The bank plans to disburse VND4–5 trillion $229.88-287.35 million to the end of March; The Asia Commercial Bank ACB has disbursed VND1 trillion $57.47 million of a planned VND7.4 trillio
Trang 1IN FOCUS
BANKS GIVE $4.6B IN
SUBSIDISED LOANS
About VND80 trillion (US$4.6 billion)
has been disbursed at the
Govern-ment-subsidised interest rate of 4 per
cent as of Friday, February 20,
re-ported the State Bank of Viet Nam
Figures published on the central
bank’s website show the following
disbursement.:
The State-owned Mekong Housing
Bank (MHB) VND1.42 trillion ($81.61
million); the bank will provide VND24
trillion ($1.38 billion) at the
sub-sidised rate this year; about 15
Agrib-ank branches in HCM City and
others in the Cuu Long (Mekong)
Delta about 12 trillion ($689.65
mil-lion); and Sacombank VND2.03
tril-lion ($116.72 miltril-lion)
The bank plans to disburse VND4–5
trillion ($229.88-287.35 million) to the
end of March;
The Asia Commercial Bank (ACB)
has disbursed VND1 trillion ($57.47
million) of a planned VND7.4 trillion
($425.29 million);the Viet Nam
Ex-port-Import Commercial Joint Stock
Bank (Eximbank) VND1.2 trillion
($68.96 million) of a planned VND7
trillion ($402.3 million) to the end of
March; the Housing Development
Commercial Joint Stock Bank
(HD-Finance
ISSUE No.9
March 09, 2009
Vietinbank Securities to revive IPO when VN-Index rises to 270
Vietnam Bank for Industry & Trade Securities Co., the brokerage unit of the country’s fourth-biggest bank by assets, said it will resume its initial share sale when the benchmark VN-Index climbs to 270.
“It was a wise decision to cancel the sale because there are many blue-chip stocks sold at a very low price at the moment Liquidity is low and I do not think many investors will be interested,” Nguyen Mien Tuan, director of Ho Chi Minh City-based Viet Dragon Securities Co, said
The Hanoi-based brokerage, known as VietinBank Securities, has planned to raise around US$7.8 million in an initial share sale It will sell about 13.4 million shares, with a minimum bid of VND10,200, the Hanoi Securities Trading Center said in a statement on its website
Bloomberg
VN-Index enjoys two-day mini-rally
The VN-Index posted its second straight day of modest gains yesterday, closing up nearly a per cent
to 246.68 points
Trading volume also rose by about a million shares from Wednesday’s levels to 8.43 million, with a combined value of VND156.66 billion (US$8.9 million) Trading in Sacombank (STB) was particularly active, at a volume of 1.5 million shares, while foreigners became net sellers yesterday on the HCM City Stock Exchange
Habubank Securities Co cautioned that this week’s rally was temporary, as Wall Street continued to fall, hitting 12-year lows The brokerage warned investors to consider carefully before making any in-vestment at this time, as share prices were now highly susceptible to news of global markets
Nguyen Van Thuan, a teacher of Banking-Finance Section at the Ha Noi Open University branched
in HCM City, said that consumer spending would revive by the end of the first quarter, helping enter-prises stabilise
"In the short term, however, our market will move according to what’s happening on markets world-wide," he said
In Ha Noi yesterday, the HASTC-Index also rose a healthy 2.75 per cent to 84.77 as cheap share prices managed to tempt more investors to buy Trading volume increased to nearly 5 million shares, worth of VND91.44 billion ($5.2 million)
Thanh nien
VIETNAM
An international fair to be held in HCM City later this month will seek to promote exports of furniture and other wooden products and pop-ularise Vietnamese brands on the global mar-ket
The second Viet Nam International Furniture and Home Accessories Fair 2009 will be or-ganised by the HCM City Handicraft&Wood Processing Industry Association, and joint stock company Lien Minh at the Sai Gon Exhi-bition and Convention Centre
On display will be furniture meant for use in the living room, bedroom, and dining room, out-door and office furniture, and other products
Machinery and equipment for wood manufac-turing and processing, interior decoration items and accessories will also be among the major exhibits
Organisers said the fair is set to attract 150 local and international exhibitors from the US,
France, Britain, Germany, mainland China, Holland, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia There will be 600 booths, 10 per cent more than the last year
The organisers said they spent US$150,000
