More than 2.6 million foreigners visited Ho Chi Minh City during the first four months of this year, reaching 34.85% of this year’s plan, according to a report from the municipal People’s Committee.
In April alone, the total number of foreign arrivals to the City was estimated to be 615,406, up 25% against the corresponding period last year. The tourism revenue for April was around VND10,243 billion, a year-on-year rise of 17.46%, bringing the total revenue for the four months to VND42,258 billion, reaching 30.62% of this year’s plan.
The city has conducted several surveys as part of its recent efforts to develop new tourism products, programs, and tours to boost tourism development. It has also organized tourism promotion programs overseas with events such as HCM City Days in Aichi, Japan, a Tourism Youth Ambassador of Greater Mekong Sub-region action program, and an exchange program in Laos.
To make the city more attractive to international friends, the municipal People’s Committee has asked the Department of Tourism to continue to improve the quality of tourism products and services, focusing on the development of waterway tourism, organizing art performances to serve visitors, and implementing the HCM City – 100 interesting things program and a standard tourism service program.
When it comes to wildlife, many Vietnamese people only care if an animal fits to be eaten, rather than how to protect them, an activist said at a conservation exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City late last month.
Mzung, a filmmaker and environment activist, told other young conservationists at the talk held on the sidelines of the exhibition titled “The Scream – Call of the Wild” that the conceptions about wildlife many Vietnamese still hold need to be changed.
“In other developed countries, when talking about porcupines, deer, pheasants, people will ask what the animals look like, where they live, what they eat,” Mzung said at the April 23 talk.
“Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the first thing many Vietnamese people want to know is if they are good to eat.”
Mzung said the popular misconception that wild animals, which only eat plants in the forests, will produce nutritious meat is to blame for the fact that Vietnamese people have a liking for wild animal consumption.
“Many people are willing to pour money into rhino horn, bear bile, pythons or snakes, and it is challenging to change that notion,” she underlined.
Vietnamese conservationists discuss at a talk in Ho Chi Minh City on April 23, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre
Alarming facts
The April 23 event was hosted by young Vietnamese conservationists, with the desire to bring the most honest view to the public as well as calling for action from the community.
The young organizers come from a variety of backgrounds.
Joining Mzung on the stage were Trang Nguyen, an international social activist on fighting wildlife trade since 2013, and Dao Van Hoang, an amateur painter who chooses wildlife conservation as the main theme of his works.
During the almost five-hour talk, the conservationists and people fascinated by nature openly discussed the disappointing state of wildlife conservation in Vietnam.
Humans are largely involved, either directly or indirectly, in wildlife hunting, trading and consumption activities, according to the speakers.
“People hunt and kill animals in Africa to get ivory, horn and feather, or use them to make wine, due to huge market demand in Asia, particularly Vietnam,” Trang Nguyen, an independent artist who is pursuing her doctoral studies in the UK, said.
The activists reminded the audience of such alarming facts as the current rate of extinction of animals has become increasingly faster, with three to four rhinos and 96 elephants killed in Africa every day, or the world’s last surviving male northern white rhino already died in Kenya on March 20.
It is also predicted that the number of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and many other animals in the world will decline by about two-thirds by 2020.
Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino, is seen at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Photo: Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Vietnam has recently confirmed that no wild tigers are left in the country, whereas an elephant in the Yok Don National Park in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is in a crucial condition with the necrosis foot, and two-thirds of its trunk and ivory cut.
Mzung said that there are too few pioneers in wildlife conservation in Vietnam, as the work of conservationists is not flashy and praised.
Both Trang Nguyen and Mzung are working on projects for children “to have a generation of love and a sense of nature protection,” they shared at the event.
A dead young elephant is seen at Yok Don National Park in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Photo: Tuoi Tre
Mzung has produced many documentaries on wildlife, human connections and interactions both in urban areas and around protected regions.
Trang Nguyen has worked on many animal conservation projects and left her footprint in a series of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in South Africa and Kenya.
Dao Van Hoang has traveled to more than 25 countries to paint in nature reserves, taking animals and endangered species that need to be protected as the main subject of his works.
