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HCM City: will $5 billion drive floods away?

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More than 10 years ago, HCMC began applying a series of measures to fight against floods and improve the environment, worth trillions of dong. The road beds have been raised, while more water drainage outlets have been built in depression areas. However, money has gone, but floods have stayed.

HCMC has spent trillions of dong to implement many large projects and hundreds of small projects to prevent floods.

In 2011-2015, three projects capitalized at VND22.948 trillion in total, included the ODA second phase of the water environment improvement project funded by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), the second phase of the environment sanitation funded by the World Bank and the Tham Luong – Ben Cat waste water treatment plant.

In 2016, a ‘super-project’ on fighting against high tides was kicked off with the contract value of VND10 trillion.

In the last few years, the money was used to implement anti-flood projects in the central area, 550 square kilometers large. In the next years, the capital will be arranged to implement the projects in the suburbs.

The HCMC Anti-Flood Center, and other departments and agencies, including the city’s transport department, district people’s committees and ODA-funded projects also poured money into anti-flood projects.

However, the municipal authorities still said it needed VND73.379 trillion more to implement anti-flood projects under Program 752 and Program 1547.

According to Do Tan Long from the Anti-flood Center, the capital needed to implement the two programs is up to $5 billion.

Long said the HCMC Transport Department has recently drawn up an anti-flood project with the most updated input data.

The department, together with the agriculture department, have been assigned by the municipal authorities to check and adjust Programs 752 and 1547 to fit the new socio-economic development conditions in the new period.

When asked when HCMC can stop the floods, Long said when the two programs are implemented, the problem will basically settled.

Long said there are many reasons behind the floods – heavy rain, high tide, the badly-done canal dredging, the uncontrolled littering and encroachment on canals which cause the water flow stuck.

An official of the District 12 People’s Committee said the flooding on Nguyen Van Qua street is a headache. The committee, in addition to speeding up the implementation of the projects suggested by the Anti-flood Center, has asked for permission to build two pump stations and a reservoir to settle the problem.

In district 9, though a water drainage system has been put into operation since 2016, the Do Xuan Hop street still suffers from flooding.

By Kim Chi,Source: Vietnamnet

The Vietnamese nail academies where thousands train so they can come to Britain and work in cheap high street salons across the country

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Students at Hanoi’s Hand Viet nail academy – where 90 per cent of graduates travel to other countries for work

With a mask covering her mouth, a girl hunches forward, staring intently as she adds a coat of polish to a neatly manicured nail.

Next to her, another girl applies false nails. On a floor above, in rows of desks, more students learn intricate floral nail designs.

Welcome to one of Vietnam’s ‘nail academies’, where every year thousands of students aged 15 to 50 train to be nail technicians.

But very few will stay in the country as manicures are a luxury few Vietnamese can afford. Up to 90 per cent will travel abroad – many to the UK – to work in cheap high street nail bars.

Students at Hanoi’s Hand Viet nail academy – where 90 per cent of graduates travel to other countries for work

Many fall into the hands of traffickers after paying huge sums to be smuggled illegally into the UK.

Some find they owe gangmasters money after they have arrived, and are made to work for free to pay off the debt while living in poor conditions. Others are made to tend cannabis plants or forced into prostitution.

Several Vietnamese men and women training at centres seen by the Mail were planning to travel to the UK to work.

The married father was training at a nail academy near Hai Phong, north-east Vietnam. Students there pay a few hundred pounds for a three-month course.

Mr Nguyen, who planned to leave his family behind and send them money, said he did not know where he would be working, but had been told he could earn as much as £2,000 a month in a nail bar.

Viet Beauty owner Nguyen Oanh (pictured), who trains more than 1,000 students a year

In Vietnam, the average wage is only around £150 a month. Mr Nguyen said: ‘I don’t mind working hard, and working long hours. This will change my life.’ He was unsure whether he would be in the UK legally or not.

At Hand Viet, in an office block down an alley on the outskirts of Hanoi, a three-month course costs 7million VND (£220), with students aged from 15 to 50. The manager said 90 per cent went abroad after the course.

