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BUSINESS
IN BRIEF 15/3
PM
green-lights construction corp listing
Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the privatisation plan of the Civil Engineering
Construction Corporation No 8 (Cienco 8), according to the Government news
portal.
The company is
projected to raise VND350 billion (US$16.6 million) in charter capital, which
is equivalent to 35 million shares at a value of VND10,000 (49 cents) each.
Of the total, 17.15
million shares or 49 per cent are the State's share, 10 million or 28.60 per
cent are for public offerings, 7.35 million shares or 21 per cent will go to
strategic investors, while the remaining shares will go to Cienco 8 employees
at privileged prices.
The prime minister
has authorised the Minister of Transport, Dinh La Thang, to determine the
starting price of Cienco 8's initial public offering (IPO). This ministry
will represent the State's capital at Cienco 8. No date was given for when
the IPO would begin.
Incidentally, there
will be four IPOs of Cienco brothers this month, all valued at VND10,000 per
share.
On March 21, Cienco
1 will sell 16 million shares on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), while
Cienco 6 will offer 28.7 million shares, or 47.87 per cent of its stake, on
the HCM City Stock Exchange.
On March 24, Cienco
5 will sell 14.2 million shares, or 32.38 per cent of its stake, on the HNX,
while on March 25, Cienco 4 will sell 16.1 million shares there.
Besides these
companies, the Ministry of Transport is also speeding up the equitisation of
units controlled by Viet Nam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines). The parent
company of Vinalines is expected to offer an IPO by the first quarter of
2015.
The subsidiaries of
Vinalines, which will be equitised this year, include Sai Gon port,
Vinalines has
successfully equitised two units,
A conference on
restructuring State-owned enterprises, which was held by the government here
late last month, estimated that 432 SOEs would be equitised in 2014-15, or
216 enterprises per year.
Vietnamese
furniture companies expand overseas markets
Twenty-nine
Vietnamese companies taking part in the International Furniture Fair
Singapore 2014 and the 31st ASEAN Furniture Show (IFFS/AFS) in
Phan Thi Thuy Hang,
Director of Kien A Interiors Co. Ltd. said this is the first time the company
participated in the IFFS/AFS. The company has shipped its furniture to
Also in the first
day of the IFFS/AFS, Saigon River Factory
Director Peter Arts
said this is the fourth time his company has been exhibiting at the event.
The company has about 160 workers and needs to expand.
Nguyen Thanh Tung,
Director of Tan Phu Furniture Co. Ltd, said after each year of participation
to the event, its market share increased and more and more overseas customers
knew Tan Phu brand. This is the 11th time that Tan Phu has participated in
the annual IFFS.
Tan Phu has
exported furniture to
According to
Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Tran Hai Hau, many of Vietnamese companies
displaying at the IFFS received export orders on the very first day of the
show, which indicated that
Last year,
French
companies to attend
Seventeen French
companies have registered to participate in the 5th international Livestock,
Dairy, Meat Processing, Aquaculture and Bio-Energy Exposition (ILDEX Vietnam)
scheduled for March 19-21 in
The event will also
be attended by UBIFRANCE, the French Agency for International Business
Development
Visitors to the
exposition will have the chance to get updated on the latest in
state-of-the-art farming technology, cattle feed, cross-breeding, and animal
health.
The exposition will
also create favourable conditions for companies from all over the world to
expand their production activities by cooperating with others in the field of
livestock, seafood and processing.
The growth of
The breeding sector
now makes up 33% of the agricultural production value and is forecast to
offer huge opportunities for French exporters.
ILDEX was
considered
SBV asks
for lending interest rate cut
Credit institutions
should cut lending rates further by at least 1 to 2 per cent to meet the
banking sector's growth rate of 12 to 13 per cent this year.
State Bank Governor
Nguyen Van Binh said this, adding that credit institutions should make the
cut right in the first quarter as it was reported that credit growth was
negative 1.66 per cent as of February 20, while production was stagnant and
capital mobilisation was steady.
According to the
central bank's latest data, the average lending interest rates in Vietnamese
dong for the past six months remained unchanged.