Communist country capitalizing on state-supported technology firms to close economic gaps and quickly reach middle-income status.
Communist ruled Vietnam makes no bones about capitalizing on technology and other entrepreneurial startups to speed its drive to reach middle-income status and close the economic gap with more developed regional rivals.
Communist Party cadres are now reaching globally in that centrally planned pursuit, signing deals with nations ranging from Finland to Thailand in what planners see as the next leap forward in the transition from a command to market economy.
Vietnam’s government has established several technology accelerators, including a so-called “Vietnam Silicon Valley” under the tutelage of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Saigon Innovation Hub (Sihub) managed by Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Science and Technology.
State managers say government support is needed to secure profitable niches in an increasingly competitive marketplace, particularly in the technology sector.
“Vietnam’s innovation and startup ranking is still lower than other regional countries like Singapore or Malaysia,” Sihub managing director Huynh Kim Tuoc said. “Most local startups are of a small scale, at their seed stage, with limited ability to make a breakthrough and need further incubation.”
Tuoc’s agency is now partnering with more than a dozen countries on everything from tech consulting to entrepreneur exchange programs to achieve such breakthroughs.
The mythology around successful startups folds neatly into Vietnam’s own origin myth and the way others view the nation. It’s a hard-driving history Hanoi hopes to harness and guide despite still strict state controls on expression and openness.
An internet user browses through the Vietnamese government’s new Facebook page in Hanoi in a file photo. Photo: Reuters
From a small colony with upstart guerrillas who routed France at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, to the tropical backwater that somehow overcame America’s powerful military in 1975, Vietnam is known for overcoming huge odds.
Today, its brainy programmers are aiming to code Vietnam’s way to prosperity despite a slow start. Some observers perceive Vietnam has already leapfrogged certain regional rivals, including Thailand and Indonesia, countries which Vietnam competes with for foreign direct investment (FDI).
“The world is moving fast and in order not to be left behind, Vietnam has to strive to be part of the global innovative economy,” said Nguyen Phi Van, founder of Retail & Franchise Asia, a business advisory that works across the region.
Van says she has used her own cross-border success as a platform to mentor young Vietnamese up-and-comers. That entrepreneurial vibrancy can be seen in mushrooming co-working spaces across Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, and to a lesser extent in more staid Hanoi.
The groundwork for building a so-called startup nation has been well-laid. The government gives tax breaks to new innovative companies while also offering modest capital infusions. Increasingly those incentives, observers say, are being translated into something more concrete and sustainable.
A young Vietnamese man working on a laptop on a Hanoi balcony. Photo: iStock/Getty Images
Foreign linkages have helped. The government’s so-called “Sihub 2020” strategy includes several prongs, including annual exchange programs with Canada, Germany, and South Korea; consultations on commercialization, market research, and expansion abroad; yearly events with foreign embassies that help facilitate doing business overseas; and a board of advisers that counts representatives from multinationals like Alibaba, Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group.
“We aim to facilitate the process of deepening international integration focusing on building intellectual and innovative properties,” Tuoc said.
Large Vietnamese technology companies already have taken their shows on the road. Software giant FPT, for example, is building up its business in Japan, while telecommunication giant Viettel has built networks all over Africa, from Burundi to Cameroon.
Now newer corporate names are starting to branch out, too. Ticketbox, for example, has become the country’s go-to online vendor that has set up deals with event planners and payment companies and made forays into Thailand and Singapore.
Topica, meanwhile, is expanding regionally in education services, leveraging into the fact that Vietnam beats most of its regional peers in international math and science tests. Its online tutoring and degree services have so far been rolled out in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
Others are developing locally innovative concepts and products with an eye on eventual regional expansion. Toong, another local startup, bills itself as Vietnam’s first chain of co-working spaces, leveraging into the country’s real estate boom by offering techies an affordable place to code and collaborate.
Vietnam’s Ticketbox online vendor has expanded across Southeast Asia. Photo: Twitter
It recently announced a partnership with the local Wink Hotels group to shake up the traditional business centers at hotels. The idea, company executives say, is to have a place where business travelers, digital nomads, and locals all can work.
