Tokyo seeks to plant business seeds as Asian cities urbanize
Nikkei reported, Japan hopes to pave the way for its companies in Vietnam and other Asian markets by exporting techniques for real estate appraisal, creating opportunities by fostering urbanization and financial industries.
Vietnam’s northern coastal city of Haiphong will consider introducing the methods this summer with specialists commissioned by Japan’s land ministry. Property prices have seemingly been growing as the city urbanizes, but land prices provided by the Vietnamese government do not fully reflect actual market values, leaving the country without a benchmark to use in business.
The Japanese government looks to provide Vietnam with expertise on how to determine its official land prices, a basic guideline for real estate transactions, for free. It will offer calculation methods and help build information technology systems for computing prevailing prices. Appraisals, registration and other tasks will be covered as well.
The land ministry aims to stir more opportunities for Japanese companies. The initiative is expected to benefit a wide variety of businesses, including real estate developers, construction companies, systems developers and financial institutions that provide mortgages. Japan plans to expand it to Bac Giang Province in north Vietnam and Dong Nai Province in the south during fiscal 2019 and reach other countries as well.
Asia’s market for infrastructure development is growing as economies develop in the region. Japan aims to get ahead of rivals like South Korea in laying the groundwork for business.
General Motors (GM.N) has agreed to transfer its Vietnamese operation to VinFast Trading and Production LLC and distribute Chevrolet cars through the local carmaker, in a move that could help drive up its modest sales in the country.
The U.S. automaker will transfer full ownership of its Hanoi factory to VinFast for the Vietnamese firm to produce small cars under a GM global license from 2019, the companies said in a statement on Thursday, without disclosing a value for the deal.
As part of the deal, VinFast, a unit of Vietnam’s biggest private conglomerate – Vingroup JSC VIC.HM, will be the exclusive distributor of the Chevrolet in Vietnam.
“The GM-VinFast strategic partnership will best position the Chevrolet brand and dealer network for long-term growth in Vietnam by leveraging GM’s global scale and expertise, married with VinFast’s domestic strength and insight,” said Barry Engle, executive vice president and president of GM International.
The transfer, which includes GM’s Hanoi plant, dealer network and employee base, is expected to be conducted by the end of 2018, the companies said in the statement.
GM used its Hanoi plant to assemble Chevrolets with parts imported from South Korea – a country where the U.S. automaker came close to bankruptcy as it struggled to turn around its debt-laden unit. GM Korea is GM’s biggest production base in Asia excluding China.
The plant will be used solely to produce VinFast cars after the transfer, while Chevrolet cars will be imported.
VinFast said this partnership with GM was “integral” to its plan to “launch a portfolio of five VinFast vehicles in 2019”.
It is building a $1.5 billion factory in the northern province of Hai Phong and plans to launch a sedan and sport-utility vehicle in the third quarter of 2019, and a small car, electric car and electric bus by end-2019.
“Our vision is to build an automobile manufacturing eco-system that will include assembly plants, local automotive suppliers and dealers, and a string of supporting industries,” said VinFast CEO Jim DeLuca.
Vietnam’s automobile sales grew 24 percent in 2016 but fell 10 percent last year to 272,750 units, data from the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (VAMA) showed. Sales fell 6 percent in the first five months of 2018.
While GM’s sales in Vietnam have been rising since 2014, its numbers last year were only an eighth of the country’s market leader, local Truong Hai Auto Corp, and a sixth of runner up Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), VAMA data showed.
Sales of the Chevrolet, the only vehicle GM offers in Vietnam, grew 8.5 percent to 10,576 units in 2017, lagging gains of 34.5 percent in Indonesia and 25.7 percent in Thailand.
The company is a subsidiary of Vingroup, the largest private company in Vietnam
When people think about things that are made in Vietnam, cars probably don’t even rank as an afterthought, but a Vietnamese consortium known as Vingroup (aka the largest private enterprise in the country) is trying to change that.
According to a report by CNET, VinFast will be the country’s first high-volume producer of cars, and while we have no idea what kind of vehicles the company will be making, apparently we can expect to find out at the Paris Auto Show later this year.
The move to build cars in Vietnam is a big one, culturally, as the country is mostly known as a haven for motorcycles and scooters due to their low cost of ownership and Vietnam’s crowded streets. A shift to cars, if they’re meant to be sold domestically, could radically alter the way the country gets around.
This logo is pretty much all we’ve got in advance of the brand’s debut in Paris later this year.
VinFast already has a good start on things, having broken ground on its factory in Hai Phong City in September of 2017. While facts are thin on the ground here, the press release from VinFast’s new PR agency PFPR states that:
“VinFast products will share a number of characteristics and values: Vietnam, Style, Safety, Innovation, and Pioneering. Its cars will meet international standards and customer expectations in terms of premium design, quality, dynamics, in-car features and ownership experience.”
