Commentary: A while more before robots and artificial intelligence run our lives for us

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Despite AI’s widely publicised successes, there are very good reasons to be sceptical about its possibilities for replacing humans, says one observer at NTU.

The last several months have seen Singapore swept up in an enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI).

In April, NTU engineers succeeded in building a robot that could assemble an IKEA chair. And over the last few months we’ve heard much about “Nadine” – an AI with a human face, designed to respond to human speech and emotions.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently flagged AI as an area Singapore is making good progress developing frontier technologies in, noting especially Alibaba’s establishment of a joint research institute at NTU.

But beyond these headline-making, attention-grabbing events, how likely is it that AI will be transforming our lives in the near future?

SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS?

The discussion about AI is almost always dominated by either “techno-optimists” or the “doomsayers”.

For the former, AI will solve all the world’s problems, bringing wealth, new jobs, new industries, and even strengthen social cohesion; for the latter, robots pose a threat to people’s livelihoods and ways of life.

But both these views take on faith the underlying idea that AI is coming, sooner or later, like it or not. These positions leave very little room for reasoned consideration of how transformative AI may really be.

Despite AI’s widely publicised successes, there are very good reasons to be skeptical about its possibilities for replacing humans.

The history of AI is hardly a history of triumph. Since the first electronic computers were built during World War II, their creators thought of them as giant electronic brains, promising that they would soon be painting great works of art, solving mathematical proofs, and directing armies into battle.

Very little of this materialised. The early pioneers of AI in the 1950s and 1960s soon came to understand how difficult building “thinking machines” could actually be.

EMERGING DIFFICULTIES

Sure, AI has made progress since then – it can now beat humans at Go and chess and help us find our way to the nearest supermarket or movie theatre.

But history suggests we should be cautious about extrapolating too far from these beginnings to draw straight line conclusions about the pervasiveness of AI in our lives.

Games with very clear rules and boundaries are one thing. But, as the problems with autonomous vehicles are beginning to show, dealing with the openness of real world situations is quite a different matter. City streets – filled with pedestrians, children playing football, bicycles, and parades – are a far cry from a chess board.

Both personal and national security increasingly rely on AI-driven technologies of facial recognition. But recent reports have suggested that such technologies are plagued with difficulties.

Reports from China suggest that the iPhone X cannot distinguish between the faces of some ethnic Chinese people. Other facial recognition schemes have completely failed to identify individuals with darker skin tones, differentiate between twins or recognise someone who has changed their make-up.

Even in the realm of linguistic communication, AI has experienced some revealing difficulties. Microsoft’s chatbot “Tay” had to be shut down after developing a penchant for racist remarks; and Facebook’s “Bob” and “Alice,” despite being programmed to communicate in English, seemed to generate their own private language.

We also need to ensure that the promises of AI do not distract us from pursuing other kinds of solutions to social and economic problems.

For example, Singapore has invested in AI and smart city systems as a solution to the problem of an ageing population, including devices to monitor elderly citizens in their homes.

But this seems unlikely to be a panacea – such efforts should go hand in hand with the training of elderly care workers and investment in aged care facilities. Sensors and smart devices need to connect the elderly to real people who can provide human care in a sustainable and scalable manner.

Rather than giving in to premature triumphalism or panicking about robots taking our jobs, Singapore should be thinking about how AI research might be most productively channeled into fields where it has the greatest potential.

This approach will allow Singapore to become a useful use case study for other cities and nations that are also trying to figure out also how to unlock AI’s potential.

Source: CNA

Toyota Motor to invest $1 billion in ride-hailing firm Grab

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This is the largest investment ever by an automaker in the global ride-hailing sector.
Toyota Motor Corp has agreed to invest $1 billion in Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab as a lead investor in the company’s ongoing financing round, which was launched after it bought Uber Technologies’ regional business.

The investment by Toyota is the largest-ever by an automaker in the global ride-hailing sector, the six-year old start-up said in a statement on Wednesday.

It will allow Grab to further expand its range of online to offline services, such as food delivery and digital payments, deeper into the region.

A Toyota executive will be appointed to Grab’s board of directors and a dedicated Toyota team member will be seconded to Grab as an executive officer, the ride-hailing firm said.

Toyota’s trading arm has previously invested in Grab, which also counts Chinese peer Didi Chuxing and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp as investors.