“When business centers are designed with the fashionable and inspirational mindset of a co-working space,” Toong founder Do Duong said, “they will better meet the expectations of this modern working style.”
Toong’s expansion plans will start in Laos, where it is opening the smaller country’s first co-working space before expanding across the rest of Indochina.
Technology controversies and challenges in other parts of the globe, ranging from Facebook’s data sharing scandal with Cambridge Analytica, to the Big Brother-like face scanning to social scores used by China, have only amounted to cautionary tales so far for Vietnam.
That said, too much state intervention can also inhibit entrepreneurial drive. Hanoi’s main concern has been to prevent digital companies from dodging taxes and to prevent the “fake news” that has caused global ripples from stirring trouble at home.
A local flyer for Vietnamese educational services company Topica. Photo: Facebook
Tight internet controls, global experience shows, can inhibit technology sector investments. But while the Southeast Asian country’s startup success is far from guaranteed, it does have a number of things going for it.
One is a huge diaspora, known as Viet Kieu, many of them driven out of the country by the Vietnam War, who settled in places like California’s Silicon Valley and are now interested in bringing their capital and knowledge back to Vietnam.
Another is a highly-educated and driven work place, with students and graduates who regularly beat rich-nation peers on the key international test rankings for science and math.
Perhaps just as important is a history of hustle: Vietnam has been home to entrepreneurs looking for ways to make a buck — or a dong — for centuries, dating to the once vibrant trading port of Hoi An to the busy shipping routes along the Mekong River.
Now as then, there is no shortage of outward-looking entrepreneurs seeking Vietnam’s next big break in the new global economy.
With support of The Gioi Di Dong, the largest mobile phone distribution chain in Vietnam, Nokia is expected to make things happen again in Vietnam.
At a ceremony launching Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 6 in Hanoi on April 18, The Gioi Di Dong pledged to sell 500,000 Nokia smartphone products in 2018. The retailer has committed to sell 41,600 smartphones for HMD Global.
The models have manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of at least VND5.99 million.
Nokia will list its name among the top four smartphone brands in Vietnam and will have opportunities to compete with Apple for the third position in the list of best sellers.
If the sales by The Gioi Di Dong account for 65 percent of total smartphones Nokia sells in the market, about 64,000 Nokia products would be sold each month. The figure could be even higher if The Gioi Di Dong can fulfill its commitment.
A report from GfK, a market analysis firm, showed that in February 2018, Nokia was the fourth to Samsung, Oppo and Apple in the sales of smartphones in Vietnam with 50,313 products sold. The fifth position belonged to Vivo with 48,795 products sold.
However, in January 2018, also according to GfK, Nokia, with 46,604 products sold, Nokia was in a lower position than Vivo which sold 54,739 products.
Vivo and Nokia have been fighting for the fourth position in recent months. The positions changed regularly depending on the manufacturers’ launch of new models and the retailers’ sales promotion programs.
Though the fourth position is still uncertain for Nokia, analysts believe that the brand, which is among the world’s top 5, has greater advantages than Vivo.
The biggest advantage is that Nokia products were favored in Vietnam, while Vivo is a completely new brand.
The Gioi Di Dong’s chair Nguyen Duc Tai also commented that Nokia is a familiar name to the majority of Vietnamese. The second big advantage is that Nokia has a big partner in charge of distributing its products.
Some analysts think that Nokia may even be a threat to Apple, which has been in the third position over many years.
In 2017, Apple’s products held 9 percent of Vietnam’s smartphone market share with 122,000 products sold each month, while the total number of smartphones sold in Vietnam was 13.5 million.
Apple’s average number of sold products doubles that of Nokia’s.
The draw for the 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup was made on Wednesday and has thrown up its fair share of enticing encounters between ASEAN football’s finest.
While both groups are fairly evenly-matched, Group B has arguably emerged as the proverbial “Group of Death”, featuring defending champions Thailand, 2016 runners-up Indonesia, four-time winners Singapore and emerging Philippines, along with the winner of the qualifying playoff between Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste.