Precisely what that means is kind of nebulous, but the international standards bit is interesting. Will VinFast be able to carve a space for itself outside its home country with vehicle exports from China rapidly expanding?
Aerospace giant Boeing has agreed to sell 20 Dreamliner commercial jets to Vietnamese start-up airline Bamboo Airways in a deal worth up to $5.6 billion, the companies announced Monday, just weeks after the airline struck a similar $3 billion deal with French competitor Airbus.
The Washington Post reported, the new airline is a project of FLC Group, a publicly traded resort developer in Vietnam. FLC executives said they initially want to ferry tourists to their resorts in disparate parts of the country. But the choice to buy 787 Dreamliners — a wide-body airplane built for long-haul flights — hints at broader ambitions.
FLC Chairman Trinh Van Quyet said he wants to expand to 16 domestic routes and 10 international routes, starting with regional flights next year before later expanding to the United States and Europe.
“The deal with Boeing today is only the first step for us. We want to have more than 100 planes in the future,” he said.
The deal was celebrated in a signing ceremony at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce attended by Vuong Dinh Hue, Vietnam’s deputy prime minister. After the ceremony, the group held an investor conference at Trump International Hotel, where a stream of prepared videos praised FLC’s tourist resorts. Ted Osius, a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, joined a handful of U.S. and Vietnamese panelists to discuss the future of the country’s aviation industry.
Vietnam is still an officially socialist country with a largely state-controlled economy, but the government has undertaken reforms in recent years to attract foreign investment and tourism.
“Vietnam has great potential for aviation,” said Dang Tat Thang, Bamboo Airways’ newly appointed chief executive. “We chose the name Bamboo because we want to be the spirit of Vietnam.”
FLC Group is undertaking substantial risk by wading into the airline business in such spectacular fashion. While start-up airlines are not unheard of, placing such a large order without testing the market first is seen as highly unusual.
“To purchase twenty 787s indicates a degree of confidence — some would say arrogance — and very deep financial pockets,” said Henry Harteveldt, a commercial aerospace analyst with Atmosphere Research. “It indicates a willingness to ignore basic financial planning for an airline, where you usually buy a few and wait for the market to materialize. It’s a very bold, very risky move.”
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group, said he is skeptical that Vietnam’s aviation market can sustain another airline.
The country has three airlines regularly serving various parts of the country.
“You can lose an awful lot of money in the airline business. You’re putting all your eggs in one basket, and exposing yourself to an awful lot of expense and debt,” Aboulafia said. “But if you’re working in a controlled economy, it just might work out for you.”
General Motors is to transfer its Vietnam operation to local rival VinFast in a strategic partnership that will see the Vietnamese group become the country’s exclusive distributor of Chevrolet cars.
According to a report by Financial Times, the car-making arm of Vingroup, Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate, said on Thursday it would implement “a significant investment program” to launch next year an all-new, global small car licensed from GM and manufactured and sold under its own brand.
The Vietnamese company, which is already building a factory in the north of the south-east Asian country that will make mopeds and passenger cars, said the US group would become its preferred automotive technology partner, and that this would open “potential pathways for future product-sharing and technology transfer”.
The two sides, which did not reveal how much they would invest in the partnership, said GM’s operation in Vietnam, including its Hanoi plant, dealership network, and employee base, would be transferred to VinFast by the end of this year.
Jim DeLuca, VinFast chief executive, was a GM head of production before going to work for the fledgling Vietnamese brand.
Vietnam, with a population of 96m and a growing number of people graduating from two-wheeled transport into cars, has taken steps recently to protect its local car market, using non-tariff barriers to impede imports from Thailand — home to the region’s largest car industry — and other countries.
In response, some foreign carmakers have been looking for opportunities to produce or assemble cars locally. Japanese carmaker Mazda in March opened a factory in central Vietnam in partnership with Thaco, the country’s biggest carmaker.
For Vingroup, founded and chaired by Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s richest man, the deal with GM will mark a deepening commitment by the sprawling company to the promising but risky business of making cars. Vingroup styles itself as a “cradle to grave” provider of goods and services to Vietnamese consumers, with businesses in retail, real estate, education, and other areas. This month it said it had established a unit that will make and sell smartphones.
GM’s Hanoi plant made about 7,600 vehicles in 2017 but has the capacity to produce 30,000 a year, according to LMC Automotive.
“VinFast can use the GM facility to produce their car, and access to GM technology could help them lower research and development costs — one of the largest costs in the automotive industry,” said Titikorn Lertsirirungsun, manager of LMC Automotive in Bangkok. “This partnership means VinFast will not have to start from scratch manufacturing, a dealer network, and a supply chain.”
EDAG develops first EV for Vietnam Vinfast
VinFast is investing $1.5bn in the first phase of a program to make cars and mopeds at a greenfield factory on Cat Hai island near Haiphong in north-east Vietnam. The car brand has bought in technology and services from Germany’s BMW, Italian design house Pininfarina, and supplier groups Bosch and Siemens, among others, to produce two planned car models.
