Vietnam Is a Frontier Market for Good Reason

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Anyone visiting the vibrant and bustling metropolis that is Ho Chi Minh City would hesitate to call Vietnam a frontier market.

There are growing calls for the Southeast Asian economy to be included in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. After all, even Argentina, which is seeking another IMF rescue, is on the watch list for an upgrade. And Vietnam has better liquidity than the Philippines, which is already there.

Hopes that Vietnam may soon make the classification helped its stock market to become Asia’s best-performing last year.

But MSCI may have good reason for keeping Vietnam in frontier market territory.

For one, its share market isn’t ready for active fund managers, who struggle to beat the benchmark. Thu Nguyen, a managing director at VinaCapital Group Ltd., is seeking to raise $30 million for a fund that would invest in small-cap firms. She’s telling her investors to look past the index.

Weighty Matters
Five stocks constitute more than 40 percent of the benchmark Ho Chi Minh Index

Large moves by a few companies can swing the broader market big-time. Five companies currently contribute to more than 40 percent of the benchmark Ho Chi Minh Stock Index.

Last week, the nation’s exchange welcomed its newest blue chip — Vinhomes JSC, a luxury residential developer spun off from Vingroup JSC. Vinhomes raised $1.4 billion in the country’s biggest IPO.

When Vingroup’s management were wooing investors, the company’s shares were eerily calm, even as other stocks joined the global sell-off. Vinhomes accounts for about 65 percent of Vingroup’s revenue. If its shares were performing poorly, one could hardly blame fund managers for not wanting to get into Vinhomes.

Catch Up Time
Vingroup didn’t join the broader market sell-off in the days leading up to Vinhomes’ IPO. Now, it’s tumbling

After Vinhomes’ debut, Vingroup sold off, causing the broader index to dip. Now, Vietnam’s image looks tarnished because large IPOs are supposed to fire up, not sink, the market.

Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp., which counts Thai Beverage Plc as a controlling shareholder after a deal last year, is another example.

When news of the stake sale first surfaced in August, Saigon Beer’s shares began to climb, touching a record high in November. The buying frenzy propelled Saigon Beer to the No. 2 spot on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Index, with a market weight of 8.6 percent.

Control Premium
Saigon Beer rallied in the lead up to the Thai Beverage deal

Value investors were faced with a conundrum. Clearly Saigon Beer was overvalued — the stock had priced in Thai Beverage’s control premium — but selling could result in lagging the benchmark in a bull year.

Then there are stocks like Hanoi-based FLC Faros Construction JSC. At its peak, the construction and civil engineering services provider was the sixth-largest firm on the index, with a 4.7 percent weight. That was before its shares plunged 55 percent since January, wiping it off the radar. When FLC Faros, which isn’t followed by equity analysts, was rallying for no apparent reason, were fund managers supposed to pile in, or play it safe?

As a significant manufacturing hub, Vietnam has one of the best growth stories in Asia. But with a few companies able to distort the market, it’s no country for old-school investors.

Source: Bloomberg

Gone in 23 SECONDS! Moment thieves use hi-tech relay device to steal BMW

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Thieves steal a car parked on the owner’s driveway in just 23 seconds by tricking the vehicle’s keyless entry system.

The rapid raid in Billericay, Essex, was captured on CCTV and showed the brazen crooks pinching the BMW just yards from a front door.

The shocking footage, taken early yesterday morning at 12.40am, shows one man holding a device that looks like a set-top box up to the wall of the house.

As he moves it around, it picks up signals from the car’s keyfob inside in seconds, and it then transmits it to his accomplice waiting next to the driver’s door.

The car’s systems are then tricked into thinking the key was present, and in less than 30 seconds, the two men climb inside and drive away.

Victim Danny Talbot shared the footage online after discovering his motor had been taken.
He said: ‘Anyone got keyless go and make sure you double click the lock button or put keys in a metal box, apparently this deactivates the key.

‘The funny thing was I walked the dog this morning and didn’t even notice it had been stolen.

‘Had shower and walked outside thinking I had memory loss again leaving car down pub, but then realised I never went out last night.’

The raid comes amid a surge in the number of vehicle thefts, which have jumped by more than half last year, which have been blamed on keyless technology.

A total of 89,000 vehicles were stolen in England and Wales last year, the equivalent of ten every hour, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a 56 per cent rise in just 12 months, up from 57,000 in 2016.
It is the highest number since the year to March 2012.