Meanwhile, Group A pits 2008 winners Vietnam, 2010 champions Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos against one another.
Here, FOX Sports Asia brings to you the full list of fixtures for the upcoming edition of Southeast Asia’s premier international tournament.
November 8 (Group A) Cambodia v Malaysia
Laos v Vietnam
November 9 (Group B) Singapore v Indonesia
QF Playoff winner v Thailand
November 12 (Group A) Malaysia v Laos
Myanmar v Cambodia
November 13 (Group B) Indonesia v QF Playoff winner
Philippines v Singapore
November 16 (Group A) Laos v Myanmar
Vietnam v Malaysia
November 17 (Group B) QF Playoff winner v Philippines
Thailand v Indonesia
November 20 (Group A) Myanmar v Vietnam
Cambodia v Laos
November 21 (Group B) Philippines v Thailand
Singapore v QF Playoff winner
November 24 (Group A) Vietnam v Cambodia
Malaysia v Myanmar
November 25 (Group B) Thailand v Singapore
Indonesia v Philippines
December 1 (Semi-finals 1st leg) Group A runners-up v Group B winners *Match 21
December 2 (Semi-finals 1st leg)
Group B runners-up v Group A winners *Match 22
December 5 (Semi-finals 2nd leg) Group B winners v Group A runners-up *Match 23
December 6 (Semi-finals 2nd leg) Group A winners v Group B runners-up *Match 24
December 11 (Final 1st leg) Winner of Match 21 & 23 v Winner of Match 22 & 24
December 15 (Final 2nd leg) Winner of Match 22 & 24 v Winner of Match 21 & 23
2018 Scorecard: Straits Times Index up 6.2%, VN Index up 4.6%
Investors remain skeptical on whether the rally can continue
There’s been lots of competition for the title of Asia’s best-performing stock market this year. Among the major equity indexes in the region, eight have climbed to records in the first four months alone.
Today, Singapore’s Straits Times Index nudged higher, boosting this year’s gain to 6.2 percent in local currency terms, and took the top spot from Vietnam’s VN Index, which plunged 2 percent. Bloomberg reports
The city-state has its three big banks to thank for clinching the top spot across all major equity markets in the continent. On April 30, DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest lender, reported quarterly profit that beat analyst estimates helped by signs of economic growth and higher U.S. interest rates. Rivals United Overseas Bank Ltd. and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. report in the coming days, and could fuel further gains in the Straits Times Index.
“Singapore’s stock market is very much a reflection of its open economy,” Edward Lim, chief investment officer of Covenant Capital Pte. in Singapore, said by phone. “It’s really a reflection of the mood in rates and the relatively large exposure that the Singapore stock market has on banks.”
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s benchmark index has been paring advances after a 43 percent surge in the past year. The VN Index has fallen 14 percent from a record high on April 9, as investors take profit and as a spate of local share sales curbed gains. The country’s stock market more than doubled in value in the past year to $174 billion.
Two of the markets which climbed to records this year — the Philippines and Indonesia — are now among the worst performers of 2018. China stock indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen are down by more than 6 percent this year.
Still Skeptical
Even so, some investors aren’t convinced that Singapore will remain the best stock market in the region. “Valuations are actually stretched. If you look at other Asian markets, China still remains our top pick,” Covenant’s Lim said.
The Straits Times Index is trading at 1-year forward price-to-earnings ratio of 14 times, which is almost 1-standard deviation above its 5-year average, according to Bloomberg data.
While it’s possible that there’s still room for the benchmark index to climb another 3 to 4 percent, “a lot of the gains driven by domestic reasons have been factored in and upside is limited,” said Geoffrey Ng, director of Fortress Capital Asset Management Sdn. by phone from Kuala Lumpur.
The internet is changing Vietnam, and the spending patterns of its citizens.
Tran Ngoc Thai Son set up his e-commerce startup in his parents’ bedroom in Ho Chi Minh City, and went live one Saturday morning in 2010. The first order came on the Monday, when Son prodded a friend to order a book, which he delivered himself on a motorbike.