Earlier this year, Uber sold its regional operations to Grab for a 27.5 percent stake in the Singapore-headquartered firm, ending a bruising battle between the two for regional dominance.

Source: Vnexpress

Mumuso origin scandal deepens

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Mumuso has once again been slammed for cheating consumers as most recently a Korean language expert stated that the inscriptions on the firm’s products are meaningless. Furthermore, the Korean Intellectual Property Office cannot confirm its business activities in the country.
Targeting Vietnamese consumers who like foreign brands at reasonable prices, Korea-based Mumuso and Japan-based Miniso over the past few years have been developing strongly in Vietnam, despite selling Chinese goods.

Chinese goods under Korean and Japanese labels

Lately, Korean television MBC has informed that Mumuso is entirely Chinese and only assumes Korean origins to cheat customers. Accordingly, the television’s reporters did a feature related the issue at a Mumuso store in Ho Chi Minh City.

Many Vietnamese customers are quite interested in Mumuso’s goods due to their beautiful Korean designs and reasonable prices. However, according to MBC’s reporters, Mumuso goods only imitate popular Korean brands’ designs.

The reporters also referred to an Korean expert to prove that the Korean inscriptions on Mumuso goods are meaningless. According to MBC’s feature, Vietnamese people buying fake and low-quality products from Mumuso could have a negative impact on Korean brands.

The team of reporters also visited Mumuso’s office in Korea, which is written on Mumuso’s products, but the people living at the address refused to answer questions, saying they know nothing about Mumuso. This strongly suggests that the address on Mumuso products is fake.

Lately, Mumuso Vietnam Co., Ltd., which imports and exports the firm’s goods, on May 11 organised a media conference in Ho Chi Minh City to clarify the issue of Chinese origins.

Accordingly, Nham Phi Khanh, director of Mumuso Vietnam, said that Mumuso is a registered trademark at the South Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) since 2014 and holds a business licence. Thus, the operations of Mumuso in South Korea are absolutely legal.

However, MBC also quoted Park Jong Pil, deputy direct of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO): “Mumuso established a company in Korea, but we cannot confirm its business in the country.”

Not only Mumuso, but many other retail brands, including Miniso and Daiso were caught up in similar scandals.

In particular, despite describing itself as a Japanese retailer giant, Miniso only has four stores in Japan, but 1,100 stores in China.

How could Miniso and Mumuso develop strongly over the past few years, especially Miniso which increased its revenue from $770 million in 2015 to $1.5 billion in 2016?
trithuctre.vn stated that directly shipping goods from the factory to stores via as few intermediaries as possible is the most standard distribution process, which helps to save on each product, which adds up to huge profits.

In addition, Miniso and Mumuso also do business under franchise forms, which helps them expand the business more rapidly.

Finally, high gross margin is the key to help the firm earn money. All goods in the firms’ stores produce small profit, but selling a large number of products (about 10,000 products per day) helps Miniso and Mumuso make bank.

Source: VIR

 

8 Foods You Need to Try in Vietnam at Least Once

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When people think of Vietnamese food, most think of pho. But there is so much more to Vietnamese cuisine than this typical breakfast noodle dish.

I traveled with three locals from the southern parts of Vietnam all the way up north for a month, and here are some of the dishes I experienced. For more on foodie-inspired vacations, check out some tips on spicing up your next itinerary.

1. Traditional southern Vietnamese dinner

A traditional dinner usually consists of rice, a savory dish (such as clay pot fish, fried omelets, grilled pork, stir-fry beef, etc.), a boiled vegetable dish and a soup (with vegetables and a meat). The Vietnamese like to balance out this meal with both “hot” and “cold” ingredients: The meat and savory dish are considered hot and the veggies are considered cold.

2. Traditional southern Vietnamese breakfast

This includes charcoal-grilled pork belly, vermicelli, green onion, fish sauce and oil, and is eaten with veggies and rice paper. The important part is the charcoal, which gives it a smoky flavor.

3. Mi (or My) Quang

This specialty dish is mainly made with rice noodles, peanuts, vegetables and herbs of the region.

4. Tiny clams with smashing rice paper

They are usually stir-fried with lots of seasonings and eaten with crispy rice paper (similar to rice crackers, but thinner). Another way to eat these mini clams is in porridge. These guys are known to taste a lot sweeter than regular clams.