It said between
mid-July 2013 and the end of February this year, at State-owned commercial
banks, the average lending rates to priority sectors including agriculture,
rural areas, supporting industries and exports ranged from 7 to 9 per cent
yearly in the short term loans and 11 to 12 per cent yearly for medium- and
long-term loans. The rates applied by normal commercial loans ranged from 9
to10.5 per cent for short-term loans and 11.5 to 12.8 per cent for medium-
and long-term loans.
At commercial joint
stock banks, the common lending rates to priority sectors were between 8 and
9 per cent yearly in the short term loans and 11 to 12 per cent annually for
medium- and long-term loans. The interest rates at other commercial loans
ranged from 9.5 to 11.5 per cent for short-term loans and 12 to 13 per cent
for medium- and long-term loans.
To boost credit
growth, besides the rate reduction, Binh said that credit institutions must
also actively help firms to access credit.
He cited
The programme to
establish stronger links between commercial banks and enterprises to
facilitate access to preferential credit will expand this year to include
small traders.
With its success,
the programme is likely to be duplicated nationwide in a move to boost credit
growth and help firms access credit.
Binh said that the
banking industry would work with construction material firms to hold a
conference to discuss measures to link the firms and banks in
Federation of the
Israeli Chambers of Commerce Vice Chairman Arie Zief said this at a seminar
organised in Tel Aviv on Wednesday with the aim of helping Israeli companies
learn more about investment opportunities in
Over the past four
years, Israeli businesses have been actively seeking opportunities to
cooperate with Vietnamese partners, the vice chairman noted.
There is huge
potential for the two business communities to accelerate economic and trade
relations, he said, forecasting that the bilateral trade was likely to double
in the next five years. Besides trade, he said, agriculture, water treatment,
energy, high tech and biotech are also promising sectors for bilateral
cooperation.
Director of the
Israel-Viet Nam Corporation Rafi Kaufman agreed, saying that
During his speech
at the forum, the Vietnamese Ambassador to Israel Ta Duy Chinh called on
Israeli businesses to invest more in the country.
The bilateral trade
reached US$604.29 million last year, a year-on-year rise of 38 per cent.
Meanwhile, Israeli
firms have, till date, pumped $20.65 million into 16 projects in
These results,
however, failed to match the potential and expectations of the two nations,
Chinh concluded.
Private
airlines urged to improve business model
The state had
encouraged the development of private airlines, but these companies need to
have a sustainable development model, according to experts.
Speaking at Viet
Nam Television's Policy Dialogue Programme on Wednesday, the Director of the
Aviation Department, Lai Xuan Thanh, said that the state had encouraged
private firms to join the domestic aviation market to create fair conditions,
reported online news website vnexpress.net.
However, if Air
Mekong suspends flying operations at the end of this month, it will be the
second private airline to close down, after Indochina Airlines, Thanh said.
These two private
airlines, he added, had been unsuccessful because of management problems and
the number of planes they had added to their fleets.
These airlines
often leased aircraft and hired foreign firms to be in charge of maintenance,
as well as the opening of new routes and management. This, said Thanh,
prevented the state from supporting it.
Luong Hoai
This could be
deciding on whether to be a budget or traditional airline, or purchasing the
wrong planes and adopting a weak business model,
In addition,
Another reason for
private aviation firms being unsuccessful is that the market is facing an
economic crisis, as well as due to various health scares, Thanh pointed out.
The local aviation
sector is facing many challenges at present and is expected to face more
difficulties in the future.
Also, beginning in
2015,
Before that
happens, local aviation firms must reduce fares as low as possible, said
officials, noting that it has among the highest ticket prices among regional
countries.
However, experts
said the local aviation industry had achieved some success, as its airfares
had allowed farmers and other low-income groups the opportunity to fly.
Rice price
drop concerns
Price of rice
dropping continuously during the peak harvest season is concerning many
farmers in the Mekong Delta.
A kilogram of dry
rice is VND 5,250-5,350. The long-grain variety of rice is VND 5,500-5,600
per kilogram, a decrease of VND 200-300 since last week, according to the
Vietnam Food Association.
The price of fresh
rice also decreased VND 400 since last week, selling at VND 4,200-4,800 per
kilogram.
Businesses expressed
worry that abundant supply from
Deputy Prime
Minister Hoang Trung Hai ordered the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry
of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Vietnam Food Association to keep
a close eye on rice output and consumption to have suitable stockpiling
policy.