on a marketing and advertising campaign on the international media
Nguyen Trung Tin, vice chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee, said the inaugural fair last year was very successful, attracting plenty of foreign visitors and potential distribu-tors
Sixty-nine contracts worth tens of millions of dollars were signed
The fair’s efforts to promote local brands are being supported by the Ho Chi Minh City In-vestment&Trade Promotion Center and the People’s Committee The four-day fair opens
on March 11
VNS
HCM City
set to host
furniture
exports
fair
Biz Updates vn
Trang 2Bank) VND356 billion ($20.56
mil-lion); and Sai Gon Commercial Joint
Stock Bank (SCB) VND253 billion
($14.54 million)
State Bank of Viet Nam governor
Nguyen Van Giau has chaired
meet-ings with representatives of 40 credit
institutions in HCM City and
numer-ous banks in northern Viet Nam to
review the subsidy and deal with any
difficulties arising from it
The governor reiterated that the
pro-gramme was intended to reduce the
price of goods, maintain production
and create jobs
Commercial banks needed to ensure
implementation of the policy to be
transparent because there were no
policies that allowed borrowers to
monitor lenders, he said
Banks should avoid unregulated
competition and credit institutions
should not ease their lending
require-ments
The governor emphasised that
effec-tive implementation of the subsidy
would enhance the status of the
banking industry
The support policy provided an
op-portunity for commercial banks to
im-prove their regulations; extend their
operations; renovate technology,
en-hance management capacity and
as-sess staff qualifications
The governor was told that
imple-mentation of Prime Ministerial
Deci-sion 131 had not been difficult
As a result, commercial bank
repre-sentatives at the meetings focused
on ways to improve the policy and
regulations and simplify borrowing
procedures to make the programme
more effective and convenient for
their customers
Raising capital
Banks are apparently determined to
meet borrower demand for the 4 per
cent subsidy and several are
re-ported to have made a great effort to
absorb all available "idle" money
The central bank says interest for
three-to-12-month dong-deposits at
State-owned banks last week ranged
from 6.82-7.4 per cent and from
7.24-7.5 per cent at joint stock banks
– an average rise of about 0.5-1 per
cent Most banks also slightly raised
interest for long-term deposits to
meet the demand of stimulus lending
till the end of this year
This contrasts with the middle of last
year when some banks that lacked
liquidity heavily raised the interest
paid for very short to short-term
de-posits
Real Estate
Construction begins on new complex Construction of a public services and office complex worth VND523 billion (US$30.76 million) has started at Trung Van Commune, Tu Liem District, Ha Noi on March 07, 2009
Built by the Infrastructure and Transport Building Investment Company, the project covers an area of 23.829sq.m, with office space taking up 2.998sq.m
The project will complete and transfer the lower-storey area to customers by the end
of 2009, and finish the complex completely
in 2011
Vietnam News
FPT Securities Co opens gold trading floor
FPT Securities Co and the Viet Nam Gold Exchange opened a gold trading floor in Ha Noi on Wednes-day Gold can be traded on the floor using spots, forwards, futures and options FPT Securities official Nguyen Van Dung said the establishment of the floor was part of the company’s plan to diversify in-vestment channels "Securities and gold are two attractive inin-vestment channels; when one of them
is in decline, our customers can easily shift to the other," he said
VNS
PetroVietnam Finance sells stake in construction arm
PetroVietnam Finance Co (PVF) will sells its holdings in the PetroVietnam Construction Co on a first-come,first-served basis between March 2 and 24 PVF now holds 83.37 per cent stake in the construction firm The selling price will VND11,000 (US$0.65) per share, and volumes will depend
on demand for the shares
PVF general director Tong Quoc Truong said the company would take advantage of opportunities to realise profits from its investments, in an effort to reach profits of VND1 trillion ($58.8 million) this year
PetroVietnam Construction expected to earn about VND3.4 trillion ($200 million) in turnover and a net profit of VND144 billion ($8.5 million) in net profits in 2009
VNA
Loaning without mortgaged assets: many offers, few contracts