Eight years later, Tiki.vn has expanded from its original niche of English-language books to goods ranging from diapers and electronics to air tickets and insurance. The company has annualized gross merchandise value — an indicator by which e-commerce sites measure their sales — of about $240 million, and delivers across Vietnam.
“Vietnam is a very young country going through a golden population period,” says Son, referring to Vietnam’s demographics, which skew heavily toward younger people. “We are a working and shopping country.”
Source: Financial Times
He says Tiki had an opportunity to go public within four years, and that the company was looking at expanding in the region, possibly starting with Taiwan.
Tiki.vn is one of several e-commerce companies, many with foreign backers, homing in on Vietnam, where rising incomes and growing internet connectivity rates are pushing more shoppers online. Amazon last month attended an industry conference in Vietnam, prompting speculation among retailers — and some consumers who use the U.S. site and pay steep shipping fees and import taxes — that it would be entering the country soon. The company did not respond to a request for comment on its plans for the market.
For now, the competition is largely a proxy war between China’s e-commerce companies. Lazada, owned by Alibaba, is the market leader, while JD.com recently bought a 22 percent stake in Tiki for an undisclosed amount. Online marketplace Shopee is owned by Singapore-based Sea, in which China’s Tencent is a shareholder.
E-commerce has been slower to take off in Southeast Asia than in China because of the region’s challenging logistics. However, online businesses are booming: Bain, the consultancy, recently estimated that the region had 200 million digital consumers — people who bought goods or services online — out of an adult population of 405 million. Vietnam accounted for 35 million of those.
Vietnam’s youthful population are among the keenest users of mobile devices in the region, while the country’s consumers spend more time online than most of their neighbors. Nielsen, the market research firm, estimated that people spend nearly 25 hours online per week, on par with or just behind Singapore and the Philippines.
Source: Financial Times
However, Vietnam poses a special challenge for the delivery market, e-commerce groups say, because of poor roads, growing traffic congestion and its sprawling geography — its two biggest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, lie more than 1,600 km (994 miles) apart.
“The challenge for commerce in Southeast Asia in general, and Vietnam in particular, is logistics,” says Vu Duc Thinh, country manager for the logistics arm of Lazada, which is piloting the use of bicycles and electric tricycles in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries where it operates.
E-commerce companies also have to contend with stiff competition from brick-and-mortar shopping, which is enjoying a surge of investment and rising sales amid a sustained economic boom in which gross domestic product is growing more than 7 percent a year.
Vietnamese consumers are notoriously price sensitive, posing an added challenge in determining prices and shipping fees. Huynh Mai, who is 25 and works for an advertising agency in Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the new online shoppers that retailers covet. Mai has graduated from paying cash on delivery to using her Visa card. She usually goes online to buy cosmetics, clothes and appliances, and recently bought an Electrolux washing machine on Lazada for her family.
She buys books on Tiki, and is intrigued by rumors that Amazon could come to Vietnam. Mai sometimes buys goods from the U.S. site through a friend who lives there, paying the extra money needed to get the goods to Vietnam. “If Amazon comes here, it would be really amazing,” says Mai. “But the challenge would be the price of the products. I think if they want to win Vietnamese customers, they have to come with the best price.”
Air pollution levels remain “dangerously high” in many parts of the world, with nine out of every 10 people living in cities breathing air containing high levels of pollutants.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that seven million people a year die because of air pollution, with people living in parts of Vietnam at risk.
Using data from 2013 to 2015, it says people living in Longford, Westmeath, Limerick, Galway City, Bray and Wicklow ingest quantities of particulate matter that includes sulfate, nitrates and black carbon, which pose risks to human health.
However, improvements in air quality since 2015, including an extension of the smoky coal ban, has resulted in improvements.
But the most recent air quality report from the Environmental Protection Agency says that while no limits above EU levels were detected, more stringent WHO levels were exceeded at up to 11 sites in 2016, suggesting improvements are needed. The Government says up to 1,500 people die prematurely every year because of air pollution.