Steering committee for credit system restructuring set up
Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the establishment of an inter-sectoral steering
committee responsible for implementing schemes on restructuring the system of
credit institutions and handling bad debts.
The committee is
headed by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh while State Bank of Vietnam (SVB)
Governor Nguyen Van Binh serves as its standing vice chairman.
The committee is
tasked with aiding the PM in directing the implementation of measures to
restructure credit institutions and deal with their bad debts during the
2011-15 period.
It also proposes
orientations and measures to handle important emerging issues during the
execution of the schemes.
Bad debts in
Last year, the SBV
reached its initial target on settling non-performance loans, in which the
State-owned Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) bought nearly 40 trillion
VND (1.88 billion USD) of bad debts from local commercial banks.
The bank continues
to set bad debt settlement as a key target of its monetary policy this year.
Its objective is to basically clear the current bad debts by the end of
2015.-
Leather
producers offered assistance for environmental problem solving
The Ministry of
Industry and Trade (MOIT) has vowed to tackle domestic leather businesses'
difficulties in expanding their businesses, the Vietnam Economic News
reported on March 13.
Building exclusive
industrial zones with waste treatment facilities for leather businesses is
one of the solutions to implement the master plan for Vietnamese leather and
footwear sector development towards 2020 with a vision to 2025, which has
been approved by the MOIT. So far, however, the solution has not been taken
due to a lack of capital and environmental factors.
Former Deputy
Minister of Industry and Trade Do Huu Hao said that leather production
facilities create solid, liquid waste and exhaust fumes, the treatment of
which requires specific technologies, therefore almost no province wanted to
encourage investment in leather production.
Although leather
production has grown in recent years, leather businesses still face numerous
difficulties in expanding production due to the lack of exclusive industrial
zones. Leather businesses still fail to cooperate with each other in dealing
with environmental problems. Building its own wastewater treatment facility
is beyond the financial capacity of a single leather business.
Bui Van Duc,
Chairman of the Board at the Sagoda Leather Footwear Joint Stock Company,
said: “We are seeking possibilities of investing in a leather factory. We
have surveyed many localities but none of them supported our project, so we
have not found a place to build the factory.”
Environmental
problems have hindered the development of leather businesses. Specific
environmental standards which can be applied to leather businesses are still
lacking. Meanwhile, data from the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag
Association (LEFASO) show that the whole country currently has 35 leather
businesses, 62 percent of which are small-to-medium sized private companies
which are financially incapable of investing in adequate waste treatment
systems.
According to LEFASO
Secretary General Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, leather businesses currently are
capable to produce 350 million square feet (sqft) each year, meeting 40
percent of the amount required to make leather products for export.
It is expected that
footwear businesses will need 700-750 million sqft of leather by 2015 and the
demand will continue to increase in the ensuing years. Therefore, if domestic
leather businesses do not invest in expanding production, they will be able
to meet a lower percentage of the actual demand.
Developing the
leather industry is necessary to increase the export value of Vietnamese
footwear. Trade agreements, especially the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPP), require export goods to meet specific requirements in terms
of origin. So, Vietnamese leather and footwear businesses will be unable to
make the most of advantages from these agreements if they fail to produce
input materials required for production.
Aware of the
important role of the leather industry to the development of businesses which
make footwear and handbags for exports, the MOIT has taken the initiative in
seeking solutions to boost domestic leather production. At a recent meeting
held to discuss measures to develop the domestic leather industry, Deputy
Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa said that the MOIT would
accompany leather businesses through difficulties and create favorable
conditions for them to expand production.
Deputy Minister Ho
Thi Kim Thoa required the Light Industry Department and LEFASO to accelerate
the formation of exclusive industrial zones for leather businesses. She said
that leather businesses should concentrate on creating products of high
value.
She requested the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Science and
Technology to propose suitable environmental standards which can be applied
to leather businesses and deal with problems currently facing them.
Exclusive
industrial zones for leather businesses remain a desire which has not come
true. The MOIT’s determination to untie these knots aims to promote the
sustainable development of the entire leather and footwear sector.