Commercial banks say they are laying down the red carpet to welcome clients who come for con-sumer loans Meanwhile, clients are saying that they cannot access bank loans High credit limits and long-term loans with soft lending interest rates are the favorable conditions banks are offering
to clients A lot of people, attracted by the impressive advertisements, thought that the door to con-sumer loans has been widened, and came to banks But they returned from the banks without
loans HN News
Trang 3Bilateral trade with Spain tops unprecedented heights
Bilateral trade between Spain and Viet Nam reached a record high in 2008 of US$1.59 billion, a 24 per cent rise compared with 2007 This growth between the two countries comes from increases in both exports and imports
Spanish companies imported $1.43 billion in goods from Viet Nam, a 25 per cent year-on-year in-crease, illustrating the growing interest Spanish companies have in Viet Nam Spain mainly imported manufactured products ($828 million) and food ($400 million)
As for exports, Spain sold $157.05 million in goods to Viet Nam, a year-on-year increase of 15.2 per cent Although there is still room for improvement, these figures reveal that Viet Nam is beginning to
be considered a potential market for some Spanish companies Semi-manufactured products ($61.23 million) and capital goods ($59.67 million) were the biggest Spanish exports
The Spanish Economic and Commercial Counsellor in Viet Nam, Alberto Cerdan, says "the trend is
"The interest increase this time is
in-tended to mobilise more capital in
preparation for growing applications
to borrow at the subsidised interest
rate," explained VP Bank Deputy
General Director Nguyen Thanh
Binh
The Dai A Commercial Joint Stock
Bank (DaiA Bank), has raised its
yearly interest rate to 8.3 per cent
for 18-month deposit
The banks is also offering a 7.65 per
cent rate on a six-month term
de-posit and a 7.8 per cent rate on a
12-month term deposit
DaiA Bank General Director Quach
Cong Phong said the interest rate
paid for deposits had been
in-creased to raise capital to expand its
provision of credit
The 12-month rate of the Maritime
Bank has been raised to 7.5 per
cent and the Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank
has increased its maximum deposit
rate to 8.1 per cent
ACB did not increase its interest rate
but instead launched promotion
pro-grammes to attract depositors
Individuals or organisations
deposit-ing VND5 billion or more receive a
gift worth one-tenth or a
second-tenth of a tael of gold
Customers who deposit smaller
sums are also given valuable gifts
ACB General Director Ly Xuan Hai
said the bank wanted to grow by 90
per cent so it must increase capital
by 80 per cent
The global economic crisis would
continue to hamper economic
growth, production and consumption
and capital would become scarcer
and have higher value than in
previ-ous years, he said
It meant that liquidity would continue
to be a major problem for the
bank-ing system
Beating inflation
Vietcombank General Director
Nguyen Phuoc Thanh said the
Gov-ernment’s decision to subsidise
in-terest rates had created
opportunities for enterprises that
need capital to expand
Other bank officials said the raising
of interest was to balance the benefit
to depositors against inflation which
increased during the first two
months of the year
The Consumer Price Index for
Janu-ary increased by 0.32 per cent
against December after a
three-month fall
In February, the CPI increased 1.17
per cent against the previous month
VNS
Housing market doldrums Few property projects are marketed or houses sold in HCM City, making the market even more somnolent after Tet
Middle-income earners in need of housing continue to put off buying decisions, hoping prices will fall further when speculators offload properties to repay bank loans
The property sector, which crashed 12 months ago, is showing
no signs of recovery amid the global economic recession
The Government is taking measures to keep the economy afloat, including efforts to encourage investment in low-income housing
A HCM City property developer says a number of foreign investors may either withdraw completely from the market or suspend their projects
But on the flip side, this can benefit property developers by preventing a supply overhang that plagues many foreign markets
A report from real- estate service provider CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) last month said the property mar-ket would recover in two to six years, propelled by economic and population growth
