Armin van Buuren will open his Asia tour with a night in Saigon.
World renowned DJ Armin van Buuren is going to be bringing the beats back to Saigon this December to kick off his Asia tour, the event’s organizers have announced.
Organizers said the Dutch DJ will be performing in front of 17,000 fans.
No further details on the performance have been revealed. Last year, Jakarta and Singapore were also part of his global tour.
Van Buuren performed in Hanoi in late 2015, when he promised to return.
The 40-year-old artist, who is also a record producer and remixer, was ranked the No. 1 DJ by DJ Mag for four years in a row between 2007 and 2010, and has been held No. 4 position since 2015.
In 2014, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording for his single “This Is What It Feels Like” featuring Trevor Guthrie.
Martin Garrix, currently the world’s No. 1 DJ, performed in Saigon in September last year and DJ Afrojack was on set in December.
DJ superstars Skrillex, Tiesto and Zedd also played the city in 2015.
Four Vietnamese universities have been recognised for the first time by France’s High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES) for meeting the international standards.
The four universities are members of the high-quality engineer training programme of Vietnam (PFIEV). They are Hanoi University of Technology, Da Nang University of Technology under the Da Nang University, the University of Technology under the Ho Chi Minh City National University, and the National University of Civil Engineering.
Addressing the ceremony to present the certificates of recognition to the universities on October 17, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga said that the universities are receiving the certificates in the context of comprehensive reforms to Vietnam’s education and training system.
Vietnam has issued many legal documents to facilitate the self-reliance of schools, he said, adding that quality checks are significant in providing transparent information for students and the relevant parties to accelerate the modernisation and international integration of the schools.
Ga asked the four universities to continue on their path towards self-reliance, while mobilising resources for sustainable growth and effectively expanding their engineer programmes.
HCERES’s criteria of evaluation are strategy and governance, training and scientific research, the training process and vocational integration directions, foreign relations, management, quality and ethics.
The ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) will be back with a record nine teams this season, organisers announced at a press conference yesterday in Manila, the Philippines.
In its ninth edition, the league will see four newcomers — Formosa Dreamers (Chinese Taipei), Nanhai Long Lions (China), CLS Knights Indonesia (Indonesia), and Mono Vampire Basketball Club (Thailand).
They will be against Westports Malaysia Dragons, Singapore Slingers, Saigon Heat, Alab Pilipinas and defending champions, Hong Kong Eastern.
One of the oldest clubs in the country, CLS Knights Indonesia seeks to further promote the brand to the world.
Established in 2014, the Mono Vampire Basketball Club of Thailand has made great strides as a basketball club, finishing in the fifth place in the recent FIBA Asia Champions Cup.
The Formosa Dreamers are replacing Kaohsiung Truth as Taipei’s representative this season. The newly established team will be hosting its games in the city of Changhua.
Nanhai Long Lions are looking to use the team as a vessel to give more opportunities to local players in the basketball-crazed nation.
All the teams are allowed to hire two World Imports and two Heritage Imports to bolster their rosters. They will be divided into three groups and will play a total of 20 games — 10 home and 10 away — over the course of the season.
The top two teams in the overall standings will advance to the semi-finals, while the third to sixth placers will first have to compete in the quarter-finals stage.
In the opener match on November 17, Nanhai Long Lions will take on Singapore Slingers.
Saigon Heat’s player, Lenny Daniel and Coach Kyle Julius
Việt Nam representative Saigon Heat will play its first match against Formosa Dreamers on December 9 at their home turf of CIS Arena in HCM City.
The Heat is currently competing at the national Việt Nam Basketball League and ranks second after nine matches. It is their sixth season at the ABL. In the last three years, the Heat stopped at the semi-finals. This year, they will be supported by Canadian coach Kyle Julius who is expected to lift them to a new height.
Before coming to Việt Nam, Julius, 37, worked three years at the National Basketball League of Canada (NBLC). He led London Lightning to a 35-5 record and finished the season with the title after beating the Halifax Hurricanes in the 2016-17 finals.
