device in this arranged photograph in London, U.K. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Netflix and Spotify received access to people’s Facebook messages as part of features that allowed people to suggest movies, TV shows and music to friends. On Netflix, for example, after watching a show, a viewer would be prompted to connect to Facebook and recommend it.
Netflix promoted the arrangement in 2014 as more privacy-sensitive than posting people’s viewing habits on their Facebook pages. Using Facebook Messenger allowed people to “easily, and privately, recommend the shows you love to the people you care about,” Netflix said in a 2014 blog post.
To accomplish such sharing, the Netflix application had to be able to send Facebook messages. But Netflix was given the ability not only to send private messages but also to read, write and delete them, and to see all participants on a thread. A Netflix spokesman said the company was not aware it had been granted such broad powers and had used the access only for messages sent by the recommendation feature.
Netflix deactivated the feature about a year after it was introduced, but documents show that the company still had access to users’ messages in 2017.
Spotify, which continues to offer its own similar recommendation feature, also said it was unaware of the special access.
‘Instant Personalization’
Facebook, in a quest to bind other corners of the web to its social network, shared data with several major websites in a program called “instant personalization.” These partners, which included Microsoft’s Bing search engine and Rotten Tomatoes, the movie and television review site, got access to users’ names, gender, profile photos and any other information they had made public.
Beginning in 2010, if people visited one of those partner sites while logged in to Facebook, a blue bar on the screen would let them know the site was receiving their Facebook data to personalize what they saw. For example, people might see what movies their friends liked, or get tailored search results based on preferences gleaned from Facebook.
Facebook eventually wound down instant personalization, but it continued to allow some sites, including Bing and Rotten Tomatoes, access to much of the same data they had been getting for the discontinued feature.
‘People You May Know’ The internal documents shed light on a Facebook feature called “People You May Know,” a friend-suggestion tool that has long confused and unsettled users.
Gizmodo and other outlets have reported that the tool has recommended connections between patients of the same psychiatrist, estranged family members and people who had simply been in the same location, prompting suspicions that the company was closely tracking users’ whereabouts, listening to their conversations and more.
In some deals, Facebook shared information with other companies and in turn received people’s contact details — data Facebook used to develop complex friend network models and suggest more connections, the documents show. The partners that fed information to the tool included Amazon, Yahoo and the Chinese company Huawei.
The New York Times The Times, one of nine media companies named in the documents, developed a social-sharing application called TimesPeople in 2008.
The tool incorporated Facebook friend lists and allowed people to share articles and make recommendations to other readers. The feature was shut down in 2011, but The Times continued to have access to friend lists until 2017. The Times spokeswoman said they were unaware of the continued access and were not receiving any data for the feature from Facebook.
A floating object discovered off Phu Yen Province in south-central Vietnam on Tuesday has been identified as a torpedo used in training by a foreign navy, Vietnamese authorities announced on Wednesday.
A Vietnamese fisherman found a cigar-shaped metal object adrift on Tuesday while fishing approximately four nautical miles off the coast of Phu Yen Province.
The object, later identified by naval officers as a training torpedo, measures 6.8 meters long and 54 centimeters in diameter, with propellers installed at its tail and Chinese characters written on its body.
The man brought the object to a beach in Tuy An District in Phu Yen on Wednesday, where naval officers conducted a thorough examination, said Bui Van Thanh, chairman of Tuy An District.
Although Chinese characters are found on the torpedo’s body, authorities have been unable to tie the weapon to any particular country, Thanh said.
It is still unclear whether the torpedo is just a dummy weapon or if it is actually capable of detonation.
Senior Colonel Nguyen Van Minh, commander of Phu Yen’s Border Guard, said the torpedo was set to be handed over to the Vietnam Navy on Wednesday evening.
However, due to complications with the paperwork, the transfer has been delayed until Thursday morning, according to a source of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.
With 80 million magnetic cards in circulation, commercial banks would have to spend trillions of dong to convert them into chip cards to ensure security.