But Marc Townsend, managing director of CBRE, was quoted by Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper as saying there would be "unpredictable" changes in the property market this year
He listed certain laws and regulations that have come into force as the causes
He was referring to the laws on personal income tax, value-added tax, housing ownership by foreign-ers, hikes in automobile and property registration fees, lower bank interest rates, and resumption of bank loans for property projects
Dang Hung Vo, a former deputy minister of natural resources and environment, said a stimulus pack-age for the property market announced recently by the Government would help revive the property market
VNS
TRADE
Trang 4IN GLOBAL CRISIS,
EXPORTERS TURN
TO LOCAL MARKET
Experiencing a slowdown in export
or-ders, many local companies are
shift-ing their production to the local market
in a bid to ensure growth during the
global financial crisis
In an effort to help local companies,
the Government has provided a total
of VND17 trillion (US$1 billion) in
fi-nancial support to jumpstart
produc-tion
In January, the country’s total retail
sales were up by 8.2 per cent over the
same period last year, excluding price
hikes
Experts consider the rate to be healthy
given the current economic climate,
and say that it points to further room
for continued consumer spending
If consumers begin to buy more local
products, companies will have more
opportunities to sell their products and
then have even more capital to pour
into their businesses
But economists say it is necessary to
find ways to cut prices of consumer
goods and services, and improve
product quality
They also emphasise that the
employ-ment rate should be stable so
con-sumers can have the financial
capacity to spend
The Ministry of Industry and Trade
said it would help support enterprises
to manufacture products for the
do-mestic market, particularly those that
produce goods that can replace
im-ports It also plans to assist labour –
intensive enterprises
Industries eligible for the support plan
will include food processing,
bever-ages, garments and textiles,
pharma-ceutical, and building materials,
mechanical engineering, ship building
and fertilizers
Industry and Trade Deputy Minister
Nguyen Cam Tu said the Government
should also increase consumption by
creating policies that would help
busi-nesses produce more for the domestic
market
Since October 2008, the country’s
monthly export value has steadily
dropped and stood at under $5 billion
level
In particular, Vietnamese enterprises’
exports achieved only $3.8 billion in
January, down by 18.6 per cent as
compared with the previous month’s
figure, and 24.2 per cent over the
same period last year
The price of rice
In January, while exports for most key
very positive"
"The rapid growth of Viet Nam in recent years and the speed of change of the country are attracting
more and more Spanish companies, and we are working to improve and strengthen the co-operation between both coun-tries," he adds
Many Spanish companies have shown their interest in the Vietnamese market, and the presence of Spanish products is growing steadily Spanish companies are already established
in sectors such as architecture, chemicals, shipbuilding, hand-icrafts and leather
VNS
Nation still attractive to foreign investors With its medium-and long-term advantages, Viet Nam remains an attractive FDI destination, according
to the head of the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Department, Phan Huu Thang
Some newly-licensed projects in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province show just how attractive In the first days
of the Year of the Buffalo, the southern province has approved seven projects involving more than US$5 billion
The Sai Gon Atlantis Hotel received the nod to increase its capital from $300 million to $4.1 billion; the $600-million Toc Tien Urban Area will be developed; and the $500 million Binh Chau-Viet Nam Re-sort and safari will be developed by a joint venture between a foreign and two Vietnamese firms Thang says considering the recession, the investments provide an impetus for the development of not only Ba Ria-Vung Tau but also other provinces
Despite the dire economic forecasts for this year, there is also optimism about positive developments
in the global economy in the fourth quarter
"That is why foreign investors continue to invest in Viet Nam, awaiting a recovery in the world econ-omy," Thang explains