5. Rice noodle with jellyfish

The broth is made with pork bones — sometimes pork feet — and tomatoes (for extra sweetness). The dish can consist of rice noodles, jellyfish (fresh when in season, dried when not), Vietnamese ham (pork roll), fish tofu, green mango, peanut and onion.

6. Clay pot fish

Fish is typically cooked in a clay pot with fish sauce, pepper or whole chilis, sugar and various seasonings. The cooking process takes a long time so the sauce sinks in and gives the fish lots of flavor. This is a common Vietnamese dish for lunch or dinner, finished off with cilantro or dill and pepper for extra flavors, and is usually eaten with rice.

7. Vietnamese pancake

This is a national dish and varies region to region. It’s more similar to a crepe than an American pancake. The shell consists of a rice flour batter to make a thin and crispy layer. The filling is a combination of shrimp, pork, bean sprouts and green onions. The pancake is then wrapped inside steamed rice paper with other vegetables like lettuce, cucumber and herbs, and dipped in fish sauce.

8. Snails

Snails are a super popular street food in Vietnam. The traditional way to cook them is to boil them in a broth that is seasoned with lemongrass, ginger and pepper. This broth is what provides the unique flavor. In the south, snails are cooked with coconut milk, while in the central and north they are cooked with lemongrass. For bigger snails, you can choose to eat them boiled or grilled. If grilled, then you can add toppings such as green onions and peanuts and dip it in fish sauce, vinegar, chili and garlic.

Photo by Moxi Zhou

Source: nerdwallet

Vingroup forays into smart phone manufacturing with Vsmart

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Major local conglomerate Vingroup today announced plans to start manufacturing smart electronic devices, beginning with smartphones under the Vsmart brand.

Accordingly, the company will establish VinSmart Co. with the registered capital of VND3 trillion ($133 million), which will be operating in the main fields of producing smart electronic devices, initially smart phones under the Vsmart brand, and research the application of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and new-generation materials.

The Vsmart manufacturing plant will be built following international standards at the company’s existing car manufacturing complex VinFast located at Dinh Vu-Cat Hai Economic Zone in the northern port city of Haiphong.

Vingroup is working with the world’s leading advisors on acquiring cutting-edge technologies and production equipment to serve its new project.

Addressing the company’s foray into this new field, Vingroup’s deputy chairman and general director Nguyen Viet Quang said, “We want to make intensive investments into the research and application of new technologies and products to promote Vietnam’s presence on the global tech map.”

“Engagement into a technology-intensive field like smart phone manufacturing attests to Vingroup’s commitment to building up intellect-based production, bolstering the local economy’s efficiency,” Quang added.

Last September Vingroup organised the ground-breaking ceremony of its electric automobile and motorbike manufacturing complex Vinfast with the total investment capital of VND35 trillion ($1.5 billion).

The complex has a designed capacity of 500,000 units. At the first phase, the plant will manufacture five-seat sedan and seven-seat SUV models and electric motorbikes, meeting EU quality standards. The capacity of the first phase will be between 100,000- 200,000 units.

Source: VIR

NA deputy claims Facebook and Google won’t leave Vietnam

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National Assembly deputy Luu Binh Nhuong from Ben Tre Province believes Facebook and Google are not in any haste to leave Vietnam after the cybersecurity law was passed because Vietnam is a market with huge potential.

Vietnam’s legislature voted pass to the cybersecurity law which requires all foreign providers of Internet-related services to open representative offices and data centres in Vietnam on June 12. The Ministry of Public Security under the new law set to enter operation on January 1, 2019, would be able to access the data systems of private companies for investigation in cases where there is a supposed threat to national security. The firms would be forced to remove anti-state content upon request from the authorities.

Vietnam is among 20 countries with the highest number of internet users in the world and was ranked 7th in the top 10 countries with the highest number of Facebook users. About 64 million Vietnamese have Facebook accounts, accounting for 3% of the total users in the world. 60% of them are young people.

Google is the top search engine in Vietnam and internationally. Over 60% of revenues from global advertisements go to Google and Facebook.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the law violates commitments made as a WTO member and the as yet ratified EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. It also expressed worries that Google and Facebook may leave Vietnam.

However, NA Deputy Luu Binh Nhuong from Ben Tre Province claimed the cybersecurity law was necessary since there are too many social networks with unverified information.