Stephen McKeever, head of sales with Ho Chi Minh City Securities, wrote in a recent note on VinGroup that it “ascribed zero value” to the VinFast car project, adding that this was “arguably generous” because of the likely scale of operating losses that would need to be incurred before it achieved the scale needed to reach profitability.
Vietnamese spend billions of dollars on smartphones, but they don’t spend money on locally branded products.
The latest report of GfK, a market analysis firm, showed that Vietnamese spent VND27.7 trillion to buy mobile phones in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 5.9 percent compared with the same period last year.
However, the money was not spent on Vietnamese products and the market share held by Vietnamese brands has shrunk rapidly.
Vietnamese products now account for 3 percent of total 3.8 million smartphones launched on the market, a 50 percent fall compared with the same period last year, according to Q1 report of IDC Indochina.
There are many reasons behind the poor performance of Vietnamese brands. First, the mobile phone market has become saturated with growth slowing down. Meanwhile, the market is flooded with Chinese products which have strong features and competitive prices. Second, the marketing cost for new products is very high.
Moreover, Vietnamese manufacturers are not capable of inventing a new product line with outstanding features. Their production capacity is also limited, which has prompted them to outsource to China and label the products with Vietnamese brands.
However, despite the failures, more Vietnamese investors still want to join the market.
Asanzo, the TV manufacturer which mostly sells products in rural areas, is one. The company has announced investment of $2 million to develop smartphone products.
However, Asanzo’s owner Pham Van Tam stated Asanzo will not survive only on smartphones. The smartphone projects will mainly serve branding. Asanzo’s products will be be available at retail chains in large cities, but will flow into rural markets.
As such, Asanzo has positioned itself as a low-cost mobile phone manufacturer. However, analysts have warned that the manufacturer will have to compete fiercely with Chinese models which are flooding the domestic market.
Many Vietnamese brands have failed when investing in the low-cost market segment, such as Q-Mobile, HKPhone and Masstel.
Even FPT, the largest IT group and Viettel, one of three largest mobile network operators, has not succeeded with their F-Mobile and Viettel Phone.
However, one Vietnamese mobile phone brand still exists – MobiiStar. According to GfK, the company sold 22,499 products in March, holding 2.27 percent of market share.
Most recently, the Vietnamese brand in the market announced a plan to export its products to India. The move was described as ‘carrying coal to Newcastle’ as India is also flooded with low-cost products made in India and sourced from China.
However, new-generation investors don’t intend to target the low-cost market segment. BKAV, for example, sells its products at VND10 million, while Viettel plans to launch the high-end model Viettel Luxury Phone.
Learning Vietnamese is not a speedy process, due to the complexity of its six tones and twelve vowels. But it can be as beautiful as it is challenging. Here are 18 words to persuade you how beautiful, charming, diverse and funny the language can be.
2017 was a year of revolution for women across the world.
Massive women’s marches were organised in international cities to bring light to the injustices that still face the female gender today. Social media has kept the flame burning by creating popular hashtags including actress Emma Watson’s #HeforShe male feminist tag, the #YesAllWomen flag where women disclosed stories of everyday sexism and now the #MeToo hashtag where women are talking about sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. #tòasoạnsạch, meaning “clean newsroom,” is the hashtag specific to Vietnam that was created in response to sexual harassment and abuse of Vietnamese news media employees.
In Vietnam as in other countries subjects about women’s roles in society and whether there is gender equality in the workplace are trending.
For good reason. Women are a force to be reckoned with in business.
A 2017 study by World Bank-Goldman Sachs shows that microenterprises—small businesses with no more than six employees, such as market shops, street food stalls—are the majority of female-run businesses in Vietnam, coming in at 57 percent.
A surprising report by Grant-Thorton Vietnam, which was presented in March at the event “Women in Business Strive for Excellence”, put on by the British Business Group Vietnam (BBGV), revealed that Vietnam offers women much more egality in the workforce than other neighbouring Asian countries. Ho Ngoc Anh, events and marketing manager for BBGV, was part of the team that organised the event. The panel included some of the top female leaders in Vietnam like Truc Nguyen, CFO of HSBC Vietnam and Tran Thi Than Mai, managing director of marketing agency Kantar TNS.
Ho said that one of the most interesting topics discussed was about the current gender balance in the workplace. Out of two equal candidates for a job—one male, one female—who would be more likely to be hired, the women leaders were asked. Almost all of the female respondents surprised the audience by saying it would be the woman.
Image source: psychbytes.com
“Confucius beliefs present in the Vietnamese culture have pushed men forward in the past”, Ho said. “Luckily, Vietnam has been trying to escape the Chinese way of thinking and has also been affected by French culture.” Important female figures such as the French suffragettes in the early 1900’s helped spur the feminist movement worldwide.