In a damning indictment of how easy it has become for criminals to steal cars, the ONS said in almost half of thefts, they are ‘entering the vehicle through an unlocked door’.

Motoring campaigners and police said this showed hacking into keyless cars had become the new modus operandi of ‘digitally savvy thieves’.

The signals can travel through buildings, meaning thieves can open cars without needing to break into properties to steal keys.
‘Vehicle-related theft’ – which also includes items stolen from vehicles and attempted thefts – rose by almost a fifth from 796,000 in 2016 to 929,000 last year.

Of the 44 police forces in England and Wales, all but two saw an increase in vehicle crime.

The figures appear to undermine claims from manufacturers that modern cars are more secure than ever.

Source: Daily Mail UK

Malaysia’s Berjaya unit may lose US$10mil in Vietnam’s biggest fraud case ruling

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The chief executive of one victim, depositor Saigonbank Berjaya Securities JSC (SBBS) – a unit of Malaysia’s Berjaya Corporation Bhd – told Reuters that if the ruling was upheld, she had little hope of recouping her bank’s $10 million from the perpetrator, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. “We can’t afford to lose the case. This represents 70 percent of our capital. Our business may get suspended,” Josephine Yei said in an interview.

A Vietnamese court is set to make a key ruling in the country’s biggest-ever fraud case, in a trial that has spotlighted Vietnam’s ability to tackle financial crime at a time when foreign banks are heeding government calls to invest. Reuters reported

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s High Court is expected to rule by Tuesday on whether to uphold a judgment that the central perpetrator of a 4.9 trillion dong ($215 million) theft is responsible for returning some of the stolen money, rather than the individual’s employer at the time, state-controlled VietinBank.

The ruling comes as financial firms such as investment banks and global buyout funds flock to Vietnam, hoping to capitalise on a period of privatisation and capital-raising deals in the fast-growing emerging Southeast Asian economy.

The chief executive of one victim, depositor Saigonbank Berjaya Securities JSC (SBBS) – a unit of Malaysia’s Berjaya Corporation Bhd – told Reuters that if the ruling was upheld, she had little hope of recouping her bank’s $10 million from the perpetrator, who was sentenced to life imprisonment.

“We can’t afford to lose the case. This represents 70 percent of our capital. Our business may get suspended,” Josephine Yei said in an interview.

VietinBank, formally Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade, and majority owner State Bank of Vietnam – the country’s central bank – did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

In many economies, banks can be liable for embezzlement of depositors’ funds if negligence of the bank is established. In Vietnam, interpretation of liability law becomes more open when the perpetrator goes beyond their responsibility, a lawyer said.

“Different understandings lead to different decisions,” said Nguyen Thanh Ha, chairman of Hanoi-based SBLAW. “Vietnam doesn’t have case laws for such cases so it depends completely on the mind of the jury.”

Court documents showed indebted Huynh Thi Huyen Nhu and 22 accomplices were convicted in 2014 for “misappropriation of funds” from 15 victims in 2010 and 2011.

Nhu used her title as a senior VietinBank manager to encourage customers to deposit funds at a particular branch. She and accomplices used fake official documents to appropriate the funds, according to the indictment.

SBBS’ Yei said her company had 210 billion dong deposited at VietinBank at the end of August 2011, and was shocked when two months later just 1 percent of the money remained. She said she has spent the intervening years trying to recover the funds and that SBBS and four other victims brought the latest appeal.

The appeal covers only 1 trillion dong of the broader case.

“It’s judgement day for us,” said Yei, whose firm employs 55 people and has 94 investors, 93 of whom are Vietnamese.

VietinBank is Vietnam’s second-largest listed bank by market value. It is 64.46 percent state-owned, with its next-biggest shareholder Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, with 19.7 percent.

“This case should be handled under international practices, otherwise it could have a bad effect on Vietnam’s investment and business environment and then investors will lose trust,” economist and former government advisor Le Dang Doanh told Reuters by phone. “We have to avoid that. We have to create trust.”

($1 = 22,814 dong)

Reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Christopher Cushing

Bloomberg: Brokers, Miffed by MiFID? Try Vietnam

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The frontier market’s securities boom is luring overseas professionals.

Brokers tired of dwindling bonuses may find riches await them in Vietnam.

