The authorities in HCM City have asked Grab and Uber to stop recruiting new cars while waiting for the Ministry of Transport review of the two-year implementation of Decision 24 on the pilot application of science and technology in passenger transportation.
The Department of Transport had proposed several solutions to manage app-based taxi services in HCM City previously including asking Uber and Grab to not add new cars to their system. The department wants to stabilise the traffic in the city while waiting for the Ministry of Transport to review two-year implementation.
The Department of Taxation was asked to work with related agencies to closely monitor Uber and Grab and similar app-based services. The authorities will publicise the management and tax collecting methods to avoid cases where traditional taxi firms complain that Uber and Grab are given preferential treatment.
According to the Department of Transport’s inspectorate, they have recorded 86 violations by Uber and Grab and issued VND276m (USD12,100) in fines since early October. Eight cases involving cars without required badges were fined VND2.8m, while 71 cases that didn’t have the phone number and name of the services on the cars were fined VND213m.
The number of cars using app-based service is on the rise in HCM City. In late 2015, there were 300 cars that used app-based services. This number increased to 15,000 in June 2016. The Department of Transport announced that they had recently issued permits to 24,000 cars.
Vietnam is expected to see intermittent rainfall over the next 10 days, which together with recent crop-friendly rains may affect harvesting in the second biggest coffee producer, while Indonesia’s market was quiet, traders said.
Vietnam’s main coffee belt, the Central Highlands, is likely to see a mix of rain and sunny weather in the next 10 days, the National Meteorological and Hydrological Center forecast.
Recent rainfall has prevented beans from turning ripe and ready for harvest, traders said.
“Beans need about two to three weeks of sunny days to be fully grown…It looks like new beans might not be available until the second half of November,” said a Ho Chi Minh City-based trader on Thursday.
The country’s coffee crop starts from October and ends in September.
In Vietnam, the 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta was quoted at a discount of $20-$50 to the London ICE January futures contract, but low stocks and weak demand from importers kept the market dull, traders said.
“Some farmers have started harvesting, but only a few, and they mostly use drying machines…It’s not so sunny yet,” said Phan Hung Anh, deputy director of Anh Minh Co in Daklak, Vietnam’s top coffee-growing province.
The harvest could peak by mid-November, he said.
Farmers in Daklak were offering coffee beans at 42,400-43,000 dong ($1.87-$1.89) per kg , traders said, steady from last week’s offer at 42,000-43,000 dong.
In Indonesia, the grade 4 defect 80 robusta beans was being traded at a $40 premium to the January contract in the main coffee growing province of Lampung, a trader said, the same as last week.
Vietnam’s new Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The has promised to prioritize finding solutions to all problems related to BOT (build-operate-transfer) projects during his office.
The was elected as the country’s new transport minister on Thursday afternoon after receiving a 93.98 percent approval rate from members of the lawmaking National Assembly.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Wednesday afternoon recommended him for the position and requested approval from the National Assembly.
The has taken over from Truong Quang Nghia, who had become Secretary of the Party Committee in the central city of Da Nang.
Nghia replaced Nguyen Xuan Anh on October 6 after the latter was dismissed for wrongdoings committed by the standing board of the Da Nang Party Committee.
Anh blatantly broke the Party’s rules, breached regulations on what Party members are not allowed to do, and went against other standards set by the Party, inspectors said, adding that his violations were severe and negatively affected the Party’s credibility.
Before his appointment, Minister of Transport The was Secretary of the Party Committee in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang and previously a deputy transport minister for the 2013-15 tenure.
The was born on November 27, 1966 in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap. He has a doctoral degree in transport.
In 2005, The was appointed deputy director of the Dong Thap Department of Transport.
He became the vice-chairman of the provincial People’s Committee in 2012.
He was voted as Minister of Transport in 2013 before becoming Secretary of the Soc Trang Party Committee in 2015.
In 2016, The was elected as a member of Party Central Committee and the National Assembly for the 2016-21 term.
During an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Thursday, The stated that his new position represents an honor and responsibility given to him by the Party, state, National Assembly, government, and people.