“We’ve become more and more open to opportunities for the ladies in the community. We also have very inspiring women, ambassadors in the United Nations, powerful women in business and female war heroes that stood up for their families”, Ho said.
Moreover, a survey in the report asked male and female employees in companies in Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam whether their companies had made progress in the last one to three years in terms of gender diversity. Respondents reported that 87 percent of men and 84 percent of women in Vietnam said their firms had become more inclusive compared to only 43 percent of women and 82 percent men in Singapore. In Malaysia, 54 percent of women and 79 percent of men reported their firm was progressing in terms of diversity.
From a jack hammer-wielding female emerging from a pit in a construction zone to women holding top roles in the government, such as Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, who is currently serving as Vice President of Vietnam, women are present in every sector and at every level of business.
Image source: mfa.go.th
75 percent of businesses in Vietnam have at least one woman in a senior management role and 25 percent are CEOs, these numbers are some of the highest in Southeast Asia.
Ho feels that there is still work to be done to make sure that women are getting paid equally for their work but the current climate is largely positive.
A Delicate Balance
Esther Lam is the co-owner and designer of Esther Lam Lingerie. The creations showcased on Lam’s website feature female models in ethereal lace held up by structured boning, the lingerie’s underwire skeleton. Lingerie is a distinctly female-oriented business but it is also one in which gender roles can be a topic of discussion, simply because women’s undergarments are fetishised and are said to be made for the male taste.
But Lam said she created her line out of “the desire for all girls to pamper their skin.” It is a brand for women created by women, and therein lies the strength.
Image source: upload.wikimedia.org
Lam believes sexism still exists in Vietnam because of the deep-seated traditions in the country. “There are surely cultural sensitivities about female identity, and Vietnamese women need to be more decisive but reasonable, and have intelligent methods of solving problems.”
When asked what challenges women face as business owners in Vietnam, Lam responded that “A woman has more roles to finish than just business ones. She has to learn how to harmonize with all roles in her life, or quit almost all to fulfil her dream.”
A Woman’s Place in the Home is Building It
Fong-Chan Paw Zeuthen’s design work is as complicated as she is—both strong and approachable, modern and nostalgic, Scandinavian and Asian. Zeuthen was born in Thailand and was then adopted by Danish parents; a translation error during the adoption made her name have a Chinese edge to it.
When asked whether she had ever considered changing her name, Zeuthen laughed. “No”, she said. She said she likes to walk into a room and not be what people expect her to be. Sometimes when she meets with major real estate developers, she’ll come into a meeting, the only woman surrounded by 20 men. She knows that often they’re expecting to meet with a Chinese man or even a white Dane but when an Asian woman appears unanticipated, Zeuthen said the surprise can be powerful.
This unpredictability is part of the approach that Zeuthen has used to rise up in a typically androcentric profession, a métier heavy in men: architecture and design.
Image source: thoughtco.com
Zeuthen came to Vietnam 16 years ago for a job as a furniture designer. Eight years later she began her own interior design and architecture business, KAZE. Since then Zeuthen has turned KAZE into a top design firm in Vietnam. Given the size and visibility of projects—from the Vinpearl Ha Thinh and Marriott Resort and Spa Hoi An to offices and private residences—, you’ve likely seen Zeuthen’s work before.
Zeuthen said that she owes a certain amount of her success to Vietnam itself. It is one of the few countries in Asia where women consistently hold the same jobs as men. Zeuthen opined that male and female roles interchange easily, more so than in other Asian countries, and perhaps that is because of Vietnamese history.
There has been a high presence of female fighters and workers in Vietnam’s past. From the Hai Ba Trung sisters, revolutionaries who led the people to take down the Eastern Han Dynasty to Nguyen Thi Dinh, the first female general in the Vietnamese People’s Army, the bravery of women in Vietnam has been well-documented. However, the modern boardroom is a different beast and both the women on the BBGV panel and Zeuthen mentioned that today the number one thing holding women back in business is their confidence.
“Women in business in Vietnam, and everywhere else in the world, need self-confidence to build up trust. Women need to start asking for what they want”, Zeuthen said.
Image source: wordpress.com
For example, Zeuthen said that men come to talk to her about salary and they walk in expecting a high number but they’ll negotiate. Whereas women “are not ready to fight for it. If they don’t get the salary they want from the beginning they walk away rather than fighting.”
Gender Equality, a Work in Progress
In many ways Vietnam is ahead of the curve in terms of gender equality in the workplace. One clear example is in the area of paid maternity leave.
Female workers in Vietnam are able to claim up to 6 months of full-pay leave through the national insurance system. The father is allowed 5 days paternity leave.
A typical allowance from other countries may be just 12 weeks or less of unpaid leave. “[Vietnam] is the most generous [country] for paid maternity leave in the region, and even in the world”, VN Express wrote in their 2017 coverage on the issue.