He was then named head coach of the 3D Global Sports team, which represented Canada in the 39th William Jones Cup in Chinese Taipei. His team had an 8-1 record, securing them the William Jones Championship over several Asian National Teams including the Philippines.
The former Canadian Senior National Team player said he looked forward to the challenge of coaching in this new league and the region, also admitting that he needed a change of scenery.
Vietnam’s state investor on Monday said it plans to sell 3.33 percent of Vietnam Dairy Products JSC (Vinamilk) on Nov. 10
Vinamilk, Vietnam’s biggest listed firm by market value, is among a handful of state assets to attract significant interest from foreign investors as the government works to reform state-owned enterprises.
A starting price is likely to be announced seven to 10 days prior to the sale date, State Capital Investment Corp Chairman Nguyen Duc Chi said at a media briefing. Chi previously said the sale could fetch 6.5 trillion dong to 7 trillion dong ($286 million to $308 million).
The November sale will be absent of some of the restrictions applied to last year’s sale, such as a purchase cap on each individual investor, Chi said.
In December, the state investor offered to sell 9 percent of Vinamilk but sold only 5.4 percent to two investors – both units of existing shareholder Fraser and Neave Ltd .
Investors looking to gain a degree of control over Vinamilk were also deterred by the size of stake on offer. The government initially planned to sell its entire 44.7 percent stake.
The government now owns 39.34 percent. If the November sale is successful, its stake will fall to 36 percent – enough to retain veto rights.
The government is trying to divest from hundreds of state-owned enterprises, including brewers Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage JSC (Habeco) and Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp (Sabeco) where it owns $7.8 billion worth of shares by market value.
HCM City-based actress Ninh Duong Lan Ngoc was named the Face of Asia at the 22nd Busan International Film Festival in Busan, the Republic of Korea (RoK).
Ngoc, 27, was honoured in the category Asia Star Awards 2017. She shared the title with Choi Minho of the RoK, Sugisaki Hana of Japan and Sukollawat Kanaros of Thailand.
Ngoc played a leading role in Co Ba Sai Gon (The Tailor), a romantic comedy produced by movie star, director and producer Ngo Thanh Van.
The 90-minute film, presented in the category “A Window on Asian Cinema”, is about Vietnamese women living in Saigon (now HCM City) in the 1960s.
“Co Ba Sai Gon features the culture and lifestyle of Saigonese as well as the history of ao dai (traditional Vietnamese long dress),” said Ngoc, winner of the 2011 Golden Lotus Award for best actress, presented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
“The film also highlights Vietnamese women who have triumphed in life and love. I gained new lessons after filming with my older colleagues such as People’s Artist Hong Van and Diem My,” she said.
The 22nd Busan Film Festival, to be held from October 12 to 21, has attracted 98 films from 75 countries.
A Vietnamese-Japanese cultural space is set to open in the UNESCO-recognised town of Hoi An in November to honour the fine relationship that exists between the two countries.
The space will cover the entirety of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street and the area surrounding the Japanese covered bridge.
Activities within the space will include exhibitions of models of red-seal ships, a type of ship used by Japanese merchants, historical records, archaeological finds on Vietnam-Japan trade in the 17th century and performances of tea ceremony and so on.
Visitors to the space will be able to experience Japanese and Vietnam culture through traditional attire, music, calligraphy, lanterns, books and handicrafts.
According to the organisers of the event, the house at 6 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street will become a Japanese cultural house from 2019, where exhibitions, film screenings and other cultural exchange activities will be held by the Japanese side.
Hoi An Chairman Dinh Van Thu said that the Vietnamese-Japanese cultural space will promote cultural exchange between the two countries, helping to honour the fine bilateral relationship and diversify the tourism products of Quang Nam province.
The space is scheduled to open on November 10 or 12.
The smoking rate in Vietnam has fallen four years after the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harm was enacted, according to a report by the Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien.
According to Tien, the law has shown positive results in a survey of smokers 2016. The rate of smoking men decreased from 47.4% to 45.3% and the rate of smoking women decreased from 1.4% to 1.1%. The rate of smokers in urban areas declined from 23.3% to 20.6%.