“I will exert my best effort to fulfill my responsibility,” he asserted.
The said he would first focus on resolving issues regarding BOT projects across the country.
BOT is a project-financing framework in which the developer receives a concession from the private or public sector to finance, design, construct and operate a facility for a certain period, during which it has to raise the finances for, and is entitled to retain all revenues generated by, the project.
The facility is then transferred to the public administration at the end of the concession agreement.
BOT projects have caused quite a stir in Vietnam as drivers keep complaining that tollgates are misplaced and tolls unreasonably high, which might in turn cause commodity prices to rise.
The official will seek ways to expedite major traffic projects including the north-to-south expressway and Long Thanh International Airport in the southern province of Dong Nai.
Priority will also be given to the construction of elevated railways in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as well as measures to alleviate congestion in the two cities.
The will propose possible plans to utilize the capital investment for the 2017-20 period.
The habit of using public wi-fi for free and lack of security awareness among Vietnamese have made it easy to steal users’ information.
Ngoc Minh in Hanoi was surprised after reading the news that WPA2, which is used to protect nearly all wi-fi connections, can be broken, thus disclosing users’ information.
Minh usually goes to a café, where he can enjoy the airy space and work on his laptop with free wi-fi. Even when he goes to the office, he will use a laptop instead of the desktop computer.
Most Wi-Fi connections use WPA2, the most secure encryption protocol available today. However, this protocol has been broken by the Krack technique, according to research by Mathy Vanhoef.
If hackers are within the reach of the same wi-fi network that users are accessing, they will be able to use a technique to read information transmitted such as passwords, chat messages, emails and pictures.
Experts say Krack is the first attack technique in the last 15 years which can break WPA/WPA2, which is considered very safe.
Hackers can decrypt users’ wi-fi connections to find out which websites they are accessing and with whom they are chatting. They can also inject viruses to penetrate more deeply into users’ computers.
“This is a serious vulnerability because hackers can read sensitive information using wi-fi, even if their wi-fi uses WPA2, the best one now,” said Nguyen Minh Duc, CEO of CyRadar.
“The area to be affected could be very large. Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows all could be affected,” he said.
According to Duc, firms have been warned about the vulnerability and they are developing patching versions. However, users need to be cautious when accessing the internet and updating operating systems for their devices.
Nguyen Hong Phuc, a security expert, said warnings had been issued about the risk of having information disclosed because of the Vietnamese habit of using public wi-fi, before the warning by Vanhoef.
In late 2016, Kaspersky analyzed 31 million Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the globe and found 28 percent was unsafe for personal data. The remaining 70 percent seemed to be safer with WPA protocol and attacks depended on other factors, such as the strength of passwords.
In Vietnam, the risk is higher because according to a survey by Avast Software, more than 45 wi-fi access points in Hanoi and HCMC don’t use passwords and any security protocol for routers. Restaurants and cafes tend to set predictable passwords such as 123456789, or their names and addresses.
The owner of Khaisilk, a premier Vietnamese silk brand, has confessed that half of his scarf merchandise is sourced from China and sold under the guise of made-in-Vietnam labels.
Khaisilk scarves have been a hot topic on Vietnamese social media since earlier this week, when one of the company’s scarves was found bearing both a ‘Made in China’ label and a ‘Made in Vietnam’ one.
The brand’s critics have since alleged that Khaisilk has been deliberately deceiving customers by selling Chinese products using misleading labels.
Founded in the late 1990s, Khaisilk scarves are considered a premium product, popular amongst local luxury consumers and international tourists.
Some Khaisilk products sell for more than VND2 million (US$88) a piece.
The brand owner, Hoang Khai, remained silent on the controversy until late Wednesday, when he admitted in an interview with Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper that allegations of mislabeling were true.
Khai took the confession one step further by declaring that at least 50 percent of the company’s silk scarves are from China and the other 50 percent are domestically sourced.
One hundred percent of his products, however, are advertised and sold as made-in-Vietnam.