Vietnam, like most places in the world, is still a work-in-progress regarding women’s rights. However, women are out there, at the top, already moving the conversation forward.
Silicon Valley-headquartered Fenox Venture Capital has made its investment debut in Vietnam by backing Hanoi-based mobile top-up service firm OnOnPay.
OnOnPay’s existing investor Captii Venture also participated in this round, according to an announcement from Fenox.
Fenox VC Southeast Asia Regional Manager Retno Dewati earlier told DEALSTREETASIA that the VC firm would make the first investment in Vietnam this year by investing in a leading company.
“The investment in OnOnPay is a milestone to Fenox as it opens up more avenues of opportunities for us to tap into the potential of large Vietnam market,” said Dewati. “We are seeking to partner with other institutions to back Vietnamese entrepreneurs grow their business globally and we are ready to invest more in this country.”
Founded in 2015 as a mobile wallet operator, OnOnPay secured a six-digit amount in seed funding from Captii Ventures in 2015. The round marked the first ever investment by the Singapore-based venture capital fund in Vietnam.
A year later, OnOnPay landed an $800,000 pre-Series A funding led by Shanghai-headquartered VC firm Gobi Partners through its MAVCAP’s ASEAN SuperSeed Fund vehicle.
In an exclusive interview with the portal, Fenox Venture had said that it will relaunch its India-focused $50-million fund by the end of the current year. The India fund was put on hold in 2016 following the departure of a general partner hired to lead the fund.
Fenox, which raises capital only from corporate limited partners, is also looking at launching special investment funds in China. It has already established an accelerator in cooperation with the Chengdu government to invest $50,000 in each participating startup and provide mentoring for a few months.
In Vietnam, Fenox is also exploring tieups with local corporations to set up a dedicated private fund for the country. “We are targeting to close at least a couple of million dollars dedicated for Vietnamese companies,” Dewati said.
Young employees in Vietnam are seeking “retirement” benefits after being laid off by firms looking to save wages and social insurance costs.
The head of the Department of Labour Relations under the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL), Mr Ngo Duy Hieu, said at a National Assembly session last week that some companies, including those set up with foreign direct investment (FDI), had ended contracts with workers over 35 because they felt that some of the jobs “no longer” fit the workers’ ages.
One reason for this, he explained, was that some employers did not want to spend more on wages and social security.
The exit of workers aged 30-35 was brought about either through increased work pressure, or summary termination without an explanation, he said.
Ms Hong Hang, 35, used to work for a company in the North Thang Long Industrial Park in Hanoi, but resigned after she was transferred to another unit where she felt the job was not good for her.
Mr Hanh sees a pattern in companies getting rid of their employees in their thirties, either by not renewing short-term contracts or giving unsuitable jobs to those with long-term contracts to pressurise them to quit on their own.
Ms Hanh told the VnExpress newspaper that she was now looking for a job at the Dong Anh job promotion centre in the capital.
A VGCL survey on the reasons for termination of labour contracts by FDI firms found that 40 per cent of employees left their companies due to being forced to work overtime, or failure to meet high targets.
Another 15 per cent said they were told they were physically unfit for the job, while 13 per cent were given no explanation.
However, noting that there were no thorough statistics on employees in their 30s being sacked by firms with foreign direct investment, Deputy Minister of Labour Pham Minh Huan said that major layoffs of employees over 30 were specific to one place or sector.
“Hiring or firing is up to employers and employees to decide together. In a market economy, companies will expand production and recruit new employees when they make profit. But if they face market challenges and have to reduce production, they will lay off employees. It is inevitable,” said Mr Huan.
Regardless of the reason, the layoffs are having a big impact on the country’s welfare system, with the number of people claiming lump-sum social security payments increasing significantly, according to Mr Le Dinh Quang, deputy head of the labour relations department under VGCL.
In recent years, an average of 700,000 people have been submitting claims for lump-sum social security payments every year. That figure was 300,000 in the first five months of this year, with a large number of people from the 35-40 age bracket.
“More than 10,000 people have registered for unemployment benefits in Hanoi and 90 per cent of them are just over 35 years old,” said Mr Quang.
The situation was more pronounced in labour-intensive sectors like textiles and garments, footwear and seafood, he said, with many workers in these sectors resigning because they no longer had the health to perform their duties as well as they did in their 20s.
Firms also tried to persuade workers to leave the job and take the lump-sum health and social security payments to reduce the amount the companies had to contribute in this regard.
Mr Dao Viet Anh, the deputy general director of Vietnam Social Security, said the rise in the number of employees seeking early retirement and withdrawing funds from the social security scheme could lead to an imbalance in the pension fund.
Nevertheless, he said the social security reform plan has proposed to reduce the minimum compulsory time to pay for social security from 20 years to 15 years, with plans for a further reduction to 10 years.
A Vietnamese woman has won Mrs Worldwide 2018 for the first time after surpassing 24 other candidates across the world – Vietnam News reports
This is the first time Vietnam participated in such an international beauty pageant for ladies which took place on Sunday, and has surprisingly won the highest prize, local media reported.