Among those training was a 29-year-old man planning to travel to Britain to join relatives working in a nail bar. ‘The earnings are good for me,’ he said. Students at Viet Beauty included a 31-year-old woman who had married a British tourist. She planned to settle with him in the UK and work in a nail bar.

Viet Beauty owner Nguyen Oanh, who trains more than 1,000 students a year, said more than 50 per cent went abroad to the UK, America, Australia or Dubai.

The journey to Britain is not without dangers but many are prepared to risk it. They accept poor living and working conditions to send money back to their families, who have often sold possessions and taken out loans to get them to the UK.

Tran, not his real name, who spent eight years in the UK working illegally in a nail bar outside London, said he enjoyed his time there – despite having only one day off a year and no lunch breaks.

The 46-year-old flew to Paris before travelling in 21 different vehicles to Britain in 2009. The former salesman, who had paid a gang 460million VND (£14,000) to get there, earned £500 a week, working 9am-7pm.

‘For me, the conditions were very good,’ he said.

‘The wages were good, the people were nice, I liked it very much.’

Tran had to return to Vietnam earlier this year as he did not have permission to bring his wife and children to the UK.

BY CLAIRE DUFFIN, THE DAILY MAIL

Death row art: A rare glimpse inside Vietnam’s secret jails

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The artworks are believed to be made from discarded plastic bags passed on by fellow prisoners, shredded and woven into figurines. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

HANOI: Nguyen Truong Chinh proudly holds up intricately crafted animals, flowers and hearts – secret gifts made from plastic bags by a son on Vietnam’s death row.

The palm-sized creations that his son and other inmates have furtively made and smuggled out of their solitary cells offer a rare glimpse of prison life in Vietnam, believed to be one of the world’s leading executioners.

They’re also an emotional lifeline for desperate parents fighting to free the children they say have been wrongly convicted.

“Any time we receive the gifts from my son I feel like he’s here with me, like he’s come back home,” Chinh told AFP, clenching his jaw to hold back tears.

His 35-year-old son Nguyen Van Chuong, convicted of murdering a police officer a decade ago, is one of a handful of prisoners known to have made the artwork that is officially banned on death row.

The families suspect they made the pieces with discarded plastic bags passed on by fellow prisoners, shredded and woven into figurines.

Vietnamese artist Thinh Nguyen with a deer made by an inmate on Vietnam’s death row at his studio in Hanoi. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

They were once smuggled out by prisoners released after serving their terms but relatives stopped receiving them a few years ago, leading Chinh and other parents to fear guards have cracked down on the forbidden prison pastime.

They’re too scared to ask about the practice during brief monthly visits closely monitored by prison staff.

But Chinh says the art still drives his decade-long fight to free his son, who he insists was nowhere near the scene of the crime he was convicted of.

“When I see the animals, I know somehow that my son is stable enough to create these things, that he is mentally strong,” said Chinh, sitting with a bag full of documents on his son’s case.

“They motivate our fight for justice.”

‘When I see the animals, I know somehow that my son is stable enough to create these things, that he is mentally strong,’ says Nguyen Truong Chinh. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

LEADING EXECUTIONER

Little is known about Vietnam’s prison system, but in a rare report last year the Ministry of Public Security said 429 people were executed between August 2013 and June 2016.

That is an average of 147 per year – putting Vietnam among the world’s top executioners along with China and Iran.

Details about prison conditions are scarce and media access heavily restricted.

But the law requires death row inmates to be held in solitary confinement and monitored around the clock.

Prisoners deemed “dangerous” have one foot shackled for most of the day, released only for 15 minutes to bathe inside their cell, where they also eat and use the toilet.

Nguyen Truong Chinh shares some of the intricately crafted animals made by his son on death row. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

“In many cases, acts of torture, coupled with the denial of medical care, have resulted in deaths in custody that are almost never investigated by the authorities,” Andrea Giorgetta from International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) told AFP.

The MPS report said 36 death row inmates died behind bars between 2011 and 2016, without saying how.

In letters to his family, Chuong said he was tortured in custody: hung upside down and naked with a dirty sock in his mouth and beaten during interrogation.

Police electrocuted his genitals and prodded him with needles until he confessed under duress, he wrote.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry rejected allegations of torture as “false information” in a statement to AFP and said it does not do anything to harm the “honour and dignity” of inmates.