According to a report  by Bloomberg, local securities companies have been making some high-profile hires in recent months. Mike Lynch, formerly a managing director at CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. in New York, moved to Ho Chi Minh City just over a year ago to head institutional equity sales at Saigon Securities Inc., the biggest local brokerage. Joining Lynch half a year later was Lawrence Heavey, who has a decade of Asian equities experience at CLSA Ltd. Other houses aren’t far behind. Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corp., one of Vietnam’s big three brokerages, in January brought on board Stephen McKeever, who led Asia ex-Japan’s equity sales at Mizuho Securities Co. in Hong Kong.

Breaking Out
Revenue at Vietnam’s top three brokerages grew 38 percent last year

What are these senior brokers doing in a place still deemed a frontier market by MSCI Inc.?

Vietnam is a world away from Asia’s more established financial markets, where commission fees are being eroded by the MiFID regulations and stiff competition. Top brokerages still make at least 15 basis points on stock transactions, three times as much as in developed markets such as Hong Kong, where leading securities companies struggle to earn 5 basis points on institutional-client trades.

Adding to the lure of sweet commissions are strong animal spirits. The Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Stock Index was Asia’s best-performing benchmark last year and is still showing a return of about 28 percent over the past 12 months, despite a sell-off in recent days that pushed the gauge into a bear market as of Monday.

More importantly, there is churn. Vietnam’s stock market is a lot more liquid than those of Southeast Asian peers. The annual turnover ratio (trading volume as a percentage of market capitalization) was 32.6 percent in 2017, versus 11.6 percent in the Philippines and 17.8 percent in Indonesia, according to the World Bank. At its peak in January, average daily trading volume was more $300 million.

Feel the Churn
Daily turnover at the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange exceeded $300 million earlier this year

Lured by an economy that grew 6.8 percent last year, even first-tier sovereign funds are marching in. This year, Singapore’s GIC Pte participated in luxury residential developer Vinhomes JSC’s $1.4 billion IPO, as well as the offering of Vietnam Technological & Commercial Joint Stock Bank, or Techcombank, a home lender backed by Warburg Pincus LLC. When it comes to servicing foreign institutional clients, experienced hires from the West are a safer bet than greener local talent.

And there are plenty of good jobs to go around. Vietnam’s securities industry is in its most favorable stage for employees – fragmented, and with no pricing pressure, yet.

Happy Job-Hunting Ground
Vietnam’s brokerage industry is fragmented, and there’s no pricing pressure on commission fees yet

 

Source: Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange

Foreign brokers may find Ho Chi Minh City fertile ground for their personal accounts, too. From buying real estate to funding startups, their wealth could multiply in just a few years.

Foreigners are now allowed to buy up to 30 percent of units in approved real estate developments. For instance, Singapore-based CapitaLand Ltd. has been selling apartments in its high-end De La Sol project for the equivalent of about $350 per square foot, the South China Morning Post reported. That’s less than half the price of comparable projects in Thailand. Renting out apartments in the city’s central business district offers an attractive 6 to 9 percent yield.

When it comes to funding the next hot startup, investors may find their Singapore or Hong Kong dollars go a long way. Marc Djandji, head of institutional sales at Rong Viet Securities Corp., has a stake in Saigon-based micro brewery Pasteur Street Brewing Co. The potential of this thirsty, young consumer economy was underlined when Thai Beverage Pcl paid $4.8 billion for control of Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp. in December.

The danger of uprooting your family and moving to Vietnam, of course, is that the boom will turn suddenly to bust, much as China’s retail-driven market did in 2015. Still, the potential to make a fortune is there. As every broker knows, risk and reward go hand in hand.

By Shuli Ren

Sony might stop making phones

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Sony’s new CEO has just revealed plans for the company to focus on services and other core areas of Sony profitability, such as streaming services.

Sony has a new chief executive officer who replaces CEO Kaz Hirai which means a new strategic direction for the company’s future, which might include a move away from consumer gadgets. This might well mean that the company is stepping away from making not only phones, but also the popular PlayStation and Sony cameras, according to Reuters.

This move takes place only two years after Sony’s new smart phone factory in Thailand started operations. This was the first smart phone manufacturing plant in 20 years, replacing the old manufacturing line of the struggling smart phone maker.

New Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has just unveiled a new three-year plan for the company, with a focus on services and other core areas of Sony profitability. Sony makes most of the camera sensors for the camera and cameraphone industries, and it is making billions from it.