Many of them first come to Viet Nam on fact-finding tours and consider the situation carefully before making any investment decisions
"The bigger the challenges posed by the global economic recession to the country’s investment en-vironment, the warmer the welcome we should give foreign investors," Thang says
While it is difficult to attract investors to a country, it is even more difficult to make them stay for a long time, he points out
It is not only the responsibility of the ministry to make foreign investors stay here but also that of other re-lated agencies and provincial authorities, he says Besides the inexpensive labour, the country must also offer better and more competitive services to woo in-vestors
"Top priority should be given to administrative reform," Thang says
Vietnam News
Investment
Trang 5commodities fell, rice exports reached
310,000 tonnes, the highest level in
20 years In previous years, monthly
rice exports averaged only 100,000
tonnes
In addition, contracts involving the
ex-port of 2.86 million tonnes of rice have
been signed, and the amount of rice
exports in the first half of this year is
expected to top 3 million tonnes
The Viet Nam Food Association (VFA)
hopes that the current 850,000
tonnes of rice in stock will be used,
given the current demand
Other good news is the price of paddy
and rice, which remains relatively
high Last week, prices of high-grade
rice (5 per cent broken rice) soared by
VND300 per kilo to VND5,500
VFA experts attributed rising rice
prices to a contract calling for the
shipment of 0.5 million tonnes to the
Philippines
Manila also plans to purchase about
one more million tonnes of rice from
Viet Nam In addition, customers from
other countries are also negotiating
with Vietnamese exporters
According to VFA, given the 850,000
tonnes of stockpiled rice and the
out-put of the winter-spring crop – which
is expected to be a bumper crop – the
entire country will have about 3.2
tonnes for export in the first six
months of the year, meeting market
demand
Export prices are also favourable,
hovering around $430 per tonne
Experts said that falling interest rates
and the Government’s application of
several support measures have
en-couraged enterprises to increase rice
exports
In spite of such positive signs, experts
have told exporters to be cautious
and take into account the unusual
changes in the volume of rice exports
as well as prices in the remaining six
months of the year
They said many countries that have
faced drought and lean harvests
would likely be importing large
vol-umes of rice, creating strong price
fluctuations
Meanwhile, total output of the
coun-try’s rice crops for the rest of the year
cannot be predicted because of
un-foreseen weather patterns, so
ex-porters continue to hedge their bets,
at least for now
Competitive edge
Le Ky Anh, an official of the European
Union Delegation of the European
Commission to Viet Nam, said that if
Viet Nam did not seek ways to
sharpen its competitiveness soon, it
would be difficult to realise set targets
Policies
Price of electricity about to surge
The new retail electricity rates for all power drawn from the national grid, averaging VND948.5/kWh, took effect on March 1 under
a decision signed several days before by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung
The new price marks an increase of 8.92 per cent over current prices
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said during a press conference last week that any effect of the increased prices on economic growth would be limited to an estimated 0.3 per cent of the GDP, and that the higher rates would only cause the consumer price index to rise by about a quarter of a percentage point The Government would take strict measures against any traders who try to take undue advantage of higher power costs to boost the prices of other goods, he said Reducing waste in generation and distribution of power, coupled with increasing investment in power infrastructure, would help create jobs during a tough period, the deputy Prime Minister said This year, 35-40 per cent of the price for the first 1-50kWh used for daily life will be subsidised House-holds consuming from 51-100kWh will be charged at the new average price
However, fears persist about the negative impacts of this move, including higher prices for consumer goods
An official of the environment department in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta city of Can Tho is afraid that producers may ignore regulations on waste treatment due to the higher power expenditure in-volved