Nguyen Truong Chinh says the art drives his decade-long fight to free his son, who he says was nowhere near the scene of the crime he was convicted of. (Photo: AFP/Nhac NGUYEN)

DETERMINED TO FIGHT

Relatives of the death row artists say their work offers a necessary diversion from constant fear of execution.

Prisoners are given little notice before their execution, which since 2010 has been carried out by lethal injection.

Before then, inmates were awakened before dawn, given a final meal and a cigarette, tied to a post and shot by five officers, with one final “humane shot” to the head, according to a 2016 report by the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights.

Today locally manufactured drugs are used to kill prisoners, though advocates complained of inhumane deaths after a man reportedly took two hours to die in 2011.

It’s an unimaginable end for the families who refuse to give up hope their sons will one day be freed.

Nguyen Thi Loan has sent more than 1,500 letters to the government proclaiming the innocence of her son Ho Duy Hai, 32, and gave up her land, home and job as a vendor to fight for his release.

“I’m determined to seek justice and fairness for Ho Duy Hai until my last breath,” she said of her son who was jailed for the murder of two women in 2008.

His scheduled execution was called off at the 11th hour in 2014 by the president, raising hopes his case could be reopened.

In his earlier years in prison, Hai sent shrimp, fish and miniature horses as gifts to his lawyers, former teachers and relatives.

But she hasn’t received one in years and fears jailers have banned the practice.

“Making those gifts didn’t harm anyone. Why won’t they let my son do it?” she told AFP in tears.

Supporters hope to raise awareness about Hai’s case through his artwork, which was put on display alongside Chuong’s pieces earlier this year at an underground show by activist artist Thinh Nguyen.

He started collecting the pieces from families years ago after he met them outside government offices calling for their sons’ release.

“When I put these animals on show, their stories are known,” Thinh said. “I look at these and I see a lot of hope.”

Source: AFP/na

Vietnam sees host of problems as it hosts Chinese tourists

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Chinese tourists are seen with others onboard during their visit in UNESCO’s world heritage Ha Long Bay. Photo by Reuters/Kham

‘Zero dollar’ tours, uncouth behavior and wanton undermining of Vietnamese sovereignty spoil China’s image.

A surge in the number of Chinese tourists should be welcome news for Vietnam as it seeks to make tourism a spearhead economic sector, but many of them are turning out to be unwanted guests.

In the first four months of this year, over 1.7 million Chinese tourists came to Vietnam, accounting for 32 percent of the total number of foreign visitors. The figure marked an increase of about 40 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam.

However, many of the visitors are carrying a nuisance value that is not only giving China a bad image, but also hurting Vietnamese tourism with their “uncivilized” behavior, according people in the host country.

The littering and noisy chattering by the Chinese visitors could end up deterring other foreign visitors from returning to Vietnam, some people say.

Duong Nguyen Ngoc Hoang, a Nha Trang resident, said he has seen Chinese tourists talking loudly in public with no regard for others’ privacy. At lunch, these guests scramble to get good seats at the table, shouting loudly and flinging food everywhere all the while.

“Seeing that scene, a tourist couple from Australia standing next to me just shrugged and sighed in disappointment,” Hoang said.

Hoang Nhan Chinh, an official from Vietnam’s National Administration of Tourism, said this situation wasn’t unique to Vietnam, according to local media.

Chinese tourists are infamous for their noisy chattering and disregard for order in public places, he said.

“The noisy chattering in tourist destinations is not appreciated by other guests. Some European guests don’t even stay in hotels which admit Chinese tourists,” he said.

Even worse, some Chinese tourists are also spreading misinformation about Vietnamese sovereignty.

In February, a Chinese tourist in Vietnam was caught on camera saying: “Vietnam belonged to China in the past, but fighting has divided China, and thanks to that, Vietnam was born a nation.”

Soon after saying this, she assumed the role of a tour guide herself in the coastal city Da Nang.

The city’s tourism department has since asked the Ministry of Public Security to ban the aforementioned Chinese tourist from returning to Vietnam.