According to the State Bank of Vietnam, by the end of the third quarter, commercial banks had issued 147 million payment cards of different kinds.
However, according to the Vietnam Card Association, about 50 million cards have been abandoned or inactivated, which means that about 100 million cards are in use.
Of the 100 million cards, 80 percent are magnetic, which are believed to have low security level. In developed countries, magnetic cards are no longer in use and have been replaced with chip cards.
Le Huynh Ha from Vietcombank HCMC, said that over 4 million Vietcombank cards need to be converted into chip cards.
With the standards of domestic chip cards set by the State Bank, commercial banks can order chip card products from overseas as the standards are equal to EVM standards of international chip cards.
The banks need to upgrade technology, calculate costs, register and inform customers about the conversion process that fits Vietnamese conditions.
While there is no technological problem in the process, the high cost of the conversion campaigns will be a headache to banks. According to Vietcombank, the minimum cost is VND70,000 for one chip card.
A senior executive of Eximbank said the fear was that it would be costly to convert 2 million cards of the bank into chip cards.
“With the average cost of VND70,000, it would cost VND5.6 trillion to convert 80 million cards existing in the banking system into chip cards.
Sacombank said it had finished the technology upgrade for the conversion from magnetic to chip cards. In the immediate time, the conversion will be applied to expired magnetic cards.
ACB Bank believes that chip cards will help increase the number of transactions at Points of Sale. The chip cards have a high level of security equal to international credit cards. Once banks have higher revenue from POS, they will have money to partially cover the expenses for card conversion.
An executive of Sacombank said with 3 million cards to be converted, the bank will have to spend trillions of dong, so it needs more time to think about whether to collect a fee from cardholders.
“The cardholders who are loyal clients who regularly make transactions with cards may be exempted from a conversion fee,” he said.
It is expected that 75 percent of ATMs and 100 percent of POS will have to accept domestic chip cards by the end of 2019.
State-owned MobiFone Telecommunications Corporation and private pay TV firm AVG on December 18 officially struck an agreement to terminate and liquidate a highly controversial deal in which Mobifone had illegally acquired a 95% stake in AVG, reported the local media.
Under the agreement, MobiFone, a unit of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), was paid back all the money it had spent on the deal.
The sum amounted to VND8.775 trillion (roughly US$362 million), including the VND8.445 billion it had spent on purchasing the majority stake in AVG and other additional costs. MobiFone has also returned 344.66 million AVG shares to the private firm’s shareholders.
MobiFone made headlines early in 2016 when it announced it was venturing into the pay TV market with its acquisition of the controlling stake in AVG. At the time, MobiFone expected the deal to help it gain an additional one million subscribers in 2016 and become one of Vietnam’s top three pay TV firms by 2020.
In March this year, the Government Inspectorate concluded that the deal, which had not been approved by then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, had violated investment laws and caused an estimated loss of some VND7 trillion (over US$300 million), including AVG’s liabilities of VND1.13 trillion, for the State budget.
The government watchdog found that the country’s third-largest telco had provided false and incomplete information and had falsified AVG’s financial status in its report to the MIC on the deal, which resulted in MobiFone paying VND8.89 trillion for the stake, well beyond its actual value.
The acquisition led to MobiFone’s poor performance from 2016 onward, with profits that year falling by VND321.7 billion against the previous year. As of late 2017, its accumulated losses amounted to more than VND1.98 trillion, which adversely affected its plan to go public.
MobiFone and AVG called off the deal in March this year, with AVG pledging to make a full refund. By May, AVG’s shareholders had returned more than VND8.5 trillion to MobiFone to reclaim the majority stake.
Since the Government probe, MobiFone has introduced innovations and reformed its organizational model and business units. After the difficult period, MobiFone said it had already met the profit target for this year.
In October, due to serious violations in the now-cancelled deal, Nguyen Bac Son, 65, was stripped of his title as the former Minister of Information and Communications for the 2011-2016 tenure, while his successor Truong Minh Tuan, who served then as deputy minister, lost his ministerial post.