“We have to put national interests first. Deputies and citizens must be aware that national security is the top concern,” Nhuong said. “Vietnam is a huge market so I believe that Google and Facebook will continue working with us and strengthen business conditions as required.”

He went on saying that the law was not meant to restrict civil rights but aimed at cyber criminals. Nhuong said they would keep monitoring the situation and revise the law accordingly.

The NA Standing Committee said there were security exceptions to WTO rules and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Vietnam has the power to ask firms that provide telecommunications and value-added services to open representative offices and data centres in Vietnam. Over 18 countries including the US, Canada, Germany and France require firms to open data centres in their countries.

Google and Facebook are storing data about Vietnamese users in data centres in Hong Kong and Singapore and would be forced to transfer the data to Vietnam once the law takes effect. According to the standing committee, there are several benefits such as network problems can be solved much more quickly and state agencies can better manage those firms and deal with violators.

Depending on the laws and the situations that only some certain businesses will be required to set up data centres and representative offices. The flow of data and the operation of other organisations would not be affected.

Source: Dtinews

AI to be used in every socio-economic field in Vietnam

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Not only companies or large corporations will use AI, but small shops, households, supermarkets and buildings will also become clients of the technology.

AI (artificial intelligence), together with Big Data, Clouds and Machine Learning, are often mentioned in the 4.0 industry revolution era. With big data to be collected, humans will ‘teach’ machines to provide analyses based on artificial intelligence through the cloud platform.

For instance, a self-propelled airplane with a camera would be able to fly across a large field and take pictures. Experts, after analyzing pictures based on Microsoft’s Azure, could detect areas that need watering.

Pham The Truong, CEO of Microsoft Vietnam, believes that AI will be in every corner of Vietnam in the time to come.

“Unlike IT, which is used by companies and large organizations, AI will squeeze into every corner of life. Small private shops in Vietnam, supermarkets and buildings all can utilize AI,” he said.

AI is useful in the retail industry. 100 cameras installed at a supermarket would allow observation of 1,000 visitors and collect images that serve both security and business purposes.

The cameras, with sensors attached, can recognize faces of the people entering supermarkets, show their age, feelings and behaviors.

While IT has designed systems and people have to learn the software, AI is based on databases, and people will create products to use.

“For example, people have to learn about Microsoft Word and Excel to be able to use the software. With AI platforms, such as Azure, Microsoft provides tool blocks like Lego. People can create different things from Lego blocks with their creativity,” he explained.

There are three commonly used AI types – face recognition, voice recognition and image analysis.

Truong said at a Microsoft meeting in the US, the AI system automatically converted the speaker’s language into many other languages. The machine interpreted with a lag of three seconds.

Truong believes that AI services will be used mostly in Asia Pacific, including Vietnam.

Large Vietnamese technology firms have stepped up research on AI and created AI-based solutions such as e-government, SMAS (a school management software piece), DMS, ONE (the overall solution for managing online sales system), SMMS (the user manual single phase energy meter) and Voffice (an electronic office system).

By Thanh Mai

Source: Viet Nam Net

What do university lecturers actually do?

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Hundreds of professors and associate professors give lectures at universities, but many do not conduct scientific research.

A report of the State Professorship Title Council shows that Vietnam has 1,600 professors and 10,000 associate professors, but only 200-300 are researchers.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOËT) said that only 40 percent of professors and associate professors are teaching at schools, while the other 60 percent work as managerial officers at state agencies.

According to Dr Nguyen Ngoc Hieu from the Vietnam-Germany University in HCMC, teaching and researching in Vietnam have no close relations.

About 30 percent of professors teach and do research, and the percentage of professors who teach only is nearly the same.

Hieu said the professors who only give lectures and do not do research exist in many countries.

In Germany, universities are classified into two groups which have different functions and tasks. The lecturers at schools focus on providing knowledge, while schools with community activities are not required to conduct research, but focus on teaching. At application-oriented schools, the professors must be both lecturers and researchers.

In Vietnam, there is no classification of schools, and the functions of the schools remain unclear.

He said that in Vietnam, schools recruit professors/associate professors not based on their real capability and experience, but on degrees. In many cases, schools employ professors/associate professors for unofficial purposes.