The increase in power prices is expected to account for VND550 billion of the VND4.5 trillion in this year’s profits for Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN), the national power utility EVN’s turnover this year is expected to reach VND16 trillion, with the higher prices accounting for around VND4.8 trillion This means purchasing power for other products will go down by the same figure, according to Dr Nguyen Duc Thanh, head of the Centre for Economy and Policy Research, the Ha Noi National University There are suggestions to separate the functions of power production, distribution and transmission to clearly demarcate the cost of each and open up the way for a new competitive electricity market and break the monopoly of the EVN, whose activities cover all these
To date investors in power production projects have to negotiate with the EVN on the price, but in the future it will perhaps turn into a power trading business, analysts have said
Thanh nien
Vietnam, China prepare for meeting to discuss cooperation
Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Ho Xuan Son, met with As-sistant Chinese Foreign Minister, Hu Zhengyue in Beijing on March 5 to discuss preparations for the third meeting of the Steering Committee for Vietnam-China Cooperation, scheduled
to take place in mid-March
During his stay in Beijing , the Vietnamese Deputy FM paid a courtesy visit to China’s Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, and at-tended a meeting with his counterpart, Wu Dawei, who is also head of the Chinese governmental border and territorial
nego-tiators’ delegation, and other officials Vietnam+
1 d án thy đin
Trang 6Viettel gives phones to the poor
Military-run telecom service provider Viettel has presented
100 wireless phones to poor families in Thanh An and Thanh Tuyen communes and Dau Tieng town of southern Binh Duong province
This is the first disbursement of Viettel’s social-service pro-gramme to give 10,000 phones, valued at 5 billion VND, to poor people in 63 provinces and cities nationwide in March
Each household receiving a phone will not have to pay the monthly subscriber fee, and will receive 15,000 VND towards their Homephone account
Vietnam+
Mobifone to offer money transer service
Mobifone is getting set to provide a new money transfer service to its pre-paid subscribers, but the service will be limited to a meagre VND100,000 (US$5.88) per transfer
The service will allow Mobifone’s pre-paid subscribers to transfer money to each other through Mob-ifone’s network
Subscribers who want to use the service must be two-way pre-paid subscribers The charge for a money transfer is VND2,000 per transfer (including Value Added Tax)
Vietnam News
Targets for this year include export
contribution of 87.26 per cent to the
GDP, and between US$11 and 12
bil-lion of disbursement of foreign direct
investment (FDI)
Viet Nam’s exports this year are
pre-dicted to go through a rough ride
be-cause of the global financial crisis In
major markets of Viet Nam’s exports
such as the US, the EU and Japan,
the crisis has dampened demand
US GDP growth this year is
esti-mated to reach 2 per cent, the EU’s
0.4 per cent and Japan’s, zero per
cent or even negative growth
Worse still, several importing
coun-tries are applying more trade barriers
to foreign products to protect their
do-mestic markets
Nguyen Thi Canh, lecturer at the
HCM City National University’s
Eco-nomics Faculty, said that Viet Nam’s
competitiveness was much lower
than those of regional countries,
par-ticularly China and Thailand, which
have similar economic conditions
This limitation has significantly
inhib-ited growth and is partly due to Viet
Nam’s Incremental Capital Output
Ratio (ICOR), which is higher than
many other countries in the region,
according to Canh
A lack of export items with high
added value and low labour
produc-tivity are also factors contributing to
a lack of competitiveness
Hirota Nakanishi, senior analyst of
the Japan Economy and Trade
Or-ganisation (JETRO), said
Viet-namese companies still lacked an
impetus and method to cope with
re-cession
He said their weakest point was an
inability to improve product quality
and cut production costs
He also pointed out the
unsatisfac-tory progress of the domestic support
industry, and said that JETRO
planned to work with Vietnamese
agencies to find ways to develop this
industry
He suggested that improving