On the other hand, Sony’s mobile phone market share has been rapidly shrinking. The company still has a strong brand name and great recognition among customers, but it only sold around 10 million phones in 2018, down from 22.5 million in the past year, and Sony just cannot find a foothold outside of Asia.

According to Reuters, the sales of the popular PlayStation 4 have gone down by 18 per cent in the most recent quarter and executives admit that the PS4 is approaching the end of its lifecycle. The PS4 is still a great business for Sony because of gaming revenues, streaming, and so on, but the console itself is not the only revenue driver.

In parallel with stepping away from phones and consumer gadgets, the new CEO announced to pay about $2.3 billion to gain control of EMI, becoming the world’s largest music publishers in an industry that has found new life on the back of streaming services.

Sony has been running the business since then, and will buy a 60 per cent stake owned by Mubadala Investment Company, lifting its ownership to around 90 per cent.

The deal is part of Yoshida’s mission to make revenue streams more stable with rights to entertainment content—a strategy that follows a major revamp by his predecessor, which shifted Sony’s focus away from low-margin consumer electronics.

Earlier, in 2008, Sony closed its factory in Vietnam, stopped the production of all TV light bulbs to import completed TV sets after 14 years of operation. This decision was a result of business losses and followed the global business strategy of Sony Corporation, according to local media.

Sony developed its first factory in Vietnam in 1994 in joint venture with Viettronics Tan Binh JSC. Sony was one of the first multi-national electronic corporations to enter the country. The total investment of Sony in the Ho Chi Minh City factory was $6.6 million at first, which was then raised to $16.6 million.

Sony Vietnam is the first foreign-invested electronics firm closing a factory to focus on importing. This was also the result of the losing competition with Apple (US) and Samsung (South Korea) in consumer electronics, especially mobile phones.

While Sharp and Panasonic quickly turned to home electronics, Sony focused on entertainment equipment such as radios, cameras, and TVs, but smart phones have already integrated all these functions. Music streaming may be the new orientation of Sony to recover its reputation.

Source: VIR

F&B firms strive to hit safety goals

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A production line of bottled water at a factory of Suntory PepsiCo Viet Nam Beverage’s branch in Tra Noc 2 Industrial Park in the southern province of Can Tho.

With a market of 93 million people, Viet Nam has seen rapidly growing consumer demand for food and beverage (F&B) products, offering great opportunities for the sector to expand, experts have said.

Viet Nam’s annual consumption of food and drink products accounts for about 15 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and this rate will rise in the future, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The country is expected to enter the top three Asian countries posting the highest growth rate of the F&B industry by 2020.

Ly Kim Chi, president of the HCM City Food and Foodstuff Association, said that today’s consumers were willing to pay more for healthy and natural products.

As a country with a strong agricultural sector, Viet Nam is able to provide a wide range of ingredients for the local food and drink industry, while the robust expansion of convenience store chains has been facilitating distribution and consumption, she said.

Tomorrow, the Vietnamese High Quality Business Association will, for the first time, take part in THAIFEX-World of Food Asia, the leading F&B trade fair in Asia, according to Vu Kim Hanh, chairwoman of the association.

Around 60 of the country’s leading F&B companies, an increase of 16 over last year, will be on hand to promote their products at the fair, to be held in Bangkok from May 29-June 2.

Hanh said that participation in trade shows was one of many ways to promote Vietnamese products.

“However, it takes time and effort for enterprises to get their products known by buyers worldwide,” she said. “If exporters want to expand their markets, they need to take note of food safety standards.”

“Ensuring food safety and hygiene will open up many opportunities in the local market, as well as in strict markets like the US, the EU, and Japan,” she added.

“Given that most countries are strengthening protection barriers, Vietnamese products will have access to huge markets if they meet international standards and regulations.”

However, Vietnamese businesses must continue to learn more about regulations and improve product quality, according to Hanh.

Mathias Kuepper, managing director of Koelnmesse Pte Ltd, the trade fair organiser, said that “With Viet Nam’s thriving economy and increasing incomes, we think the country has the potential to become one of the largest F&B markets in Southeast Asia.”

The country has adopted policies to develop the F&B sector by improving the business climate for producers, reforming public administration, and offering soft loans and demand stimulus programmes.

PR and marketing campaigns have been launched in recent years to help local producers promote their brands and gain a stronger foothold in the local market, Chi said.