Hieu suggested that in Vietnam, since the school classification cannot be implemented, those who give lectures but don’t do scientific research should be considered ‘assistant lecturers’, and should not be given the professor/associate professor title.

Local newspapers cited a report showing that a professor was found working as an instructor for 44 postgraduates in three different majors, while another professor was assigned to instruct 12 postgraduates, and an associate professor was teaching postgraduates at the same time.

To fulfill lecturing and research tasks well, one professor/associate professor has time to instruct only one to two postgraduates.

Associate Prof Dr Nguyen Thien Tong pointed out that there are many problems in the policy. In Vietnam, professor/associate professor is an honourable title.

The titles are given for a lifetime and professors do not belong to one school, but to the nation. Professors not only work for certain schools, but also receive salaries from the State. Even if they no longer teach, and if they leave the schools for state agencies, they will still be professors.

By Nam Mai

Source: Viet Nam Net

JLL: HCMC among Asia’s most enterprising cities

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Released on June 12, the latest report from real estate consultants JLL states that Ho Chi Minh City is one of Asia’s most enterprising cities and become home to large clusters of business services, engineering, finance and retail firms, and strong creative industries.

The city is pulling in increasing amounts of investment from large multi-national technology corporations, including Microsoft, LG, Intel and, most notably, Samsung.

It’s also the base of Vietnam’s only tech unicorn – the VNG Corporation.

It is also undergoing rapid real estate development amid increasing demand for office, retail and hotel space, with a new metro system also under construction.

The country’s tallest building, Vincom Landmark 81, is due to open later this year, while the Thu Thiem New Urban Area, a 657-ha site east of the Saigon River, is earmarked to be the new financial district.

Ho Chi Minh City is also in a prime position to benefit from wider national growth. Vietnam is one of the world’s fastest-growing countries, with a large, youthful and increasingly-educated workforce that meets its future talent needs.

Other cities listed include Bangalore in India, Shenzhen in China, Taipei in Taiwan, Guangzhou in China, and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
“Increasingly, cities in emerging economies are becoming key hubs in global networks of innovation and referred to as ‘Enterprisers’,” said Mr. Jeremy Kelly, Director of Global Research at JLL.

“This group of business and enterprise hubs are major places of opportunity and magnets for workers in their country and the wider region.

Usually specialized in higher-value activities, as well as manufacturing, they are among the largest cities in their national economy and have exploited their business climate advantages in recent years.”

As such, he added, they’ve been among the world’s most dynamic real estate markets in recent years and are increasingly on the radar of international real estate investors.

Yet despite their rapid growth, the Enterprisers are also facing a unique set of challenges as they aim to boost productivity and innovation to take their economies to the next level, whether ensuring a strong local talent pipeline, making their land use more efficient, or strengthening their city brand and successfully projecting it to the wider world.

Source: VN Economic Times

Bird flu spreads in southern Vietnam

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After Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, southern Can Tho city had reported the first confirmed and suspected cases of A/H1N1 bird flu, the provincial Preventive Medicine Center said Wednesday.

According to a report by Dan Tri, a local media channel, an 84-year-old woman patient at the Can Tho General Hospital has been tested positive to A/H1N1 virus, becoming the first confirmed infection case in Can Tho after years of being free from the virus, said the center.

One doctor and two nurses at the hospital have shown symptoms of A/H1N1 infections, after taking care of the old woman. The three medical workers have been isolated for bird flu treatment.

Earlier this month, Ho Chi Minh City reported 28 suspected and confirmed cases of A/H1N1 infection, including 16 confirmed ones.

Of the 28 suspected cases, eight are medical workers at the Tu Du Hospital, a major maternity institution in Vietnam.

According to the World Health Organization, A/H1N1 flu can be transmitted by droplets emanating from unprotected coughs and sneezes, hand contamination, and interpersonal encounters in crowded closed spaces.

In a tropical country like Vietnam, the flu circulates the entire year round, usually reaching several peaks in the rainy season. The A/H1N1 virus causes pernicious respiratory infection.

Vietnam experienced an H1N1 pandemic in 2009, with over 9,000 cases of people contracting the disease and nearly 20 deaths within four months of the year, according to its Health Ministry.