rela-tions with the country’s major trade
partners was of great significance,
especially during the global
eco-nomic downturn and current
chal-lenges facing Viet Nam
Local enterprises’ improved
compet-itiveness would lay the foundation for
the entire country to enhance its
competitive ability, he added
VNS
.vn
.com.vn
Tp chí ngành g
Trang 7Crisis can’t keep
US tourists away
Increased foreign arrivals from the US
and other markets were not enough to
offset a dramatic decline in the first
two months of this year in tourist visits
to Viet Nam from other Asian nations
Visitors from the US jumped 40 per
cent to 90,000 from the same time last
year, according to figures from the
General Statistics Office, making the
US the leading source of inbound
tourism
Tourist arrivals from Australia, France
and Canada also rose by 12-30 per
cent to 49,500, 31,200 and 22,500
re-spectively, but tourism fell
dramati-cally from major Asian markets like
mainland China, South Korea, Japan
and Taiwan, which together account
for 40 per cent of the national tourism
market
The overall number of foreign arrivals
to Viet Nam in the first two months of
the year therefore fell to 689,000, 10.3
per cent lower than in the same period
last year
February saw just 343,000 foreign
ar-rivals, 0.8 per cent lower than
Janu-ary’s total
A promotional programme to give
tourists discounts of up to 50 per cent
was launched last month as part of
the sector’s efforts to lure visitors to
the country
Nguyen Le Huong, deputy general
di-rector of Vietravel Tourism Co, said
the company had built discount tours
with partners from France, Greece,
Austria and Germany to establish
long-term co-operation in the tourism
industry
Saigontourist was one of few tour
companies that gained growth in
for-eign tourists in the first two months of
this year, with 40 per cent more than
in the same period last year The
com-pany has plans to boost advertising in
key markets
The sector is also promoting Viet Nam
as a tourist destination in the global
media by organising more press
jun-kets throughout the country
VNA
Agriculture
Prime Minister asks firms to buy rice from farmers
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked northern and southern food corporations – the two key agencies
in processing and trade of food in Viet Nam - to buy entire rice harvests at a price that will allow farmers to profit at least 30 per cent
Speaking at a conference on trade and production in
Ha Noi, with a focus on rice exports, Dung said the two corporations also needed to invest in upgrading and building a storage system in 2009-10 to stabilise the market and ensure food security and incomes for peo-ple
Dung affirmed Viet Nam’s position as the second largest global exporter of rice However, rice exports were still facing challenges like low prices and a lack of brand recognition and communication between farmers and State enterprises
He required the Viet Nam Food Association and the two corporations to take initiative in preparing sources and penetrating the market, with focus on building trademarks, ensuring price stability and constructing a foodstuff market system in all localities
The corporations would need to become strong in the trade of foodstuff and competitive throughout the region and the world, said Dung
According to General Director of the Southern Food Corporation Truong Thanh Phong, the corporation shipped 2.2 million tonnes of rice to foreign countries last year, produced more than 30,000 tonnes
of feed for aquaculture and sold more than 23,000 tonnes of processed foods, bringing in a total rev-enue of VND34.2 trillion (US$1.9 billion), an increase of 20 per cent compared with 2007
This year, Phong said his corporation planned to buy and sell 2.8 million tonnes of rice and earn more than VND30.6 trillion
Phong admitted that the corporation failed to control rice prices in a timely matter during the price hike
in April 2008, which caused instability in the domestic market
The corporation also built seven warehouses with a combined capacity of 82,600 tonnes of rice and two seafood production factories
The Northern Foodstuff Corporation reported that it exported 600 million tonnes of rice last year It is scheduled to buy 2.85 million tonnes of rice this year, of which 720,000 tonnes will be exported The country is expected to export 3.5 million tonnes of rice in the first half of this year
VNS
Jetstar Pacific, Vietnam’s budget airline, has announced that it is to offer 50,000 low-price fares on its domestic routes to travelers flying be-tween March 3 and May 21