VIFA EXPO
features friendly wooden furniture products
Wooden furniture
producers still have many advantages in cutting costs and improving product
quality to sharpen their competitiveness in the international market, The
Saigon Times Daily quoted a local industry source at a furniture exhibition
in
Huynh Van Hanh,
Vice Chairman of the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh
City, said at the opening ceremony of the exhibition VIFA EXPO on March 11
that among the ten biggest wooden furniture exporting countries,
“
The total export
turnover of
This year’s VIFA EXPO
features many domestic wooden furniture producers with their newest indoor
and outdoor products using environmentally friendly materials that can
compete with products from
The number of
foreign viewers coming to the expo on the morning of March 11 is higher than
expectation of the organiser.
“We have equipped
six computers and four printers to give updated information about foreign
customers visiting the fair but such machines are still overloaded as the
number is big. In the next three days if foreign viewers continue to come
like this morning then it would be a success that goes far beyond our
expectations,” he said.
VIFA EXPO, held in
four days at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in HCM City’s
District 7 by the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade, HAWA and HAWA
Corporation, has seen participation of 141 enterprises with 625 stalls, up 3%
over last year, of which 18% belongs to nine foreign countries and
territories such as Belgium, Denmark, Australia, China, Taiwan, the Republic
of Korea, and Japan.
The stall
displaying products that won
IFC
recognises Techcombank as 2013 Global Best Issuing Bank Partner
Techcombank was
recently was honoured with the Best Issuing Bank Partner award for its active
participation in the International Finance Corporation (IFC)'s Global Trade
Finance Programme (GTFP).
The award was
announced at the closing session of the IFC's Global Trade Partners Meeting
in late February 2014 in
Techcombank won the
Most Active GTFP Issuing Bank in East Asia title (from 2008 to 2010) and Best
GTFP Issuing Bank in Asia" (in 2012) in the past.
GTFP, with more
than 400 members all over the world, aims to extend and complement the
capacity of banks to deliver trade finance by providing risk mitigation on a
per-transaction basis in emerging markets. Techcombank has extensively
expanded the relationship with IFC and has now become the most active and
largest customer of IFC in its GTFP programme.
“Our annual
conference provides an unparalleled opportunity for our partners to learn
from global experts and develop business leads in all regions,” said Georgina
Baker, global head of Trade and Supply Chain Solutions at IFC.
“We are pleased to
acknowledge those banks that innovated or worked extensively with IFC last
year to support the growth of emerging market trade and help more countries
and firms integrate into global supply chains," Baker added.
The award, once
again, honours Techcombank’s effort and success in efficient implementation
of GTFP to finance enterprises in
Vietnam’s
rice exports in competition with Thailand
Vietnamese rice
exporters are facing tough competition with Thailand and other suppliers as
domestic supply has turned profuse while import demands stay low, according
to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA).
A VFA
representative said that
Food traders said
that rice demands in the world are low as importers believe that rice prices
would decline further. The combined rice export volume of
According to the
Department of Cultivation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development, rice output in the Mekong Delta is estimated to increase
strongly in 2014, putting more pressure on rice exports.
Lam Anh Tuan,
director of Thinh Phat Company in
Nguyen Thanh Phong,
director of Van Loi 2 Company in
Meanwhile, farmers
have also suffered challenges as rice prices have slumped over the past time.
Having dropped to a
two-month low at VND6,800 per kilo, rice prices lost VND200-300 more per kilo
last Saturday. Fresh unhusked rice IR 50404 also fell by VND200 to
VND4,000-4,100 a kilo compared to two days ago.
According to rice
traders in the region, IR 50404 material rice prices hovered at
VND6,500-6,600 per kilo last Saturday. Meanwhile, fresh IR 50404 rice was
around VND4,100-4,200 a kilo yesterday.
Farmer Nguyen Van
Van in Long An Province told the Daily that a trader on February 25 deposited
to buy a hectare of unhusked rice at VND94,000 per 20-kilo bushel. But on
March 2, three days prior to the harvest, he asked Van to lower price by
VND4,000 a bushel, otherwise he would cancel the contract.
After terminating
the contract with the trader, Van has yet to harvest this paddy field so far
as no traders have offered to buy it.