Viet Nam’s food service industry was worth $20.9 million in 2016 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.4 per cent in the next five years, according to the HCM City Food and Foodstuff Association.

The ASEAN region is expected to grow 5.1 per cent this year and is projected to rank as the fourth largest economic area in the world by 2050. — VNS

Source: VNS

Boyband BTS make K-Pop history topping US album charts

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K-Pop boyband BTS is one of South Korea’s best known and most lucrative musical exports. (Photo: AFP/Lisa O’Connor)

Korean boyband phenomenon BTS have become the first K-Pop group to rise to the top of the US album charts, a vivid illustration of the genre’s growing global appeal.

Known for boyish good looks, floppy haircuts and meticulously choreographed dance moves, the septet has become one of South Korea’s best known and most lucrative musical exports.

On Sunday, they passed a new milestone – becoming the first K-Pop group to top the Billboard 200 music charts which ranks albums via sales, downloads and streams.

“It’s the first No. 1 for the seven-member group, and the first K-pop album to lead the tally,” Billboard wrote in its online report detailing the latest chart ranking.

While plenty of older music listeners in the West might be asking “who?”, it’s hard to underestimate the popularity of BTS and their seven stars Suga, J-Hope, Rap Monster, Jimin, V, Jungkook and Jin.

According to one data analysis, they were they most talked about phenomenon on Twitter in 2017, with nearly double the number of mentions on the social media platform than US President Donald Trump and Canadian badboy heartthrob Justin Bieber combined.

Throw in their similarly massive appeal across the globe – they have huge social media followings in Japan, China, Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America – and you have a truly global supergroup.

Their new album Love Yourself: Tear toppled Beerpong and Bentleys by rising hip-hop star Post Malone, whose facial tattoos are the very antithesis of BTS’ wholesome, meticulously manicured image.

While BTS sing in Korean, their style successfully fuses the catchy earworms of K-Pop with hip-hop and RnB.

Last year, their previous release Love Yourself: Her became the first K-Pop album to make it into the top 10 US album charts, rising to number seven, and hit the number one spot on iTunes in more than 70 countries.

Source: AFP

 

Vietnam fines cruise ship for service scam reported by Australian tourist

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Lynne Ryan (R) among a group of Australian tourists tour Ha Long Bay in May 2018, in a photo posted on Facebook.

The traveler said she did not receive the services advertised for the tour, which turned out to be unlicensed.

Owner of a cruise ship in northern Vietnam has been fined VND15 million ($660) following complaints from an Australian tourist of “horrific” experience during a tour on the famous Ha Long Bay.

Tourism officials in Hai Phong said on Friday that they have fined the tour operator after confirming that the tourist’s report was “valid.”

Lynne Ryan, who was among a group of six Australian tourists visiting Vietnam early this month, came back with disappointment. “Horror trip, Ha Long Bay,” she wrote in a Facebook post which drew the attention from many news outlets who published the story last week.

Ryan said her group booked a cruise tour on Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh Province, which neighbors Hai Phong, with a travel company in Hanoi. She said she had been shown a glossy brochure with beautiful pictures of a boat and its services, but they were not what she and her friends actually received.

They had a “junk boat,” she said, listing a rat house under the sink in the bathroom, a rat coming through a window, and rat droppings in the room. One of their rooms had the toilet, door and air-con all broken down.

“Sun decks on the top of boat had wood borers and were falling to pieces,” she said, as cited by News.

Her group described their Ha Long Bay tour as a “nightmare” trip.

The boat that took a group of Australians a cruise in northern Vietnam in early May 2018. Photo by VnExpress

Hai Phong authorities said the ship providing the tour was registered in the city and has operated in Ha Long Bay without permission. They confirmed that the ship has been downgraded with poor hygiene in the kitchen and rooms for passengers.

The ship was suspended earlier this week and Hai Phong authorities have also ordered the operator to apologize and compensate the tourists.

Ha Long in Quang Ninh Province is one of Vietnam’s biggest tourism magnets. The bay has been hailed by the U.S. travel guide site Smarter Travel as one of the best ecological spots in the world, while Business Insider said that an overnight Ha Long cruise trip is a “must-try” travel experience in Asia. The bay welcomed more than 28,000 foreigners during the first four months this year, according to Quang Ninh’s tourism department.