Label replacing
The story of Khaisilk products carrying two labels was first reported by Vietnamese Facebook user Dang Nhu Quynh on October 23.
Quynh said his brother wanted to buy 60 Vietnamese silk scarves as gifts for his partners and placed an order at the Khaisilk Hanoi Main Store on Hang Gai Street in the Vietnamese capital. The products cost VND644,000 ($28) each.
When the products were delivered on October 17, the buyer discovered that one of them had both ‘Made in China’ and ‘Made in Vietnam’ labels.
“You can clearly see that on the other 59 scarves, the ‘Made-in-China’ label was carelessly removed and a ‘Made-in-Vietnam’ label was added,” Quynh wrote.
The buyer requested to make a record of the case and later filed an official complaint to the company headquarters.
The company’s response, as recounted in Quynh’s post, was to double-down on their claim that all 60 scarves were made from “100 percent silk.”
Tran Van Cuong, manager of the Khaisilk Hanoi store, asserted that store employees were only able to secure 59 products for the 60-item order, so they “took one scarf that was still on the sewing machine, pending delivery to another customer, without a careful check.”
The scarf in question, according to Cuong’s account, was part of a 350-item order Khaisilk was to deliver to a Hong Kong customer, which demanded that the products be labeled ‘Made in China.’
Quynh said in his post that he would refrain from commenting on Khaisilk’s response and would instead let readers draw their own conclusions.
As of Thursday morning, Quynh’s viral post had received more than 1,100 likes and 125 shares. He told Thanh Nien that a Khaisilk representative had asked him to remove the post but he turned down the plea.
The sign (the in red circle) suggesting that the ‘Made in China’ label has been cut out is seen on a Khaisilk scarf in this photo posted on the Facebook page of Dang Nhu Quynh
Chairman broke silence
Hoang Khai, a real estate tycoon and chairman of Khaisilk Group, began his interview with Thanh Nien by saying that he would like to “apologize to customers for the unclear positioning of [his] products.”
Khai admitted that in the 1990s, when the Vietnamese silk sector began its decline, he was forced to turn to the Chinese market for sourcing beautiful products which he believed could be taken as Vietnamese.
The Khaisilk chairman asserted that he was convinced that it was a common practice, saying such brands as Zara and H&M also source products from China and sell under their own brand names to customers worldwide.
He claimed that the practice is ethical as long as product quality is guaranteed.
Consequently, Khai told Thanh Nien that Chinese imports still account for up to 50 percent of the silk scarf stock at Kahisilk stores.
Khai, currently based in Ho Chi Minh City, said the Khaisilk operation in Hanoi is run by a separate entity and he is not charged with overseeing its business.
He admitted that he has paid little attention to his silk business since the Khaisilk Group began expanding into real estate, restaurants, and trade centers.
He also conceded that that the root of the issue was his failure to separate Chinese-imported and Vietnamese-made products in his stores.
“We will recall the entire batch of [made-in-China] products and develop a tighter brand and a better product management system,” he told Thanh Nien.
“Following the recall, we guarantee that the products will be labeled separately, just like big brands.”
Khai said he acknowledged that the ‘two-label’ scandal has hugely affected his brand’s reputation, adding that “this is the price [they] have to pay.”
“We will try to change and win back faith from customers,” he said.
The Vietnam Report Joint Stock Co. has announced the ranking of top 500 companies with the highest profit (Profit500) in 2017.
According to the company’s report, the ranking is based on pre-tax profits, revenues and the indexes of return on assets, return on equity and rate of return.
Other criteria include the companies’ prestige and their scale of staff.
Big companies top the list, including Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade, Truong Hai Auto, Viettel Group, Samsung Electronics, Bank for the Investment and Development of Vietnam and Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam.
Around 17.4% of companies listed operated in the areas of construction and construction materials; 11.4% were beverage firms and 10% were food companies.
Telecoms, IT, technology and retail were among the sectors with the highest profits in the ranking. They were followed by food and beverage sector.
Hungarian DJ Dave Vincent will perform at a Halloween celebration at the Lighthouse in HCM City on October 28.