The WHO report examined quality in more than 4,300 urban areas across 108 countries and found that most air-pollution-related deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries.
“Air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalised people bear the brunt of the burden,” said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“It is unacceptable that over three billion people – most of them women and children – are still breathing deadly smoke every day from using polluting stoves and fuels in their homes. If we don’t take urgent action on air pollution, we will never come close to achieving sustainable development.”
The seven million who die every year are exposed to fine particles in polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system, causing diseases including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia.
Ambient air pollution alone caused some 4.2 million deaths in 2016, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period.
In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, air pollution at construction sites is five or six times higher than the standard. According to the city’s environmental protection sub-department, local air pollution is mainly caused by floating dust. The latest report by Vietnam News Agency mentioned.
Facebook is invading Tinder’s space with a new set of dating features.
It will let people opt in to creating a dating profile on Facebook. It will only be visible to non-friends who also opted into dating. Facebook will match you by a slew of preferences. And because it has more data on you than any other app, it could deliver more relevant matches. The feature will start testing later this year.
Facebook explains that “potential matches will be recommended based on dating preferences, things in common, and mutual friends. They’ll have the option to discover others with similar interests through their Groups or Events.”
Here’s how Facebook dating will work:
Opt in to a create a profile with just your first name. Your profile won’t be visible to friends, users who aren’t on the dating feature, and it won’t show up in the News Feed.
You’ll browse Events in your city and Groups that match your interests. You can select to “unlock” one for dating. You’ll then see the profiles of other dating users who’ve unlocked that surface.
You can browse through people’s profiles that show off a few of their photos plus some basic information about them. You’ll be shown people based on mutual interests and friends, plus other data Facebook has on you.
If you both are interested, you’ll be able to start a conversation with someone in a special inbox that’s separate from Messenger and WhatsApp. For safety, only text can be sent for now.
Tons of marriages start on Facebook already, so there’s a big opportunity for the company to build long-term relationship-focused matching — opposed to apps like Tinder that focus on quick hookups. Investors clearly think Tinder is in danger, considering shares of its parent company Match Group fell 17 percent after Facebook announced its entry into dating.
Still, the question is whether Facebook has built enough barricades between its social network and new dating feature. Users might find it creepy to do it all in one app. And if they get burned by a bad experience either in the dating chat or offline, they could blame Facebook. Still, as Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox explained, dating was always a natural fit for Facebook thanks to its ubiquity, data and trusted platform for identity.
At the very least, you’ll be a lot less likely to get catfished on FaceDate.
The 2nd Annual Canada Green Day by Cancham will be organized on Saturday, May 19th, 12:00-17:00 at Canadian International Shool, No. 86, Road 23, Tan Phu Ward, District 7, HCMC, Vietnam.
The 2nd Annual Canada Green Day will be another fun-filled family day focused on building environmental awareness and sustainability. Canada Green Day will feature the Get Green Competition, a competition for student teams to create sustainability initiatives for their local communities. Winners will be awarded VND 22,500,000 to implement their initiatives. To learn more about the Get Green Competition and last year’s winning teams, please visit the below links.
1st Annual Get Green Competition winners
Canada Green Day will also feature food and beverage vendors, music, and lots of games! Fun for the whole family!
Have questions about Canada Green Day or the Get Green Competition, contact Ryan at ryan@canchamvietnam.org.
Vietnam imported completely-built automobiles and components for assembly totaling nearly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months of this year, falling 32.2 percent on-year.
Specifically, the country imported over 6,700 completely-built automobiles worth 198 million U.S. dollars, posting respective decreases of 79.8 percent and 69.8 percent, according to the last updates from Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam on Wednesday.
In April alone, Vietnam spent 80 million U.S. dollars importing 2,500 automobiles.
Early this year, few automobiles, especially cars, were imported to Vietnam because traders were not well-prepared to comply with a new governmental decree which requires traders to provide more relevant certificates and to undergo more tests than before, according to local experts.
Under the decree, traders are only permitted to import automobiles if they can provide valid vehicle registration certificates issued by authorities from the countries of origin, and they are supposed to have one vehicle from each batch shipped to Vietnam undergone emissions and safety tests.