One month later, former MobiFone General Director Cao Duy Hai and incumbent Deputy General Director Pham Thi Phuong Anh were arrested on mismanagement charges related to the infamous acquisition.
With a nine-point increase over the second quarter of 2018, due to growth in confidence over employment prospects and personal finances, Vietnam’s consumer confidence level has reached a peak for the past decade and the country has risen to second position globally, according to the latest issue of The Conference Board Global Consumer Confidence Survey, conducted in collaboration with global researchers Nielsen.
The report also showed that the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) in the Asia-Pacific region remained high, up two points from 112 points in the second quarter to 114 in the third quarter of 2018.
The report also showed that the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) in the Asia-Pacific region remained high, up two points from 112 points in the second quarter to 114 in the third quarter of 2018.
Vietnam and Malaysia’s CCI were 129 points and 127 points, respectively, surpassing Indonesia and the Philippines to be among the top three most confident countries globally.
Malaysia and Thailand saw the highest growth rate in the third quarter, up 10 percentage points; the highest in the world. Indonesia and the Philippines saw slight declines, of one point to 126, while Singapore grew four points to 98.
“Vietnam’s consumer confidence in the third quarter of 2018 was significantly higher than in the third quarter of 2017 (129 against 116) and reached a record nine-point gain over the second quarter of this year,” said Ms. Nguyen Huong Quynh, Managing Director of Nielsen Vietnam.
“This strong growth is a consequence of confidence in personal finances as well as the level of willingness to spend. It’s clear that consumer change is positive. Manufacturers and retailers need to capture the latest trends in the consumer market and need to act faster to respond to the needs of consumers.”
Vietnamese consumers continue to be optimistic about their personal finances, with 82 per cent saying their personal finances are “good” or “excellent” over the next 12 months (up 6 per cent vs. the second quarter,) and at the same time are ready to spend, with 63 per cent believing that the next 12 months will be a good time for them to buy the things that they want and need, (up 8 per cent against the second quarter).
“Although job stability and health are the two biggest concerns among Vietnamese consumers, compared with the previous quarter, interest in these two factors is more influenced by the economy, their family, and daily living expenses.” Ms. Quynh said.
“This means that when consumers face multiple concerns, their purchasing decisions are affected accordingly. Businesses must always keep a close track of changes in consumer spending.”
e-Commerce in Vietnam will surpass this year the 6,200 million dollars that it moved in 2017 and will reach 10 billion by 2020.
Their calculations are based on the growing purchasing power of the population and national trends in online purchases, as well as the high tenure of mobile and inter-phone services (53 and 57 per cent, respectively, in a population around of 94 million inhabitants).
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the best-selling products in this way are clothing (39 percent), cosmetics (28 percent) and food and beverages (25 percent).
A recent study by a US university revealed that Vietnam ranks 48th in terms of rapid change to the digital economy and 22nd in terms of digitization.
According to local experts, in 2020, just under a third of the country’s population will make their purchases online, with an average annual expenditure of 350 dollars per person.
James Kopenec, an US citizen, has become the 15 millionth foreign tourist visiting Vietnam on December 19.
Upon Kopenec’s arrival at the Ha Long international port, a special welcome ceremony was held for him and the other two lucky guests, who came out of the cruise before and after him – Annita De Vriesere from Belgium and Masahiko Nagaishi from Japan, respectively.
According to a report on VNS, a state-owned media, the three, visiting world heritage site Ha Long Bay, are on board a cruise trip, which travels through Singapore, Thailand’s Laem Chabang port city, Vietnam’s Phu My, Chan May and Ha Long, and Hong Kong.
A cruise in Halong Bay, Vietnam @ VTC
Recently, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a decision to establish a state-owned tourism development fund, following his approval of a project to restructure local tourism to turn it into a spearhead economic sector and make Vietnam one of the nations with the most developed tourism sector in Southeast Asia.
The project sets a target of 45 billion USD in tourism revenue by 2025. The sector is expected to serve 32 million foreign tourists and more than 130 million domestic visitors, contribute more than 10 percent to GDP and create 6 million jobs.