The passive smoking rate also declined greatly compared to 2010. This rate declined from 55.9% to 42.6% at workplaces, from 54.3% to 37.9% at universities, from 34.4% to 19.4% on public transportations, from 22.3% to 16.1% at schools and from 73.1% to 59.9% at homes.
More people are trying to quit smoking. The number of smokers that received consultancy to give up increased from 29.7% to 40.5%.
Luong Ngoc Khue, Director General of the Medical Examination and Treatment Department under the Ministry of Health, after the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harm and its fund was set up and took effect in 2013, public awareness had been raised and more smoke-free environments had been implemented at workplaces.
The fund management board have carried out various research on the use of tobacco and its effect on public health as well as socio-economic development. Phone anti-smoking advice lines and pilot projects at health clinics were carried out.
61.2% of people believed that smoking could cause heart disease and lung cancer, an increase of 5.7%. As a result, 90.3% of asked people realised that passive smoking could cause harmful effects, an increase of 3.3%.
The advertisements and discount programmes have been further limited in recent years. The fund has supported 26 ministries and departments and 10 hospitals with prevention programmes.
However, Vietnam is still among the top 15 leading countries having the highest rates of smokers. 40,000 people die of smoking-related causes every year. According to the World Health Organisation, 73% of the deaths in Vietnam are caused by non-communicable diseases and smoking is the main cause.
Despite massive discounts buyers are waiting for import tariffs to be abolished at the start of 2018.
Nguyen Hoang Ha felt excited to be checking out a new Honda CRV at a showroom in Hanoi’s Hoang Mai District.
Despite planning to replace his old Huyndai amid sharp cuts to car prices, the 38-year-old banker decided to delay ordering a new vehicle just for now because he expects prices to fall even further in the coming months.
Prices of many vehicles have been slashed from 2.5-15 percent since the beginning of this year, and the Honda CRV and Audi TT have experienced some of the biggest price drops.
Some car dealerships have offered discounts of up to $10.000 to try and boost sales amid a gloomy market, but potential buyers are waiting for lower tariffs that will take affect in 2018.
“Automobile prices have declined steadily in recent months. I don’t want to buy a car today and see the price slashed by tens of millions of dong tomorrow,” he said, picking up brochures from a salesman.
Like many potential buyers, Ha wants to wait for better prices when the import tariff on cars is abolished under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement in 2018. The current import tax is 30 percent.
Over 21,200 vehicles were sold in September, down 4 percent from August and by 20 percent from the same month last year, according to a new report from the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. The figure includes SUVs, passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
Severe blows to car dealerships
Falling sales have forced Nguyen Trong Hiep, a salesman at an Audi showroom in Hanoi, to change his sales approach. Instead of waiting for customers to visit his showroom, Hiep is contacting potential buyers to promote his products.
This drop in sales has hit Hiep and his colleagues, and many of them have quit due to low pay checks.
Some car dealerships have also been struggling. The owner of a showroom in Hanoi’s Long Bien District said his firm had suffered losses due to low sales. If the situation does not improve in the next six months, he will have to close the business and find a new job.
His firm has halved its sales force this year.
“The situation has never been as bad as this before,” he said. “We can’t make enough to pay the interest on a bank loan of over VND4 billion ($181,000) we used to upgrade our showroom late last year, not to mention the monthly rent of nearly $10,000.”
Some small and medium-sized car dealerships have even announced they are selling their showrooms, but that it is difficult for them to find buyers in the current market.
Domestic auto manufacturers are also bracing for tough times.
During the first half of this year, Truong Hai Auto that assembles Mazda and Kia models posted VND25.5 trillion ($1.12 billion) in sales, down 6 percent on-year, with pre-tax profit falling 36 percent to VND2.4 trillion.
Its market share slipped 3.4 percentage points to 38.1 percent in the same period, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.
Industry insiders have said it will be difficult for the automobile market to notch up growth of 10 percent in 2017, target set by the VAMA earlier this year.