Earlier this month, police at the Cam Ranh International Airport in the central province of Khanh Hoa discovered 14 Chinese tourists passing through immigration wearing T-shirts with a Chinese map that violated Vietnam’s sovereignty.

The police ordered the tour company, based in the nearby resort town Nha Trang, to confiscate the T-shirts.

This news sparked outrage on social media, with many Vietnamese and foreigners urging local authorities to deport the Chinese visitors.

“The fact that Chinese tourists can come here and spread misinformation about Vietnam’s sovereignty is dangerous, and could negatively affect diplomatic ties,” said Chinh.

The surge in Chinese tourists is not accompanied by an expected windfall in tourism revenue. Chinese tourists typically spend $600 per guest, while North Americans and Europeans spend about $1,500 and $1,300, said Chinh.

‘Free’ tours

Then there are the “zero dollar” tours tailor-made for Chinese visitors.

In the peculiar phenomenon known as ‘Zero dollar’ tours, travel agencies pay for tourists’ accommodation and meals on the condition they follow the agencies’ schedule and shop only at the stores they are taken to.

These stores are the foundation of ‘zero dollar’ tours,” said a travel official in Quang Ninh.

Tourists who take these tours travel on Chinese-owned airlines, eat at Chinese-owned restaurants, and stay at Chinese-owned hotels.

“Vietnam’s local businesses gain nothing from these ‘zero dollar’ tours,” Chinh said.

On paper, most of the stores are owned by Vietnamese nationals, but they are actually operated by Chinese investors, and their operations are very hard for authorities to control, he explained.

The travel agencies and stores strike a deal to split the revenue from these tours.

Jewelry, blankets, mattresses and other products are sold at these “Chinese customers only” stores for prices a few times higher than the market rate, the official said.

Fifteen of these stores were closed in March 2017 after the PM asked Quang Ninh Province to verify press reports of low service quality. The media has called them “secret stores” since they are always packed with Chinese tourists and Vietnamese nationals cannot get in.

Good eggs

While “all guests are valuable guests,” those that negatively impact the country and its image by their actions are not welcome, Chinh stressed.

But, he added: “This doesn’t mean that all Chinese tourists are behaving badly though. Many are very courteous, and actively contribute to our economy when they are here.”

By Phan Anh, Source: Vnexpress

Vietnam’s export revenue increases in 2018

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Vietnam gained export revenue of approximately USD93.1 billion in the first five months, posting a year-on-year surge of 15.8 percent, said the General Statistics Office.

The domestic economic sector got export turnovers of over USD26.4 billion, up 17.8 percent, and foreign-invested sector nearly USD66.7 billion, up 15 percent.

The country’s products with high growth in export value in the five-month period included phones and their components up 19.8 percent to USD19.5 billion, electronic goods, including computers and their components up 14.2 percent to USD10.9 billion, garments and textiles up 13.3 percent to USD10.7 billion, footwear up 7.9 percent to USD6.1 billion, and wood and woodworks up 10 percent to USD2.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the United States have become Vietnam’s biggest export market with turnovers of USD17.4 billion, up 9 percent, followed by the European Union with USD16.9 billion, up 13.6 percent, and China with USD13.8 billion, up 30.8 percent.

Source: MENAFN

Military training, all flights to Vietnam’s Con Dao Island rescheduled

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Passengers have to fly early in the morning or late at night.

For two days, May 29 and 30, flights to Con Dao in southern Vietnam will be rescheduled because of military training exercises conducted on the island, according to Vietnam Air Services Company (VASCO), VNExpress International reported

Con Dao Military officials said the training will take place between 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Since the training location is close to the Con Dao Airport, VASCO has to rearrange its flights between Con Dao Island, Phu Quoc Island, Can Tho City and Ho Chi Minh City, confining customer travel to early in the morning or late at night.

Con Dao Airport, first built by the French, was later on bought by the Southern Airports Corporation. On May 9, 2004, both VASCO and Con Dao Airport opened for business. The airport is used all year round for both commercial and military purposes.

Con Dao Island, one of the favorite in Vietnam, welcomed more than 46,500 visitors in the first four months this year, up 26.8 percent from a year ago and including nearly 9,000 foreigners, according official figures.

By Doan Loan

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

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