Vietnam’s Binh Son plans second stake sale, April listing – CEO

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HANOI, June 13 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical is considering the sale of a further stake in the company ahead of a possible listing in April next year on the country’s main bourse, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

The funds would be used for an upgrade of its Dung Quat refinery, aiming to raise capacity to at least 192,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 148,000 bpd now and to allow it to process more types of crude oil.

Chief executive Tran Ngoc Nguyen told Reuters the stake sale, which will follow a $245 million initial public offering in January, would be through a private placement or auction.

The initial sale of a 7.79 percent stake in the refinery was part of the Vietnamese government’s plan to privatise hundreds of state-owned enterprises to boost their performance, relax a tight state budget and reform an economy that is highly reliant on foreign investments.

Shares of the company have been trading on the unlisted public company market, or UPCoM, since March, and Nguyen said they would be listed on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the country’s main bourse, by April next year.

Vietnam’s first refinery, Dung Quat began operations in 2009 and was initially designed to process light sweet crude oil, mostly sourced from the Bach Ho field offshore Vietnam.

The upgrade will enable the plant to process sour crude oil as well, Nguyen said, and will also allow it to produce more petrochemical products.

Binh Son said in a statement on Wednesday that it will select an engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the upgrade next year.

Nguyen said seven companies had registered to bid for the contract, but declined to name them.

Binh Son said in the statement its net profit in the first half of this year was estimated at 2.95 trillion dong ($129 million), about 85 percent of its full-year target. ($1 = 22,810 dong)

Reporting by Mai Nguyen and Khanh Vu; editing by Richard Pullin

An Artist’s Pho, Inspired by His Childhood in Vietnam

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Danh Vo’s take on the traditional aromatic soup is, if he says so himself, “getting better than my mother’s.” – NY TIMES Reported.

In “One Good Meal,” we ask cooking-inclined creative people to share the story behind a favorite dish they actually make and eat at home on a regular basis — and not just when they’re trying to impress.

Before he was a famous artist, Danh Vo was a boy growing up in Vietnam. The 1970s weren’t exactly stable in that country, so when he was 4, he and his family fled by boat. They wound up in Denmark, where they held onto their heritage through their food. Instead of candy, Vo and his siblings ate sour mangoes dipped in chili. For meals, they often feasted on pho, the aromatic soup. “In Vietnam,” Vo says, “you eat it for breakfast. You eat it for lunch. You eat it for dinner. You just have a good pot standing there, and you can have it for days. So it’s a very practical thing.”

With all the accoutrements laid out, Vo says, “you cook on the table, basically.”CreditRobert Rieger

Vo’s mother taught him her recipe when he was young, but he has refined it over the decades to suit his evolving palate (cue the grass-fed beef) and restless lifestyle. Now in his early 40s, he makes it in huge quantities, ritually simmering the broth for hours upon hours until the aroma is so overpowering that he has to open the windows of his Mexico City apartment. Then he calls over a bunch of friends and lays out fresh herbs and other accouterments. “You always have the chili, ginger and fish sauce on the side,” he says. “And people do it themselves. So you cook on the table, basically.”

As showcased in his Guggenheim retrospective this spring, Vo’s art focuses on quotidian objects — such as Ted Kaczynski’s typewriter or Robert McNamara’s chair — that gain deep emotional resonance once you appreciate their context. The same might be said about his pho. “I’m very proud of it today,” he says. “I’ve impressed certain people — even Vietnamese. And, actually, my pho is getting better than my mother’s.”

Vo believes pho broth should be clear — and served piping hot. CreditRobert Rieger

Danh’s Pho

For the broth:

∙ 6.5 pounds of beef bone or oxtail (cook’s preference)

∙ 6 roasted whole big yellow onions

∙ 1 cinnamon stick

∙ 3 or 4 star anise

∙ 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

∙ 1 tablespoon salt

∙ ½ teaspoon ginger, roughly chopped and roasted over a flame

∙ ⅓ cup fish sauce (preferably Phu Quoc brand)

1. Clean the bones by covering with boiling water. Drain.

2. Combine all ingredients in a large pot with two gallons of water and simmer on the stove for several hours, periodically skimming the excess foam off the top. You’re aiming for a clear broth. (“After two hours you can eat it,” Vo says, “but the longer it simmers the better it becomes. I think actually the day after is always the best.”) This recipe makes 18 servings; freeze any extra.