Other winners were from South Africa, first runner-up and Russia, the second runner-up.
Linh, 35, also won two subordinate titles of People Choice and Special Queen Award at the contest, the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper reported.
The Vietnamese and 24 others candidates had attended common performances including those of traditional and evening costumes at the final round of the contest.
She chose a white ao dai designed by Kenny Thai for the traditional dress performance, the paper reported.
The costume’s idea was inspired by the image of a swan featuring the purity and luxurious beauty of a woman. The symbol of a white swan also included the metaphor of a faithful love.
Wearing a gown decorated with gems and feather, the Vietnamese looked like a queen on the stage and was selected as one of the top 10 candidates to progress into the last interview round, the paper said.
Linh also impressed with her English speaking skills when answering all the judges’ questions perfectly.
Before being crowned Mrs Worldwide 2018, Linh had won Miss Friendship at the Miss Universe 2008 contest and was a joint holder of the third prize at the Vietnam Top Model 2004.
Linh also used to be the Vietnamese candidate at the Miss Tourism International 2004.
Currently working as an MC for four TV channels in the country, the new beauty queen is the mother of a seven-year-old child and the wife of a businessman.
To stop rhino poaching, we need to tackle its root cause: consumer demand for rhino horn. Without consumer demand, there will be no incentive for poachers or traffickers.
In the key consumer and trafficking countries for rhino horn – Vietnam and China – high demand and low enforcement of wildlife crime are driving the illegal trade and poaching of rhinos.
Thanks to your donations, we’ve been supporting the work of a Vietnamese organisation, Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), to employ creative and innovative strategies to reduce consumer demand for rhino horn in the country. ENV’s initiatives are helping to influence attitudes and mobilise Vietnamese citizens to take action and protect rhinos.
Public adverts
Education for Nature Vietnam is delivering wildlife conservation messages to the Vietnamese public through public announcements. These adverts have been aired on 80 national and provincial TV channels, as well as at popular public venues such as movie theatres, gyms, supermarkets, trains and on the internet. ENV are sharing the message that ending wildlife consumption and taking action will save endangered species.
The latest announcement featured famous Vietnamese singer Hong Nhung and one of the country’s top TV MCs, Phan Anh, each urging the public to stop using rhino horn as a status symbol. This advert was not only aired on 62 TV channels but also widely shared by both Hong Nhung and Phan Anh’s fans on social media, reaching audiences far and wide.
Collaborating with Vietnam’s biggest radio channel
Voice of Vietnam reaches all 63 Vietnamese provinces, covering current topics and highlighting public actions and enforcement news. 124 shows were produced by ENV and Voice of Vietnam together, reaching millions of radio listeners across the country.
In celebration of World Rhino Day 2017, the radio show featured Vietnam’s achievements in rhino protection such as jailing kingpin Nguyen Mau Chien; a leader of a major criminal network trafficking many wildlife products from Africa to Vietnam. Chien was behind bars after being implicated in a major seizure of illegal wildlife products in Hanoi, including approximately 36kg of rhino horn.
Media campaigns
The media plays an important role in creating the public perception of the criminal justice system. Education for Nature Vietnam therefore utilises the media to reach the public and has been regularly pushing priority issues to the centre of public attention.
ENV were able to ‘maintain the heat’ on the Nguyen Mau Chien case, continuing to highlight the crime, deterring future criminals and applying pressure to local authorities to strengthen their law enforcement efforts.
Social media campaigns
Social media is a huge part of today’s media landscape, especially in reaching different audiences. In addition to the more traditional news outlets, rhino content is also posted on social media channels each week, with facts, news and imagery.
In September 2017, ENV’s Vietnamese Facebook fan page received interaction from thousands of people through their posts. One of the most popular was a post of still images of a dead rhino in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Many people expressed their feeling for the dead rhino and encouraged the public not to use rhino horn and take action to protect this critically endangered species.
Where your money goes
Your donations have been supporting the vital work of Education for Nature – Vietnam since 2012. With these funds, we have been able to help fund public awareness campaigns, including TV announcements, viral campaigns, public exhibitions and university programmes. Due to concerns about law enforcement in the country, the majority of our support has focused on supporting ENV’s crucial law enforcement and policy work.
More information about Education for Nature Vietnam
Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) was established in 2000 as Vietnam’s first non-governmental organisations focused on the conservation of nature and the environment. They employ creative and innovative strategies to influence attitudes and mobilise Vietnamese citizens to reduce the demand for rhino horn within the country. In addition to above, Education for Nature Vietnam has been employing other initiatives to reduce consumer demand, strengthen law enforcement and increase public engagement in protecting the world’s rhinos.
Defending champions Germany crashed out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in the group stage after South Korea stunned the European powerhouse with a 2-0 victory in their final Group F contest here on Wednesday.