Handicraft
exports to EU limited due to poor designs
The EU is a
potential market for
According to the
Department of Processing and Trade for Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Products and
Salt Production, the handicraft sector has a large workforce with around
350,000 laborers. Handicraft products are not only supplied for the domestic
market but also for export to 120 countries and territories with an average
export turnover of US$200 million in recent years, with exports to EU ranking
second.
However, the export
turnover of US$200 million is too small compared to the world’s handicraft
market of some US$12 billion recorded in 2009 and an estimated US$17 billion
in 2017.
Speaking at the
seminar on handicraft designs and accessing the EU market held in
With 14 years of
experience of exporting handicraft products to EU, director of Lacquer World
Co., Ltd Duong Thi Thanh Thuy said that weaknesses of enterprises producing
handicraft products were their unwillingness to produce sophisticated
products.
“EU is a picky
market requiring creative and careful designs. Products exported to EU have
to be made of natural materials, safe, useful, recyclable, have competitive
prices and friendly to the environment. Besides, products need to be produced
in a safe environment and do not use child labor,” Thuy said.
Meanwhile, to be
successful in the EU market and achieve annual revenues of US$1-1.5 million,
Duc Phong Co., Ltd has sought to enhance the skills, develop a stable product
area, seek European designers, and cooperate with universities specializing
in designing in developed countries, said director Thai Dai Phong.
According to Adam
Thow, head of retail and buying at Southbank Center in the UK, a new trend in
consuming woodwork and handicraft products in Europe is to use products with
rare materials and special designs, which makes buyers feel like such
products are specially designed for them.
In addition,
European consumers now tend to favor furniture and decoration items featuring
other cultures, opening up an opportunity for products from countries in Asia
or the
In a market where
consumers no longer favor products with mass production and now prefer
innovative designs, this is a chance for producers to export their products.
Therefore, Vietnamese enterprises need to focus on producing products of high
quality and useful for daily life, according to Adam Thow.
Addressing a
seminar in
Housing prices in
The government has
approved the National Housing Development Strategy till 2020 with a vision
for 2030. It is finalizing a housing policy to meet practical conditions,
aiming to help low-income earners improve their accommodation.
A number of legal
documents have been issued to implement guidelines and mobilise resources for
the development of social housing.
World Bank Country
Director in Vietnam Victoria Kwakwa said
International
experts at the seminar shared valuable experiences in developing low-cost
houses in their countries.
The seminar also
provided a good opportunity for domestic researchers, managers and lawmakers
to gain valuable information to complete a legal document system relating to
building investment, urban and housing development, and real estate trading,
especially low-cost house development policy.
Apartment
selling prices tend to increase
As the
long-sluggish property market has started showing signs of recovery this
year, certain housing developers have hinted at price hikes in an apparent
attempt to attract buyers who fear a price rise.
According to The
Saigon Times Daily, Hoa Binh Co., Ltd, the investor of the
Nguyen Huu Duong,
General Director of Hoa Binh, said the price hike may be around 10%. The
company is quoting the price at 20.5 million VND per square meter for
unfurnished units and 26 million VND for furnished units, VAT excluded. With
such prices, Hoa Binh earns almost no profit due to higher investment cost
and interest rate, Duong noted.
Early this year,
Viglacera launched a sale of apartments in the Thang Long Number One project,
which attracted attention of many customers as it is located near the city
center. Then there was a rumor that the price of Thang Long Number One
apartments could rise.
According to a
report on apartment prices recently released by the Hanoi Department of
Construction, the housing price fall has shown signs of easing since the
final quarter of last year and some projects, especially high-end ones, have
reported price rises of 1-3%.
Nguyen Quoc Khanh,
Chairman of G5 property exchange, said some investors had raised apartment
prices by 3-5%.
Some high-end
projects at prime locations and those soon to be handed over to buyers have
proven attractive to customers but supply is limited.
Investors and
speculators have taken advantage of this to push up selling prices.
The price of
Mandarin Garden apartments invested by Hoa Phat Group, for instance, has been
increased by investors who can enjoy a profit margin of 300-500 million VND
per unit. Similarly, Vinaconex 7’s project at 136 Ho Tung Mau Street in Tu
Liem district has also seen prices surging 1-2 million VND per square meter
from the original price.
According to Dieu
Lanh at Thang Long property exchange, since early this year, a lot of
customers have called to ask for information, leading investors to raise
prices.