For the rice pho noodles:

1. Soften noodles by soaking in cold water. Drain.

2. Add the drained noodles to individual serving bowls and add boiling water. Stir for 10 seconds. Drain.

3. Add very thin slices of raw grass-fed meat to each bowl. Ladle the broth and boiled onions into each individual bowl. Serve very hot.

4. Garnish with cilantro, holy basil, scallions, bean sprouts, fresh chiles de árbol, lemon and roasted ginger.

Police to launch criminal probe into ‘violent’ protest in central Vietnam

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107 people have been detained for vandalizing government offices and burning cars in Binh Thuan Province – VnExpress reported.

Police in Vietnam’s south central province of Binh Thuan announced on Tuesday they would be launching a criminal investigation into a protest that broke out in the province last Sunday.

The protest, which quickly turned violent when protesters started vandalizing government offices, burning cars and assaulting law enforcement officers, was likely planned in advance, according to Colonel Dao Trong Nghia, deputy chief of Binh Thuan Police.

“Petrol, rocks and bricks were placed beforehand at places convenient for protesters to use against the functional forces,” Nghia said, adding that criminal charges would be brought forward once the police could narrow down the list of suspects.

A total of 28 police officers were injured while attempting to maintain order since the protest started on Sunday, according to the province’s authorities. Protesters also damaged the provincial People’s Committee building, set fire to 12 cars and smashed another two.

The protest extended to Monday with protesters blocking National Highway 1, vandalizing and looting the headquarters of the local fire police, officials said.

Police said 107 protesters have been detained as of Tuesday afternoon.

The protest in Binh Thuan Province was the most intense among a series of street demonstrations against Vietnam’s draft law on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) last weekend.

Nguyen Van Son, Deputy Minister of Public Security, instructed Binh Thuan authorities on Monday to investigate and strictly punish “the ringleaders that enticed, incited and provoked thousands of people into gathering, vandalizing and opposing the functional forces in performance of their duty.”

Apart from Binh Thuan, large crowds of protesters also gathered in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hanoi and other places to protest the draft law on SEZs.

The police in HCMC and neighboring Binh Duong Province have arrested several people for leading the “illegal” protests, media reports said.

It is believed that a particular provision in the draft law on SEZs that would allow foreign investors to lease land for 99 years was the primary triggering factor for the protests. Vietnam’s current Land Law allows investors to rent land for up to 70 years.

The bill was deferred by the National Assembly on Monday at the government’s behest. Originally scheduled to be passed this week, the parliament will take the bill up for discussion at its next session in October.

By Phuoc Tuan

Commercial banks to support WB projects

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Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB) and Việt Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) have been assigned to support projects signed between Việt Nam and the World Bank. — Photo baomoi.com, reported by Viet Nam News

HÀ NỘI — Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB) and Việt Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) have been assigned to support projects signed between Việt Nam and the World Bank.

The decisions were issued by the State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV).

Accordingly, SHB will support the project “Medium Urban Development” – Financing Agreement for Additional Financing Credit 6070-VN and Financing Credit Code 6071-VN, signed on December 15, 2017.

In addition to this, SBV also assigned Techcombank to serve “Sustainable development of Đà Nẵng City” – Financing Agreement for Additional Financing Credit 6032-VN, signed on September 29, 2017.

The general directors of SHB and Techcomback are responsible for implementing the provisions of Decree 16/2016 /NĐ-CP dated March 16, 2016, of the government on the management and use of official development assistance (ODA) and preferential loans of foreign donors, guiding documents of the SBV and the Ministry of Finance, as well as the guiding regulations of the World Bank to better serve the implementation of the project.

These decisions are effective from the signing date on June 6, 2018. — VNS

How a Street Vendor’s Son Became One of Vietnam’s Top Tycoons

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Nguyen Duc Tai revolutionized country’s mobile phone business

Now he’s seeking to change how food is sold in Vietnam

When Nguyen Duc Tai, the son of a street vendor, said he was going to revolutionize Vietnam’s mobile phone industry, few people gave it a second thought. Bloomberg reported

“Everybody laughed at me,” says Tai of that time in 2009.

But Tai was true to this word. His Mobile World Investment Corp. became the country’s top seller of mobile phones and one of the biggest listed stocks. The company now has a market value of $1.7 billion.

So when Tai said that he was going to overhaul the country’s food industry, this time people listened.