From Group F, Sweden secured the top spot with six points, while Mexico, which also had six points, finished second due to an inferior goal difference. South Korea ended the group stage in the third spot with three points — same as Germany, who are also going home.
Before the two matches in the group on the day, Mexico had the best chance to enter the knockout stage, as a tie in the match with Sweden would be enough for it to qualify, while both Sweden and Germany fought with each other for second place, needing an outright victory and a big goal difference. South Korea also had a possibility to enter the playoffs as well, however, only if Sweden lost the game to Mexico.
South Korea took care of their own end at the Kazan Arena, with Kim Young-gwon and Son Heung-min scoring in second half stoppage time.
But Sweden made it all moot by beating Mexico 3-0 in Ekaterinburg, reported Yonhap news agency.
South Korea, as expectedly, deployed counter-attacking strategy to foil the German heavyweights. South Korea had only 31 per cent of ball possession in the match, and attempted only 251 passes, a third less than Germany. But those statistics weren’t important as the final score.
Against Germany, South Korea used a defensive lineup. With the absence of their midfield orchestrator and team captain, Ki Sung-yueng, South Korea started with 4-4-2 setup, but there was a twist as usual.
Jang Hyun-soo, who started last two matches as a center back, protected back four as defensive midfielder, hoping his defensive efforts could work in the midfield against German technicians.
Koo Ja-cheol, who is with German Bundesliga side FC Augsburg, played behind Son Heung-min, another South Korean player who is familiar with Germans with his stints at Hamburg and Bayer Leverkusen.
As many would have predicted, Germany, who played with a 4-4-2 formation and made five changes to their starting line-up that defeated Sweden 2-1 in the last match, dominated possession from the midfield and ran the game carefully.
With South Koreans sitting back, German full backs Joshua Kimmich and Jonas Hector made overlapping runs and even penetrated the box. Mesut Ozil and Toni Kroos controlled the midfield with their passing skills and vision.
For South Korea, taking a ball away from Germany and making a quick delivery to Son was their main homework. But it was a somewhat difficult task against the skillful and powerful Germans, and the South Koreans committed some sloppy fouls in the process.
Just in the first half, South Korea made 11 fouls, more than double that of Germany, and received two yellow cards.
South Korea surprised German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer a couple times in the first half, with Jung Woo-young’s free kick and Son’s thunderous strike that slightly flew over the net, but that was about it.
South Korea did hold on to the 0-0 score in the first half, with Germany struggling to land shots on target.
Both teams made substitutions to sway the match in their favour. South Korea put Hwang Hee-chan for Koo, and deployed the Red Bull Salzburg attacker on the right in the 56th minute.
After knowing Sweden won against Mexico, Germany were desperate for goals, taking out midfielder Sami Khedira for striker Mario Gomez in the 58th minute, and Leon Goretzka for Thomas Muller in the 63rd.
With Germans moving forward, South Korea also found open space behind the opponents, and Son, with Moon Seon-min, carried the ball near to the box, but they lacked a delicate final touch.
Germany, on the other side, were struggling with the same problem. Even though they made shots on target, their attempts went straight to goalkeeper Jo Hyeon-woo. They fired 26 shots, but only six were heading to the net.
And South Korea had grit and endurance to fight until the end. All told, they ran 118 km, three more than Germany.
With the Germans keep making mistakes, South Korea waited for fast break and bagged the opening goal in the 93rd following a corner kick situation and with a help of VAR system.
Frustrated Germans even moved forward their goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, and South Korea didn’t miss that opportunity. In the 96th minute, following Ju Se-jong’s long pass, Son tucked the ball into the empty net for their historic win, inflicting a rare historical defeat on the European outfit.
Meanwhile in Ekaterinburg, Sweden were at the top of their game, reported Xinhua news agency.
The decisive match started with a breathtaking tempo, as both sides demonstrated aggressiveness and determination from the very beginning, and Jesus Gallardo was booked by the referee within the first minute.
A floppy back-pass of the Swedes gave Mexico first goal-scoring chance in the 16th minute, but Carlos Vela’s curling shot just missed the goal inches wide of the far post.
Mexico survived a penalty scare as the referee stopped the game to review VAR, then refused to revise his initial judgment.
Sweden pulled ahead in the 50th minute when Viktor Claesson’s shot ended up an unanticipated assist for Ludwig Augustinsson, whose calm half-volley gave Sweden a 1-0 lead.
The Scandinavians were awarded a penalty after Hector Moreno fouled Marcus Bergin in the box. Captain Andreas Granqvist made no mistake from the spot.
Mexico defender Edson Alvarez scored an own goal in the 74th minute to help Sweden seal the victory and top position on the group standings on a superior goal difference.
Sweden will next take on the runners-up of Group E and Mexico will play the Group E winners.
According to Bloomberg, Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law could force Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. to choose between access to one of Asia’s fastest-growing digital economies and protecting their users’ privacy.