Last year, Vietnam spent over 5.3 billion U.S. dollars importing 94,000 completely-built automobiles and components for assembly. Meanwhile, its total automobile sales were 272,750 units, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Total vehicle sales in Vietnam will increase to over 284,400 units this year, global research company BMI Research forecast recently, explaining that passenger car demand will be driven by reduction in tax rates on vehicles with engine sizes of 2.0 liters or less, and the elimination of tariffs on completely-built units from ASEAN member countries in January.
Southeast Asian stock markets were mostly lower on Wednesday ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy statement where investors await clues on the future pace of monetary tightening.
The Reuters reports, Malaysian stocks snapped a three-session gaining streak to fall 1.3 per cent on broad-based losses.
CIMB Group Holdings Bhd was the biggest drag on the index, falling as much as 4.0 per cent, while Axiata Group slipped 2.3 per cent, reports Reuters.
Indonesia fell 0.2 per cent, with United Tractors down 2.6 per cent, and Semen Baturaja sliding nearly 8.0 per cent. An index of the country’s 45 most liquid stocks was down 0.2 per cent.
Thai shares slipped 0.2 per cent as energy and real estate stocks weighed on the benchmark. Oil and gas company PTT Pcl was the biggest drag, down nearly 1.0 per cent.
Singapore was flat as gains in industrials were offset by losses in technology stocks. The index is hovering at a near 10-1/2-year high.
Philippine shares fell 0.2 per cent after three straight sessions of gains, while Vietnam dropped 1.2 per cent.
Seventy-nine were killed and another 79 injured so far in 113 traffic accidents nationwide during the Vietnam Reunification Day-Labour Day holiday combo that ended on May 1.
The National Traffic Safety Committee of Vietnam reported and released on Vietnam News, number was recorded from the beginning of the holiday on April 28 until May 1 when people started flocking back to big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Thirty seven accidents occurred on May 1 alone, killing 27 road users and injuring 33.
The traffic situation this year was slightly improved compared to that in the same period last year. The number of crashes went down by 12 while tolls of dead and injured also decreased by 19 and 11 respectively.
Accidents disproportionately occurred on roads with 112 crashes, killing 78 and injured 79 people. Only one accident was recorded on the rail tracks.
The main reason for the accidents, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee, was drunk driving, speeding and driving without helmets or in the wrong lane. The majority of those who died were motorbike drivers.
The committee also noted serious congestion on a number of national highways and particularly the gateways to Hanoi and HCM City on the first and last days of the holiday as city folks left and returned to the cities.
It received more than 140 phone calls and messages from citizens to complain mostly about overcrowded and overpriced coaches running from Hà Nội to other provinces like Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ninh Binh, and Yen Bai and vice versa.
The traffic police forces nationwide reported to have dealt with 25,904 traffic violations during the holiday, levied fines of up to VND13.9 billion (US$619,500) and revoked 872 driving licences.
First four months of 2018, there were more than 6,000 traffic accidents, with over 2,700 fatalities and over 4,600 injured, a drop of 349 cases, seven fatalities and 483 injured compared with the same period last year. A report by Vietnamese National Traffic Safety Committee appeals.
Facebook just wrapped day one of its F8 developer conference keynote, which comes at an unfortunate time this year after the Cambridge Analytica data scandal seems to have put Facebook at odds with how it is handling user data within its developer community. Nevertheless, the show had to go on, and Mark Zuckerberg tried his best to keep developers excited about continuing to build on his platform.
The CEO spent a brief moment of the keynote rallying developers to keep building and using their skills to bring people together. To do so, the company unveiled several updates coming to its product lineup, including the core Facebook app, Instagram, Oculus, and WhatsApp.
FACEBOOK DATING IS COMING
Facebook is already a combination of several services you use online — Facebook Marketplace is to Craigslist as Stories is to Snapchat — and now it appears the social network is coming after Tinder next. Today, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will soon offer a dating feature that allows people to browse potential matches at inside groups or events you’re interested in attending. The feature will allow people to message each other using only their first names, and start conversations that are separate from the core Facebook or Messenger app.