Vincent began to play music at aged 12 and started his DJ career at 14. He can play drums and the saxophone.
He released his first extended play in 2009, featuring his favourite genres of techno, minimal, tech-house and house.
The party will feature Vietnamese DJ Huy Trương and female DJ Max Celo.
The event will begin at 9 pm at 104 Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa Street in District 1.
Another Halloween celebration titled “Fearless Party” will be held at BFF Zone in District 1 on October 27 and 28.
The event will feature DJ duo 2 Faced Funks from Amsterdam, resident DJs Louis 8ightz and Nimbia, futurist robot DJ crew Robotronika, and singers Tóc Tiên and Sơn Tùng M-TP.
There will be a zone offering Halloween challenges, as well as a costume contest.
The party will take place from 5pm to 11:30pm at 4 Phạm Ngũ Lão Street in District 1. Tickets from VNĐ295,000 can be purchased at http://www.ticketbox.vn.
Vietnam’s national futsal team are aiming to reach the semi-finals of the upcoming AFF HDBank Futsal Championship to qualify for the 2018 AFC Futsal Championship.
Vietnam’s coach Miguel Rodrigo made the statement at a press conference ahead of the tournament in HCM City on October 25.
“As the hosts of the event, our first goal is to take a slot to compete in the AFC event held in Chinese Taipei next February. Next target is to play in the final. However, it is not easy because there are many strong teams with good coaches. We will try our best in each match,” said Rodrigo.
Rodrigo said after the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Turkmenistan last month, the Vietnamese team have had two weeks of training in Vietnam and the team took part in the International Futsal Tournament in Changshu City, Jiangshu province, China in which it finished third.
According to Rodrigo, Vietnamese players’ skills have been improved much by facing strong teams from the Netherlands and Croatia in the Chinese event.
The AFF tournament will take place at Phu Tho Gymnasium in HCM City from October 26 to November 3.
The championship will bring together nine teams from across Southeast Asia, with Việt Nam, Indonesia, Brunei, Myanmar and the Philippines in Group A, and Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Timor Leste in Group B.
Participants will play in a round robin group stage to decide the top four teams that will progress to the semi-finals.
Rodrigo said Thailand are still the best team in the region, however, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia will be tough opponents as well.
Meanwhile, coaches of other Group A teams said they prepared carefully for the event.
In Group B, defending champions Thailand are still strong, although they do have a young line-up and they will miss key player Suphawut Thueanklang, who has been given a rest by coach Jose Mendez.
Mendez said that as this event is a qualifying round for the AFC tournament all teams would be exerting every effort to win.
Explaining why Thailand brought a young squad to Vietnam, Mendez said he wanted to give them a chance for them to show their skills.
“This is a difficult event so all matches are very important. We will also try our best in each game,” said Mendez.
On October 26, Brunei meet Myanmar and Indonesia face the Philippines in Group A. While Thailand play Laos and Malaysia battle Timor Leste in Group B.
Vietnam’s first match is against the Philippines on October 27
Top Vietnamese tennis player Ly Hoang Nam was ousted from the first round of the men’s singles of the Hung Thinh Vietnam Open 2017 in HCM City on October 24.
Ly Hoang Nam, world No 546, lost to No 5 seed and world No 159 Go Soeda of Japan 4-6, 1-6.
Thirty three-year-old Soeda has played in four Grand Slam events. He previously reached 47th place in the world rankings.
Although Nam had to face a strong rival from Japan, he played very confidently in the first set, with the support of fans on home turf. He made fans even jump for joy when he narrowed the gap to 4-5. However, with better skills and experience, Soeda eventually won the first set 6-4.
In the second set, the Japanese rival completely controlled the game and easily beat Nam 6-1.
This evening, Nam and Sumit Nagal of India will face the duo of Chinese Taipei’s Ti Chen and Australian Max Purcell in the men’s doubles first round.
Two years ago, Nam teamed up with Nagal to win the Junior Wimbledon doubles crown, becoming Viet Nam’s first-ever Grand Slam junior champion.