“The future of groceries is very clear,” a t-shirted Tai, 49, said in an interview in Ho Chi Minh City. “It’s not a question of whether I succeed or not. It’s a matter of how long it takes.”

Tai’s success as an entrepreneur has come from trying to modernize Vietnam. For mobile phones, he opened what he says was the first high-street chain where customers could have a sense of security about the devices’ quality and origins. And in the world of food shopping, he’s trying to replace Vietnam’s traditional wet markets with grocery stores.

Tai opened his first such outlet in Ho Chi Minh City in 2016, selling vegetables, meat and fish with clearly labeled origins, and other essential items such as noodles and drinks. In wet markets, food is sold outdoors in venues that aren’t always clean. Buyers don’t necessarily know where it comes from, and the prices aren’t fixed.

The chain — called Bachhoaxanh — now has 376 stores in the city.

“Our dream is to take 10 percent of the $60 billion grocery market by 2022,” Tai said. That would be twice his company’s almost $3 billion in revenue last year.

A vendor attends to a customer at a Mobile World store in Ho Chi Minh City. Photographer: Maika Elan/Bloomberg

Of course, Tai has been down a similar road before. Fifteen years ago, a global mobile phone boom had skipped Vietnam, because handsets were too expensive.

“At that time, only executives or rich people could buy a cell phone,” Tai said. “Owning one seemed impossible to many people, and I thought we needed to do something to change that.”

So in 2003, he quit his job as a strategic director at a phone company to start his own business. He opened three stores in small alleys in Ho Chi Minh City, but they failed after a few months because of their locations and inability to win customers’ trust, Tai said.

Mobile World

In 2004, he tried again, establishing Mobile World with four friends. This time, he opened his stores on major streets and sold devices with transparent origins.

Mobile World had 1,065 outlets throughout Vietnam and a 45 percent share of the country’s smart-phone and mobile-phone market as of the end of April, it said. At the end of 2017, there were almost 120 million mobile phone contracts in the country, more than the population of about 94 million. Sales of mobile phones have surged with the country’s economy.

“Opportunities came very fast and the market developed more quickly than I could imagine,” Tai said.

Tai grew up poor in Ho Chi Minh City, where his mother was a street vendor who sold sticky rice and rolled rice pancakes. Those early struggles left him with one goal: to have a better life than his parents did.

“I always wanted to think big and do big,” Tai said.

Stock Surges

Mobile World’s stock has surged more than sixfold since listing in 2014. Of 10 analysts covering the company, nine say it’s a buy. Mobile World was the only Vietnamese firm on the Forbes list of the best 50 big Asian public companies last year. “Now my dream is to have $10 billion in revenue by 2022,” Tai said.

For sure, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Bachhoaxanh contributed only 3 percent to Mobile World’s sales in the first four months of 2018, with the company’s leaders acknowledging that the chain is still in the “trial and error” phase. The grocery business posted negative Ebitda of 60 billion dong ($2.64 million) in the first quarter, prompting the company to close three outlets and cancel the opening of seven others, local media and brokerages cited Tai as saying at the company’s analyst meeting in May. The company also reduced its planned new store openings for this year to 500 from 1,000.

‘Uncertainty Stage’

“Bachhoaxanh is still in the uncertainty stage,” said Nguyen Duc Hieu, an analyst at Viet Dragon Securities JSC in Ho Chi Minh City. “This is not an easy industry as it requires a good supply chain, which is very hard now because there aren’t enough suppliers big enough to provide fresh meat or vegetables. The market is big, but execution isn’t easy.”

Mobile World store in Ho Chi Minh city. Photographer: Maika Elan/Bloomberg

Still, Tai won’t be too put off by the growing pains. While he had only slightly more than $30,000 when he started his business, he’s now worth about $53 million from his shareholding in Mobile World alone, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And as he gets richer, he’s become less interested in the trappings of wealth, he says. Mekong Capital’s Chris Freund, an early investor in Mobile World that has since sold its stake, describes him as a “very casual” entrepreneur, noting that on a business trip abroad, Tai and three others shared just one room.

But for Tai, the t-shirt isn’t about being frugal. It’s simply a matter of using his time best as he seeks to build his grocery empire.

“It’s very tiring thinking about what to wear,” Tai said. “I would prefer to spend that time thinking about how to develop the company.”

By Nguyen Kieu Giang
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