Facebook did not say when the feature will launch, but just minutes after the announcement, Tinder and OkCupid parent company Match Group saw its stock plummet as low as 20 percent from $46.22 to $36.12 per share at the time this article published.
OCULUS GO
The $199 standalone virtual reality headset from Facebook is now available for purchase after Amazon accidentally put preorders up hours before the official launch. The new Oculus Go will support social experiences like Watch Party, multiplayer games, and even live shows such as concerts and experiential theater.
In addition to the headset, there will now be an Oculus TV hub for users to stream content from ESPN, Netflix, Showtime, and more. Some of these services have been available via Hulu for some time, but the new hub should add more options for those investing in the new headset.
MESSENGER REVAMP
Facebook has already admitted that it’s allowed Messenger to become extremely bloated after unbundling it from the core Facebook app, and now, it looks to be simplifying — at least visually. Messenger VP of product David Marcus says the overall refresh is focused on making things cleaner and faster, with an upcoming dark mode teased in a short promotional video.
ALL-IN ON INSTAGRAM STORIES
Most of the updates for Instagram today arrive to the app’s most popular feature to date: Stories. Soon, users will be able to user AR face filters from brands and influencers without waiting for Instagram to release its own. Users will also get more third-party integrations when uploading a story. For example, a GoPro clip could be cropped and ported right to Instagram Stories or you can share what you’re currently listening to on Spotify while offering a deep link within a story to open that song in a viewer’s own Spotify app.
Instagram is also continuing to transform into a full-fledged messaging app, with new video calling features that will allow group conferencing as well.
WHATSAPP GETS A FEW UPDATES, TOO
After a moment of thanking WhatsApp founder Jan Koum in regards to his recent departure, Facebook moved right into sharing stories about how impactful WhatsApp has been around the world. The Stories feature also appears to be taking off well on WhatsApp: Facebook revealed that 450 million users share a story on WhatsApp daily. Additionally, 65 billion messages are sent on WhatsApp every day.
While WhatsApp is not getting a refresh quite as dramatic as Messenger, it will be receiving a few minor updates such as group video calls and stickers. Features targeted at businesses are to come, though the company did not outline specifically what during the keynote.
Perhaps what Facebook didn’t say is equally important to note. During the keynote, Zuckerberg did not mention Cambridge Analytica’s Aleksandr Kogan at all, and he only used moments in the opening remarks to poke fun at himself about when he testified in Congress early last month and to inform developers that app reviews are back on after a brief pause to investigate potential bad actors. Clearly, it was a move to excite developers than warn them — with Zuckerberg looking and sounding more upbeat than he has been in recent public appearances.
Twitter user Jane Wong has done some digging through Instagram’s code and in the process discovered several unreleased features that could be released in the future.
Instagram is reportedly testing these features with some users, but has yet to officially announce them. It’s possible these features might never see the light of day. We’ve reached out to Instagram for comment.
But if Instagram does release them, Snapchat might be in deep trouble. The new features would give Instagram users more control over their account and content and further drive them to dump Snap.
Mute users
I’m pretty sure we all want the ability to mute a user without offending them with an unfollow. Whether it’s a muting co-worker or annoying friend, giving users a mute button would be a godsend.
Slow-motion for Stories
Instagram Stories is already larger than all of Snapchat and adding new features will only further that lead. In recent months, Instagram’s added a “Type” feature that lets users write text-based stories and a “Focus” feature that takes portrait-style photos and videos with a blurred background.
Calendar view for Instagram Stories archive
Currently, you can see your archived Instagram Stories in a grid. But wouldn’t it be nicer if it was a little easier to browse through? Enter: calendar view.
Calendar view looks like a much cleaner way to see how often you post to Stories.
Video calling
Rumor has it Instagram is preparing to bring a video calling feature to the app. Snapchat already lets users video call with each other and while this would be another catch-up feature, it’d be yet another way to keep locked within its walls. Who needs Snapchat, FaceTime or Skype if Instagram lets you do it?