Earlier, Vietnamese Pham Minh Tuan and Trinh Linh Giang were also eliminated from the event’s first round.
The tournament is part of the 2017 ATP Challenger Tour, with total cash prize of up to US$50,000 and 90 points being awarded to the champions in both the singles and doubles categories.
The week-long competition has lured top ranked athletes, including former Junior Grand Slam champions, Taylor Fritz from the United States (world No 99, seed No 1), Yuki Bhambri from India (world No 146, seed No 4) Mikhail Youzhny from Russia (World No 126, seed No 2) and 2015 Vietnam Open winner Saketh Myneni.
Vietnam’s largest listed company Vinamilk (ticker VNM on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange) has finalised procedures to sell 3.3 per cent of the residual stake on November 10, whilst the two brewery giants Sabeco and Habeco have yet to submit their divestment plans.
Renouncing state control over Vinamilk
State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) announced to put a 3.33 per cent stake, which is roughly equal to 48.3 million shares, in Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk) on sale on November 10.
Further details regarding the starting price will be unveiled after November 1 due to the volatility of stock prices.
According to newswire DealStreetAsia, Vinamilk’s last recorded stock price was VND148,500 ($6.54) per share which equals a total of over $9.5 billion valuation for the company.
On October 18, SCIC organised a roadshow showcasing investment opportunities in Vinamilk in Ho Chi Minh City in order to appeal to prospective investors after the divestment.
Speaking at the roadshow, Dang Thi Thu Ha, deputy head of Investment Department 3 at SCIC, asserted that the government and Ministry of Finance (MoF) would provide the most favourable conditions for the investors’ participation in the November 10 auction, pursuant to the PM’s guidelines.
Non-resident foreign investors are permitted to deposit in either Vietnamese dong or US dollar at local and international banks, which is a favourable extension considering the previous Vinamilk share sale with the sole appointed bank being Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam.
Nguyen Duc Chi, chairman of SCIC, noted that the corporation will remain the major shareholder of Vinamilk, retaining 39 per cent of the shares after the auction. He also added that holding about one third will maintain the government’s control over the company.
Thailand-based beverage firm ThaiBev recently purchased 247 million shares at Vinamilk through its subsidiary Fraser and Neave Limited with the purpose of penetrating the food and beverage industry.
Sabeco and Habeco divestment held up
Meanwhile, the divestment plan for the two large beer producers Saigon Alcohol Beer and Beverages Corporation (Sabeco) and Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco) was merely drafted as requested by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).
The PM marked the deadline for MoIT to submit the divestment plan of the two beer makers by October 20, according to newswire Reuters.
Prior to the call, the PM approved of a divestment of 53.59 per cent from Sabeco.
According to Dang Quyet Tien, head of MoF’s Corporate Finance Division, there is no specific schedule for the transaction to be finalised in the remaining two months of 2017.
He also exemplified that SCIC should take over the sale if MoIT did not submit the divestment scheme by September 30, according to the PM’s request.
The current hitch in Habeco’s divestment scheme remains in the negotiation process with the brewer’s strategic partner, Carlsberg.
Entitled to negotiate with Habeco before other stakeholders since 2009, Carlsberg emphasised a wish not to increase the original bid solely to raise the ownership ratio at the firm.
Habeco’s spokesperson highlighted that the pace of negotiation process with Carlsberg stayed sluggish with yet another adjusted deadline for November 15.
Sabeco is currently the second largest listed firm with a net worth of $7.6 billion, following Vinamilk with a $7.9 billion valuation.
Habeco is the country’s third largest brewer and the market leader in the northern region after Sabeco and Vietnam Brewery Limited, with the highest record of VND141,700 ($6.24) per traded share on October 4, according to Vietstock.
As of October 24, the stock price of Habeco, coded BHN, was VND109,000 ($4.08) per share.
Probably not advisable to take a deep breath before reading this story of toxic smog.
Contaminated air was responsible for one in ten deaths in Vietnam, the fourth highest rate in Southeast Asia, after Laos, Cambodia and Philippines, according to a new research paper published on Friday in medical journal The Lancet.