Explaining the
price hike at
“The apartment
segment is improving with many successful transactions reported by projects
at good locations or with good progress. Therefore, price adjustments are
unavoidable,” he said.
However, some have
cast doubt over what might be apartment developers’ trick to lure customers
as the property market is still in distress and transactions have improved at
some projects with affordable prices and small apartment sizes.-
Banks
prepare to face change-motivated shareholders
A tense agenda is
expected at the annual general shareholder meeting of Ho Chi Minh City-based
Sacombank scheduled to take place later this month, said a source familiar
with the bank.
The source said a
management shake-up is likely to be among the bank’s hottest issues. Another
is its option being a merger with a smaller bank.
Sacombank has
released its Board of Director Resolution covering issues like the 2013
dividend, use of fund certificates and capital surplus, and making space for
a foreign investor.
Conversely,
Southern Bank has yet to unveil the date of its annual GSM, only saying it
would be released 15 days after the final shareholder list was released
(February 26) of 2014 GSM attendees.
Last year Southern
Bank saw poor results, only reaching 50 per cent of its profit target (VND650
billion or $31 million) for the first nine months of the year and bad debts
rising to 4 per cent.
Similarly, Eximbank
only achieved 30 per cent of its profit target (VND3.2 trillion or $152
million) last year, with large funds going to debt provisioning against
mounting overdue and/or irrecoverable loans.
According to Saigon
Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB) general director Vo Tan Hoang Van, the bank
will put all its resources toward finalising its restructuring by the end of
2014.
When it announced
its annual GSM would be held on March 17, SCB said it would seek shareholder
approval to raise its chartered capital by around VND2 billion ($96 million)
from VND12 trillion ($571 million) to accelerate restructuring.
Not only SCB, but
other banks such as Navibank, Western Bank and Vietnam Construction Bank
(VNCB) are slated for restructuring under State Bank (SBV) requirements.
These banks have
worked on their reshuffling plans and got them approved by the SBV, but have
not made public how they were implemented.
Capital hikes were
reported to be a hot issue for many GSMs this year amid economic hardships
and bank stocks tumbling during ongoing restructuring.
SBV governor Nguyen
Van Binh said mergers and acquisitions are the only options for smaller banks
to survive and ensure their development given current market conditions.
Absolute Hotel
Services develops Vietnam-wide hospitality concept
Well-known hotel
brand developer Absolute Hotel Services recently unveiled its plan to set up
a hotel chain in
Samsung
South
Korean-invested Samsung
The amount is from
exports of the company’s products at its Bac Ninh plant alone, said the
source.
However, data from
the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that the total export revenue from
cell-phones and components of the country last year reached US$21.5 billion,
up 69.2% over the previous year.
Asked to comment on
the different numbers, the source from Samsung
The US$1.5 billion
factory of Samsung in
This factory in
2012 produced some 100 million products, over 95% of which were shipped to
the EU, the Middle East, Russia and some Asian nations, bringing in some
US$12.7 billion, or 11% of Vietnam’s total export revenue.
In addition to
direct contributions to
Apart from this
Korean giant, Nokia, a mobile phone producer, has also started its component
factory in Bac Ninh Province since October last year.
With an initial
investment of US$140 million, Nokia component factory in Bac Ninh, which has
created jobs for more than 2,000 locals, would become a key manufacturing
center of the firm in the
GSO confirmed that
cell-phones and components are among products that have the highest export
turnovers and growth rates in the last five years before ousting the apparel
industry last year to become the biggest foreign currency earner. Textile and
garment exports fetched US$17.9 billion in 2013.
Meanwhile,
electronic products and components including computers made them to the third
position among the top ten products that have the highest export turnovers,
with a figure of US$10.7 billion, an increase of 36.2% compared to 2012.
Experts in the
field predict that export of the cell-phone and component industry in
Despite the strong
growth of the cell-phone industry in
According to
Samsung
New road
sends ferry crossings down
Cat Lai ferry
station in HCMC’s District 2 has reduced the number of ferry services from
230-250 to 190 a day as the volume of four-wheel vehicles using this
transport means has slipped a staggering 60%.