Australia is one of the biggest source of foreign tourists to Vietnam. The country received nearly 147,600 Australian visitors in the first four months this year, up 13 percent from a year ago.

By Giang Chinh, Source: Vnexpress

Vietnam’s Viettel, partners to launch Myanmar’s first 4G network

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Vietnam’s military-run telecommunication company Viettel Group and its partners will launch the first 4G mobile network in Myanmar next month to cash in on the Southeast Asian country’s fast-growing economy, the Vietnamese government said on Monday (May 28).

The Mytel network, jointly developed by Viettel, Myanmar National Holding Public Ltd and Star High Public Co Ltd, aims to have at least 2 to 3 million subscribers by year-end, the government said in a statement.

Mytel, which is worth US$1.5 billion, will be the first 4G mobile phone network and the fourth telecom operator in Myanmar, the government said.

“With a low mobile phone penetration and a newly opened and fast-growing economy, Myanmar offers great opportunities for telecommunication companies,” Viettel Deputy General Director Le Dang Dung was cited in the statement.

Vietnam’s largest mobile carrier by subscription – Viettel – has already invested in 10 countries across Asia, Africa and America, and has 43 million subscribers overseas, as of end-2017.

Myanmar’s economic growth is seen rebounding to 7 per cent to 7.5 per cent over the medium term, from lower-than-expected growth of 5.9 per cent last year, supported by foreign direct investment and improvement in public investment, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Source: Reuters

Vietnam’s Gone From Traders’ Favorite to Bear Market

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Vietnam’s stock market, which only last month traded at a record high, is now poised to enter a bear market.

A decline of as much as 2.9 percent on Monday pushed losses in the VN Index to 22 percent from a peak in April. The benchmark measure, which was the year’s best performer in Asia Pacific just weeks ago, is now the world’s biggest loser for the quarter.

“The negative sentiment remains in the market as cash flows remain light,” said Tyler Cheung, head of the institutional client division at ACB Securities JSC in Ho Chi Minh City. “The sentiment is partially driven by the persistent net foreign selling. Not much positive news coming out to support the market at the moment.”

The VN Index erased its annual gains last week and is now down 4.5 percent for 2018 as foreign investors have fled the market. They’ve been net sellers of the equities in all but two days this month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. VN Index stock volume has dropped to a daily average of about 127 million shares in May, the least since January 2017.

Some investors see a silver lining in the equity-market collapse, viewing it as necessary after five straight quarters of rallies. The VN Index now trades at about 15.2 times estimated earnings for the next year, closer to its three-year average valuation of 14.5 times. Its relative strength index, an indicator of market momentum, shows that the country’s shares are in oversold territory.

On Monday, almost two-thirds of VN stocks fell, with banks, energy and travel companies contributing the most to the losses.

By Kieu Giang

Source: Bloomberg

Outdated infrastructure blamed for rail accidents

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Outdated infrastructure, limited funds and operator negligence have been identified as the main causes serious accidents on the rail.

A train crashed into a truck in Thanh Hoa Province on May 24 on the main north-south line, killing two people and injuring nine. Three days later, another collision occurred on the same railway in Nghe An Province. Luckily no-one was hurt. This was the fifth railway accident in just four day which saw three deaths and 10 injuries.

A report from the Vietnam Railways Corporation said that from September 16 2017 to April 15 2018, there were 199 rail accidents, killing 91 people and injuring 122 others.

According to Vu Anh Minh, chairman of Vietnam Railways Corporation, there are many reasons for the high number of rail accidents, including infrastructure that was built about a century ago, staff negligence, and the huge number of over 4,200 illegal and unofficial level crossings.

He went on to say that the corporation reviewed accidents to improve the sector with new technology and remove several level crossings. However, the funding for upgrading and maintenance is limited. It is wholly dependent on the state budget which can only meet 30% of necessary expenditure.

“80% to 90% of the trains are over 20 years old,” he said. “However, it is also rare that so many serious rail accidents occur so close together as seen last week.”

Vu Quang Khoi, director of the Vietnam Railway Authority, said after every accident, Vietnam Railways Corporation were made to review operating processes to avoid similar cases. But the operators still neglect their work sometimes and co-operation with local authorities is still lacking. Vietnam Railways Corporation takes all responsibility for the operation of the sector, the Vietnam Railway Authority only inspects and issues regulations to ensure the crew and passenger safety, he said.