The number of air pollution-related deaths in the country had jumped 60 percent percent from 26,300 in 1990 to 42,200 in 2015, the paper added.
Globally, pollution claimed the lives of nine million people in 2015, three times more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, it said.
Air pollution, including outdoor pollution from factory and car emissions, and indoor pollution from burning wood, charcoal, coal or crop waste for heating and cooking, were by far the biggest contributor to deaths, it added. These forms of pollution were linked to 6.5 million fatalities in 2015.
Based on data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, around 90 percent of pollution-related deaths happened in rapidly-industrializing countries.
“People in poorer countries are more exposed to air pollution and less able to protect themselves from exposure, as they walk, bike or ride the bus to workplaces that may also be polluted,” said co-author Karti Sandilya of Pure Earth, an anti-pollution NGO.
Exposure to high levels of air pollution can affect the human respiratory and inflammatory systems, and can lead to heart disease, strokes and lung cancer.
Last month, a study conducted by the University of Chicago revealed that air pollution cut a Vietnamese person’s life span by 1.16 years.
The 7th Da Lat Flower Festival, themed “Flowers of Da Lat – Miracle from the good earth”, will return to Da Lat city, the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong from December 23-27.
This year’s event will continue promoting the branding of flowers and tourism in Da Lat and also introduce traditional tea and silk products of the province.
The five-day festival will feature a fashion week of silk and “ao dai” (traditional Vietnamese gown) and folk performances by artists from the Republic of Korea.
A series of workshop will be held within the framework of the event to promote investment in Lam Dong, to discuss Da Lat’s development planning and to develop local tea and silk.
According to Chairman of the People’s Committee of Da Lat city Vo Ngoc Hiep, the festival provides an opportunity for local businesses in agriculture and forestry to meet with their peers from other provinces and for the tourism industry to foster local uniqueness among visitors.
The International Smart City Conference opened in Ho Chi Minh City on October 25, attracting more than 500 delegates from Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Taiwan (China), and Thailand.
Speaking at the event, the municipal Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan listed some of the major challenges the city is facing like failure to improve its competitiveness in recent years, gap between infrastructure and population growth, and failure to boost and take full advantage of regional cooperation.
Taking cognisance of these challenges, “in 2016, the city administration decided that becoming a smart city is one of the best solutions for effective urban development”, he said.
According to him, there are five main goals behind the push to become a smart city: make economic growth more sustainable, improve the living and working conditions of its people, engage citizens in city management, improve public services, and ensure sustainable use of natural resources.
The administration, businesses, citizens and social organisations need to act smarter for developing smart city, he said.
He said there are key factors that enable conversion into a smart city, the first being the administration’s ability to anticipate threats and suggest solutions for economic and social development. This is one of the city’s weaknesses at the moment, he said candidly.
The others are building a shared database for all organisations, businesses and citizens; developing the IT infrastructure; and citizens’ inclusion in assessing development progress, he said.
David Wong, Chairman of the Asian Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation, said the digital era encourages the building of smart cities, but there are three key challenges not only in Vietnam but everywhere.
The first is digital infrastructure development both in urban and rural areas.
“This is particularly not easy for a city like Ho Chi Minh City with a population of more than 10 million.”
The second challenge is human resources, but Vietnam has an advantage since it has so many people, workers and talents, something many countries lack, he said.
The third is cyber security, which has become a threat.
The conference heard more suggestions for building smart cities from local and international participants, like the need to build a standard framework, evaluating the smart city based on smart city index, ICT platforms for smart cities and e-governance.
This is the second international conference on smart cities held in Vietnam after the first held in Hanoi two years ago.
Wong said due to the importance of collaboration between the public and private sectors and the need for sharing ideas and expertise between countries in the region to realise the transformation into smart cities, the conference would be held in a different country each year.
The first set of rail tracks and sleepers were installed yesterday on the above-ground stretch of HCM City’s first metro line from Ben Thanh Market to Suoi Tien Theme Park.
The entire 17-km section will be completed by the end of next year with 150m of rails installed every three days, according to the HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR).