Tran Minh Thanh,
director of the ferry station, told the Daily that two months after HCMC-Long
Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway was opened to traffic, the number of automobiles
taking the ferry has dropped from 5,000 a day to 2,000 while the number of
motorcycles has increased by around 15% with 26,000-32,000 a day. This has
caused the station’s revenue to fall over 20%, he added.
Each ferry can take
all passengers waiting at the station.
Besides, a majority
of vehicles at Cat Lai ferry station are light trucks. The driver of a truck
from
It is because
bigger trucks are temporarily banned from the expressway, while light trucks
have to observe the minimum speed requirement.
According to Thanh,
the ferry service decline gives the station more time to repair and maintain
ferries.
The station
currently operates nine ferries, most of them 60 and 100 tons. The 200-ton
ferries are only used in rush hours.
National
fund helps to improve roads
The National Road
Maintenance Fund disbursed VND7 trillion (US$332 million) last year to fix
200 roads in different parts of the country, the Tin Tuc newspaper has
reported.
The report quoted
Le Hoang Minh, chief of Secretariat of the fund's Central Council, as saying
the disbursement had helped localities nationwide speed up work on degrading
roads.
Over VND4.3
trillion ($204 million) was spent on regular road maintenance and management,
VND135 billion ($6.4 million) on buying toll collection rights for the Phu
Dong Road Toll Station on National Highway 1 from the project investor and
VND27.3 billion ($1.3 million) on establishing mobile truck weighing
stations.
Out of the nation's
63 provinces and cities, 62 have set up their own road maintenance funds and
47 have councils to manage the funds, the report says.
It cites Nguyen Duc
Thang, acting general director of the Viet Nam Road Administration, as saying
the fund has eased difficulties typically faced by localities in accessing
the capital they need to maintain and upgrade roads.
Until 2012,
provinces and cities nationwide had to rely on the State Budget for funds to
maintain and manage about 205,000km of roads.
Normally,
disbursement from the State Budget met less than 20 per cent of the demand,
and it is even lower in remote, mountainous provinces, Thang says.
He says there is no
doubt that "the Road Maintenance Fund helped improve transport network,
especially in rural areas."
As of January last
year there were more than 35 million motorbikes and 1.5 million cars, lorries
and buses.
The amount of road
maintenance fees that these vehicle owners are required to pay is decided by
provincial or municipal People's Committees.
Their decision has
to be made within the limits set by the Finance Ministry, under which the
annual fees for motorbikes will range from VND50,000-150,000 ($2.3-7.1), and
from VND1.5 million ($71) for cars with less than 10 seats to VND12.5 million
($600) for lorries and commercial vehicles of over 27 tonne capacity.
Ngo Huu Dung,
transport department director in the central province of Quang Ngai, says in
the report that in previous years, the province could only afford VND8-10
billion ($380,000 -476,000 ) each year for maintaining 172km of roads, 70
bridges and 223km of waterways.
"Last year was
the first time its funding for road maintenance reached nearly VND20 billion
($952,000)," he says, adding that this has helped the province build
five new roads and improve the quality of existing ones.
In a recent meeting
held to discuss this year's operations, Transport Minister Dinh La Thang, who
chairs the fund's management council, called for "drastic" measures
to raise its effectiveness and ensure transparency.
Thang with the
National Road Administration said his agency would give priority to the use
of advanced equipment and methods as well as new materials to reduce road
maintenance costs.
It would also open
bids to select competent contractors for road maintenance projects, he said
Further
allegations come to light in Rung Toan Cau case
Police in
All key positions
of the eight joint-venture companies were found to be held by family members.
Last year, the investigation team on economic crimes, the police of Binh
Thanh District,
One of other
companies in the group, Phuc Thinh, was also reported to not have conducted
any business activities by the police in
Xung and his wife
set up a forest product company in 1992. They were assigned over 7,000 square
metres of land to build a factory by
After authorities
of
In 2009, they asked
the Prime Minister for a loan for reforestation, but were turned down.
However, they continued to claim that the project was in the process of being
approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Authorities in
In 2011, the
Directorate of Forestry, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,
sent official documents to other agencies, saying that they had never
approved any project associated with Thinh An Khuong or Phuc Thinh.
Source: VEF/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/Dantri/VIR
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Thứ Sáu, 14 tháng 3, 2014
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