Before the 2017 Railway Law was issued, there were no regulations on the decommissioning of trains. However, the law will only take effect from July 1. Trains and equipment will be inspected before being used and old trains will be removed for safety reasons, Khoi said. Several investors have requested information on potential involvement in railways but none have shown an interest.

In 2010, the Japan International Co-operation Agency provided more than VND9.20trn (USD404.34m) to help Vietnam repair the North-South railway and upgrade level crossings. Nguyen Huu Duc from the JICA said the railway sector had to depend on the state budget and didn’t have enough money to upgrade the safety system at level crossings.

“Some gatekeepers are too dependent on the automatic system. If the equipment is broken, they often won’t notice or repair it in time,” Duc said.

Moreover, many people are willing to risk running on tracks even when gates are down.

Source: DTinews

Vietnam’s Techcombank readies for market debut after raising $922 million

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HANOI, May 23 (Reuters) – Vietnamese lender Techcombank will list its shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange next month, the bank said on Wednesday, making it the country’s seventh biggest firm by market value.

Techcombank raised $922 million last month in one of the country’s biggest initial public offerings. Its cornerstone investors are Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, Fidelity Management and Research, and local fund Dragon Capital.

The Hanoi-based lender said it would list on June 4 at a reference price of 128,000 dong ($5.62), valuing the bank at $6.5 billion and making it Vietnam’s second-biggest listed bank after state-controlled Vietcombank.

The shares will be allowed to move 20 percent higher or lower than the reference price on the first day of listing, according to exchange trading rules.

Techcombank provides a broad range of banking products and services to more than 5.4 million customers in Vietnam through a network of 315 branches.

The bank’s Chief Executive Officer Nguyen Le Quoc Anh said 2018 was a year of robust activity for Vietnam’s stock market as the economy showed strong growth momentum.

“We believe this is a suitable time to list Techcombank after two years of preparation,” he said in a statement.

Techcombank aimed to increase retail lending to 50-55 percent of total loans, up from 40 percent, in the coming years, while reducing the proportion of corporate loans, said Nguyen Xuan Minh, chairman of Techcombank Securities and head of Techcombank’s investment banking division.

The bank aimed to increase its registered capital by nearly three times this year to better compete with regional rivals.

“As the ASEAN Economic Community forms, our competitors are not only local banks but also banks from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore. That’s our goal,” Quoc Anh told reporters on Wednesday, referring to the group of Southeast Asian nations.

Foreign investors own 22.5 percent of Techcombank. Vietnam limits foreign ownership in local banks to 30 percent.

Source: Retail New Asia

Russian man detained for trying to hack ATM in Vietnam

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He was carrying devices for stealing car information from previous users at the machine, police said.
Police in the central resort town Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa Province have detained a Russian man for trying to break into an ATM in the town’s backpacker area.

Leksii Vackvasaki, 35, was allegedly trying to pry open the control panel of an ATM on Nguyen Thien Thuat Street on Thursday morning when a local discovered his act and reported it to the police.

Police said the man was carrying screwdrivers, a roll of black electrical tape and devices to access and read card information. Vackvasaki claimed he used the tape to block the ATM’s security camera and was trying to steal card information of the ATM’s previous users, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Police are still investigating the case, and would propose charges of “deliberate destruction of property” and “theft” against the foreigner.

Despite calls from IT experts to raise security around payment systems, ATM networks in Vietnam remain a usual theft target. In March, police in Da Nang arrested two Chinese nationals who were attempting to install devices at local ATMs to steal users’ card information. Another gang including members from Malaysia, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam were arrested by police in the southern city of Can Tho the same month for similar crimes. Last December, a court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced a Peruvian man to 18 years in prison as investigation found his gang had cracked open many ATMs across the country in 2014 and 2015 and stolen a total of VND6 billion ($264,000).

Source:Vnexpress

Vietnamese man who snatched gold chain from Russian diplomat arrested

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Arrest happens just days after camera footage of the robbery was released.

VNExpress reported, Ho Chi Minh City police have arrested a male suspect believed to be the man caught on camera snatching a gold chain from a Russian diplomat at a city sidewalk last February.

Vo Ngoc Phi, 27, was arrested on Monday at his home in Can Giuoc District in the Mekong Delta province of Long An.