The tracks and sleepers are among the items of a bidding package to purchase electromechanical equipment, locomotives, coaches and rail tracks manufactured by Japanese contractor Hitachi.
The package has finished the design of 10 out of 11 items and is in production in Japan with 22 per cent of the work completed, according to MAUR.
Locomotives and coaches are expected to be transported to HCM City in mid-2018, it said.
Speaking at the ceremony, Tran Vinh Tuyen, vice chairman of HCM City People’s Committee, said: “The first metro line plays an integral part in the city’s socio-economic development, helping improve the city’s public transport system to connect the city with provinces in the southern region.”
Tuyen urged MAUR to work closely with the consultants and contractors to speed up construction progress so that the metro can start operation in 2020 while ensuring safety and quality of the project.
Akito Takahashi, deputy head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Viet Nam Office, said JICA was willing to disburse from the committed ODA for the project.
However, Takahashi expressed concern over the delay in payment to the contractors due to insufficient funds from the central government.
He said that JICA appreciated HCM City authority for temporarily arranging the budget to reduce the debt pressure of contractors during the past months.
“We respectfully request that the Vietnamese Government take drastic measures to address the issue of capital replenishment as soon as possible,” said Akito Takahashi.
In addition, the first metro tunnel running from Ba Son Station to the Municipal Theatre in District 1 will be finished next week, two months ahead of schedule, according to MAUR.
The installation of the tunnel boring machine (TBM) began in March and tunnel construction in May, according to MAUR.
The entire tunnel is expected to be completed by mid-2018.
The HCM City’s metro route No 1 connects Ben Thanh Terminal in District 1 with Suối Tiên Terminal in District 9.
The metro line will have 19.7km of track, of which 2.6km are underground (with three stations) and over 17km are above ground (with 11 stations), passing through District 1 through District 2, District 9 and Binh Thanh and Thu Duc districts and Binh Duong Province.
Construction started in August, 2012, with the line expected to open in 2020.
After years of delays due to numerous adjustments, the cost of the project has risen to more than VND47 trillion (US$2.49 billion), according to MAUR.
Saigontourist Holding Company (Saigontourist) and the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) on Tuesday signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly build smart travel solutions.
Notably, with the commitment to provide the best telecommunication products and consultancy services to Saigontourist, VNPT will supply and cooperate with Saigontourist in developing and deploying smart travel solutions (Smart Tourism).
These solutions will help businesses provide customers with the best experience in a swift and economical manner.
The realisation of smart travel solutions will not only help Saigontourist maximise revenue, but is also in line with the smart city development roadmap of HCM City and other provinces and cities.
In addition, VNPT will also provide Saigontourist with software products, software, technology and digital equipment serving the hospitality, restaurant, travel and entertainment businesses, such as hotel online reservation system and customer loyalty management system.
In return, Saigontourist will provide services to VNPT and its subsidiaries with the best possible conditions, at reasonable prices in accordance with the law and on the basis of contracts signed.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Nguyễn Thành Phong, chairman of the People’s Committee of HCM City, said in its strategy of tourism development, besides investment in infrastructure and tourism products, the city is also encouraging the application of technology, especially digital tools to meet the increasing demand of visitors.
Therefore, the strategic cooperation between Saigontourist and VNPT is an important premise for the city to achieve the goal of attracting 10 million international visitors by 2020.
Nguyễn Thành Phong suggested the two sides quickly concretise the terms signed, so that the cooperation process can be practically and comprehensively implemented.
Saigontourist CEO Trần Hùng Việt said the company wants to develop smart travel solutions to bring customers the most unique products, services and experiences, especially during the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The signing of the strategic cooperation with VNPT will facilitate Saigontourist to accelerate the application of new technologies and techniques.
According to Phạm Đức Long, general director of VNPT, it is the first time VNPT has signed a strategic cooperation with a tourism business.
Therefore, VNPT wants to cooperate with Saigontourist in converting the entire operating system into a digital technology-driven system to bring the best benefits to customers and the tourism enterprise.