The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1 after the National Assembly passed it this month, requires foreign internet companies to store data within the country and open local offices. If requested, they’ll also be required to hand over to the government the data of users suspected of anti-state activity — including spreading news that may impede Hanoi or hurt the economy.
The law mirrors efforts globally to safeguard domestic users’ information and open up access to data that governments say they need to combat threats — what China refers to as its cyber-sovereignty. It also reflects a growing wariness about the influence of internet and social media giants that handle and parse information on and for billions around the world.
“If they comply with this law, they violate their own terms of service to protect the privacy of their users,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc. “Officials could also censor content at will given the way the law is written.”
Vietnam’s move to assert greater control over what its people do online underscores the dilemma for tech companies that rely on countries wary of social media for growth. Apple Inc. agreed to build a data center and blocked a swath of apps in China to comply with local laws. Indonesia has threatened to bar social-media providers unless they comply with stringent demands to filter content deemed obscene.
Vietnam Relies on Once-Banned Facebook to Kick-Start Businesses
Vietnam’s youthful growing middle-class is a lure for digital companies. The country has averaged economic growth of 6.3 percent between 2005 and 2017 and multiplied its per capita income six-fold from 2000, according to government data. But the new law could now dent the nation’s growing digital economy by increasing startup costs and trigger an exodus of entrepreneurs to other markets, said Eddie Thai, a Ho Chi Minh City-based partner with 500 Startups, which started a $10 million fund in Vietnam two years ago.
Unlike China, Vietnam doesn’t block websites such as Facebook and Twitter. But the government has stepped up arrests of activists since 2016. Last year, officials announced they were deploying a 10,000-member cyber-warfare unit to combat what the government sees as a growing threat of “wrongful views.” President Tran Dai Quang, a former head of the public security ministry, says the regulations are needed to maintain social order and prevent “plots of hostile and reactionary forces,” according to a post on the government’s website.
Facebook and Google declined to comment on whether they will comply with the law. But Hoang Phuoc Thuan, director of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security’s Cybersecurity Department, told local media neither company had objected to the legislation.
“The devil is in the details,” said Jeff Paine, managing director of the Asia Internet Coalition, which represents companies such as Facebook, Google and Apple. “How does it get implemented? We will continue to engage with the government.”
Silicon Valley companies that comply with the law however could indirectly be complicit in the government’s crackdown on activists, said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch. The organization says there are more than 120 activists imprisoned in Vietnam. Furthermore, setting up offices in Vietnam “will open them up to so much liability risk related to their own employees,” he said.
It’s unclear what the government will do if the foreign internet companies refuse to obey. Government officials, who aggressively seek foreign investment and support a robust digital economy, have indicated they won’t block services, said Vu Tu Thanh, senior Vietnam representative of the U.S.-Asean Business Council, whose members include Google and Facebook. The government, though, has previously pressured Vietnamese companies to suspend advertising on YouTube and other sites showing anti-government videos.
Mary Tarnowka, the U.S. Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, has criticized the new law, saying its passage “further narrows freedom of expression online, imposing burdensome restrictions on U.S. and other foreign firms.”
By John Boudreau With assistance by Xuan Quynh Nguyen, and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen
Statistics show that Vietnamese consumers use only about 1.9GB of cellular data on average each month, much lower than the regional countries of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore where the amounts come in between 4.7GB and 8.5GB.
It is somewhat paradoxical as Vietnam is one of the countries with the best 3G and 4G coverage, at 95% of the population.
The reason is that most mobile subscribers are accustomed to using public Wi-Fi regardless of its drawbacks such as unstable quality, limited range and risks of personal information theft, although they agree that 3G and 4G services have far more advantages over public Wi-Fi such as higher speeds, nationwide coverage, protection of personal information and convenience on the go.
The largest obstacle to more widespread use is the high cost. Most mobile users in Vietnam say that the costs of data packages are higher than their average income. Some are even worried that they might incur more charges if their usage exceeds the limit and then have to rely on public Wi-Fi.
In order for Vietnamese mobile users to phase out the habit of using unsecured public Wi-Fi, greater efforts are needed from mobile service providers. Aware of this situation, domestic carriers have already taken action to gradually remove the barriers of data costs so as to attract more customers.
Last month, Viettel, for instance, decided to raise the data limit for its Mimax plan while keeping the price unchanged, helping to reduce Viettel’s data costs to less than VND10,000 per GB, compared to the VND20,000-40,000 it had been previously.
Other carriers also followed suit with Vinaphone updating its Mimax 100 plan from 2.4GB for VND100,000 a month to 12GB for VND120,000.
These moves are expected to help mobile users change their mentality of restricting mobile data usage and form a habit of using mobile data more frequently and comfortably on their mobile devices.
With the current trend, Vietnamese mobile subscribers can anticipate having more mobile data with better quality and more affordable prices.