Facing the prospect of competing with imported cars, some some domestic makers plan to narrow production in Vietnam and import more cars.
More than 58 percent of cars imported into Vietnam in the first six months of this year came from Southeast Asian countries, according to the Vietnam General Customs Department.
A representative of Toyota Vietnam said her firm had anticipated market fluctuations and planned to cut its assembling operations while focusing on producing only some models in Vietnam.
Like Ha, many potential buyers have been following news on the car market. However, they are only interested in price and not what enterprises plan to do in terms of strengthening imports or narrowing production.
“The only thing I want to know is where the bottom price is,” Ha said. “I don’t want to lose thousands of dollars overnight because of a price drop.”
The WHISE 2017, held by the city’s Department of Science and Technology in partnership with the Embassy of Finland in Vietnam, features about 30 seminars, workshops and discussions, including the Technological Exhibition and Innovation and Startup Conference on October 27-28.
It provides an opportunity for HCM City to foster innovation and startup models, said Director of the Department of Science and Technology Nguyen Viet Dung at a press briefing about the week on October 17.
It will also gather innovation and startup firms into one startup community for the development of the city’s startup ecosystem and to attract investment, he added.
The government of Finland hoped to share innovation and startup experience with Vietnamese enterprises through the WHISE 2017, said Lauri Laakso, Chief Technical Adviser of the Vietnam-Finland Innovation Partnership Programme Phase 2 (IPP2).
He noted that highlights of the week will include a series of workshops to share international experience in education alongside solutions to build smart cities and a startup ecosystem.
The Vietnamese mobile phone market in the third quarter saw an unexpected breakthrough from Samsung, which now holds the largest market share among smartphone makers.
The third quarter was never a lucky period for mobile phone manufacturers in particular and businesses in general. The sales in the period were always low because of the summer holiday, the seventh month of the lunar calendar, called the ‘month of forsaken spirits’, and because of the rainy season in HCM City.
Retailers just ‘sat idle’ in the third quarter and hoped for a recovery in the last months of the year.
However, the third quarter brought luck to Samsung, which now holds the largest market share, and a new brand which has entered the Vietnamese market.
Of 10 smartphone models listed as bestsellers at The Gioi Di Dong, the largest distribution chain, seven models belong to Samsung.
Samsung accounts for 70 percent of total number of top smartphones in Vietnam.
In FPT Shop’s list of best sellers, Samsung had five models, while Oppo, the nearest rival, had three.
In May 2017, Samsung led the market with 47.6 percent of market share, followed by Oppo with 23.15 percent of market share, according to GfK.
Observers, after comparing the lists of best sellers in H1 and in the third quarter, realized that some positions that once belonged to Oppo and Apple are now occupied by Samsung.
In H1, Oppo had four and Apple had two models in The Gioi Di Dong’s top 10, but in the third quarter, both of them had only two models in the list.
The third quarter also was a lucky time for Vivo, a young brand. Of 10 best sellers at FPT Shop, Vivo’s Y55S was in the eighth position.
The Vietnamese mobile phone market witnessed a string of surprises.
After half a month in Vietnam, iPhone 8 64 GB price dropped from VND20 million to VND17.3 million, equal to the price of iPhone 7 Plus 128 GB. The price reduction had never occurred with Apple’s new models in the past.
Meanwhile, the owner of a mobile phone shop on Phan Dang Luu street in HCMC said he still sells iPhone 5S though the model has not even been updated on his website.
“The supply is unstable, but I usually sell 5S arrivals as soon as I get them,” he said.
Cars would have to pay a fee from 2019 if they enter HCMC’s central business district, according to a traffic congestion reduction plan which Tien Phong Technology JSC (ITD) has sent to the city government.
The fee would range from VND30,000 to VND50,000 (US$1.32-2.2) per entry and to collect it, the company would install 36 collection booths on the streets leading to the city center.
Between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. taxi cabs would be charged VND30,000, private cars VND40,000, and trucks and commercial vehicles, including those owned by State agencies, VND50,000.