Vo Ngoc Phi, 27, is held in a police station for further investigation. Photo courtesy of HCMC Police

Phi is suspected to have snatched a gold chain from the neck of Dmitrii Alekseev, an officer from the Russian Consulate General’s office, on February 17.

The Russian diplomat told the police that he was robbed while walking with a friend on the sidewalk of Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Street in District 3 on the way to his office. The robbery was captured by the consulate’s CCTV camera.

The arrest happened just several days after the police released CCTV camera footage provided by the consulate showing a man with a face mask driving a motorbike with a fake license plate snatching the chain from the Russian diplomat.

Police said the robbery is being investigated further.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest metropolis, is one of the most visited destinations in the country, with 3.2 million foreigners arriving here in the first five months of 2018.

Travelers are attracted by the city’s mix of modern comfort and wartime heritage, but its charm is being undermined by street crimes, traffic chaos and pollution.

Vietnam girl’s murder in Japan stirs cry for justice

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Eyes across Japan and Vietnam will be watching next month when a Japanese man stands trial for killing a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl who lived with her family in a city east of Tokyo.

The third-grader, Le Thi Nhat Linh, “loved Japan,” her mother told Nikkei. She added that she hoped the courts would “protect children and uphold justice” by handing down a harsh sentence. She and her husband have received public support from both countries in pushing to bring the accused to trial and have him face the death penalty.

On March 24, 2017, Linh disappeared on her way to school in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture. Her body was found two days later near a drainage ditch in the nearby town of Abiko.

The next month, prefectural police arrested Yasumasa Shibuya, who headed a local school parents’ association and had helped stand watch over children’s routes to school, on charges of abandoning Linh’s body. Shibuya, then 46, was further indicted in district court for murder, sexual abuse and kidnapping. His trial will begin June 4, with closing arguments and sentencing recommendations set for the 18th of that month.

Linh’s mother, Nguyen Thi Nguyen, spoke with Nikkei from the northern Vietnamese port city of Haiphong, where she and her daughter used to live. She will leave for Japan again June 10 and is set to appear in court June 12.

Linh “always talked about what good people the Japanese are,” said Nguyen. But Shibuya “hasn’t owned up to his crime and won’t say a word” about it, she went on with audible anger.

Nguyen hopes for “a severe punishment, so children will never become victims again,” she said. She also mentioned the killing of a 7-year-old girl this month in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture.

Linh’s death sent shock waves through the community. News of a petition from Nyugen and her husband Le Anh Hao spread rapidly in Vietnam through Facebook. Musical artists and prominent athletes have called for people to sign. As of April 9, the petition had 1.05 million Vietnamese signatures and 69,000 Japanese.

As many as 260,000 Vietnamese live in Japan.

Linh sometimes spoke of wanting to bring Japanese people to Vietnam to teach them about everyday life and culture there. Most mornings, she would study the Chinese kanji characters used in written Japanese with her father, and Nguyen would teach her Vietnamese at night.

It was Linh’s dream “to be a bridge between Japan and Vietnam,” Nguyen said through tears. “We as a family want to do something to honor that.” The “Nhat” in Linh’s name means “Japan” in Vietnamese.

As a young child in Haiphong, Linh was “friendly and cheerful,” Nguyen recalled, and “would talk to people just passing by the house.”

Linh “wouldn’t even kill an ant, and she loved feeding wild birds,” her mother said. A small ornamental bird that Linh had treasured sat beside a portrait of her on a Buddhist memorial altar.

Hao decided to move the family to Japan when Linh was 3. They first settled in a publicly run apartment complex near Tokyo, in the Kanagawa Prefecture city of Kawasaki. They moved twice more, bringing Linh to tears at leaving her friends, and ended up buying a house in Matsudo.

Le Thi Nhat Linh’s memorial altar, pictured last June, held her portrait and a bunch of grapes from a plant she watered daily.

Linh was delighted to be settled at one school. She watered a grape vine in the garden every morning, asking Nguyen when it would bear fruit.

They had lived in the new house for about a year when Linh disappeared. Afterward, Hao would sometimes jolt awake at night shouting his daughter’s name. Her younger brother, then 3, at first would ask why his sister had not come back from school, but eventually transitioned to silently placing offerings of rice at Linh’s memorial altar.

Three months after her disappearance, Linh’s beloved vine bore its first fruit. Nguyen placed some of the grapes on the altar before her daughter’s portrait.

By ATSUSHI TOMIYAMA, Nikkei staff writer
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