The project would need a total investment of nearly VND1.8 trillion (US$79.3 million), and have an expected collection time of 15 years, from 2019 to 2034.
According to the HCMC Department of Transport, the project could help reduce traffic jams in the city center by encouraging people to use public transit instead of private vehicles.
However, traffic experts have cast doubt on the viability of the project. Speaking to the Daily, Pham Sanh, a traffic expert, said the city should carry out a thorough survey of traffic density on the roads leading to the city center, public transit network and parking lots to make sure the project would work.
When the city restricts private vehicles in the downtown area, traffic would be diverted to nearby districts, placing pressure on infrastructure there, said Sanh.
The city’s public transport system, he noted, has remained underdeveloped, so it would be hard to lure commuters to use public buses.
Medium to heavy rains are expected in central and southern provinces until Thursday.
Floods in Vietnam last week killed 83 people and 20 were missing, officials said on Tuesday, with thousands of homes submerged or destroyed and several towns cut off.
The floods also damaged more than 22,000 hectares (54,300 acres) of rice but did not hit the coffee belt. The Southeast Asian nation is the world’s third-largest exporter of rice and the second-biggest producer of coffee.
Medium to heavy rains are expected in the south of the Central Highlands, the coffee belt, as well as central and southern provinces, from Tuesday night to Thursday.
Vietnam is prone to destructive storms and flooding due to its long coastline. A typhoon wreaked havoc across central provinces last month.
Flooding also hit nine provinces in neighboring Thailand.
Shares declined on the HCM Stock Exchange on October 16 after rallying for six consecutive sessions as large-cap stocks lost steam on late profit-taking.
The benchmark VN-Index fell 0.19 percent to close at 819.43 points, putting a dent in its previous six-day rally in which the benchmark increased nearly 2 percent.
Market trading liquidity rose in comparison with October 13’s figures. Roughly 169 million shares were traded on the southern exchange, worth 4.06 trillion VND (180.5 million USD).
The figures represented an increase of 9.6 percent in trading volume and 21 percent in trading value compared with October 13.
The market breadth of the southern exchange was negative, with 149 declining shares against 128 gaining ones and 40 unchanged.
The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, edged down 0.44 per cent as half the stocks suffered losses.
The 15 declining stocks in the VN30 basket fell between 0.2 per cent and 2.5 percent with the worst-performing stocks being property developer Vingroup (VIC), steel company Hoa Phat (HPG), Binh Minh Plastic Co (BMP) and logistics firm Gemadept (GMD).
Mid-cap and micro-cap stocks also underperformed. The mid-cap stock index was down 0.09 percent and the micro-cap dropped 0.13 percent, according to market data site vietstock.vn.
The benchmark VN Index went down when it was about to test the level of 824 points and the index could fall further in coming sessions, Bao Viet Securities Co’s analyst Tran Xuan Bach wrote in the company’s note. “Investors were more worried and cautious when the benchmark VN Index approached the range of 824-828 points, forcing them to offload more shares in the closing period,” Bach said.
The six-day rally was also an important factor in investor selling on the southern market, he added. “The VN-Index will face a short-term correction if investors cannot find a group of stocks that is attractive enough to lure investment into the market.”
In the next few days, the VN-Index could fall back to its near supportive ranges, which is forecast to be between 810 and 815 points or between 798 and 802 points, Bach added.
The HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange gained 0.18 percent to close at 109.30 points. It advanced 0.67 percent on October 13.
More than 45.6 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth 536.5 billion VND.
The rise is attributed by the team’s second consecutive win against Cambodia at the Asian Cup 2019 Qualifying round, which added 20 points to the team on the FIFA ranking.
The national squad with 261 points now ranks 21st in Asia and second in Southeast Asia.
In Southeast Asia, the Philippines with 272 points jumped seven spots to the first, while Thailand was placed third with 225 points.
Iran led Asia with 784 points, while the second and third places were held by Australia (714 points) and Japan (711 points).
Top five on FIFA ranking were Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina and Belgium.