The tickets will be available from Feb 18-22 through a wide range of outlets, including its
website, at www.jetstar.com, at booking offices and agents na-tionwide, or via its ticket hot-lines, which can be reached by dialling 19001550 or
08.39550550
Tickets for domestic flights con-necting Ho Chi Minh City with
Da Nang and Hue cities, and Hanoi with Da Nang will be slashed to 250,000 VND, whilst tickets for flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, Hai Phong and Vinh cities, and from Hanoi
to Can Tho city will be available for just 500,000VND
VNS
Others
Jetstar Pacific offers huge discounts on domestic fares
Trang 8The government may subsidize
garment and textile shipments
and cut cotton import taxes to
help factories cope with a slump
in demand that is hurting
Viet-nam’s second-biggest export
earner, an industry association
said
The government plans to
provide producers around
VND40 for each dollar
earned from exports, Le Quoc An,
president of the Vietnam Textile
and Apparel Association, said
Thursday
About 100,000 textile workers
were fired in January and
Febru-ary as orders slumped, An said in
a phone interview
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung
has pledged VND300 trillion
(US$17.2 billion) in government
spending to fight the impact of the
global recession, including export
incentives
The economy expanded 6.2
per-cent last year, the least in nine
years, as consumers in the US,
Japan and Europe reined in
spending
“The textile industry is in trouble,”
said Pham Xuan Lanh, an
invest-ment analyst at Hanoi-based
Vin-com Securities Joint- Stock Co
The subsidy program “may help
ease the industry’s need to lay off
more workers, but its business
re-lies totally on external factors,”
Lanh said
Asian governments, reliant on ex-ports to support economic growth and generate employment, are in-troducing stimulus plans and ad-justing tax regimes to try to prevent layoffs and bolster indus-tries China’s Premier Wen Ji-abao said Thursday his government would “significantly increase” investment in 2009, widening efforts to meet an eco-nomic growth target and protect jobs
Vietnam’s textile industry is tar-geting exports of $10.5 billion this year compared to $9.1 billion in
2008, even as orders decline, ac-cording to a government state-ment last month If the planned subsidy were paid on that figure,
it would total about VND420 bil-lion ($24 milbil-lion), according to Bloomberg calculations
‘Crisis deepens’
“The industry’s situation is really unpredictable as the crisis deep-ens,” the association’s An said from Hanoi “Even with the sub-sidy, we may still fire more work-ers if the global economy does not get better by the second half
of the year.”
The value-added tax on imported cotton may be reduced to 5 per-cent from 10 perper-cent to cut indus-try costs, An said
According to the plan, the State Bank of Vietnam would also grant low-interest loans to Vietnam Tex-tile Corporation (VTC), which will stockpile enough cotton yarns for production over the next couple of months
A VTC official said it may need up
to $15 million a month for the pur-pose
Details of the support plan, in-cluding how the subsidy pay-ments may be made, are being worked out by officials, he said
Vietnam’s textile industry em-ploys around two million workers, according to the association, and generated about 15 percent of the nation’s exports by value last year, government figures show
The government may offer
“timely” support for textile and footwear exporters, Deputy Prime
Minister Hoang Trung Hai said in
a report posted on the administra-tion’s website on January 20 Textile shipments from Vietnam fell 12 percent to $1.2 billion in the first two months of 2009 com-pared with a year earlier, accord-ing to government data Textile sales to the US may fall 15 per-cent this year, the Ministry of In-dustry and Trade said on February 6
“We have seen more than 10 large and medium-sized compa-nies shut down because of the crisis this year,” An said, without identifying the businesses “The actual number may be even higher than that as many small companies did not report closures
to us.” The association has about 1,000 members
Bloomberg
Annual market almanac to debut
A new yearly publication on companies and the stock market, the Viet Nam Golden Stocks, is set
to debut in the second quarter of 2009
To be published by the Sunday Market News, Vifinfo Limited Company, and Moco Joint Stock Company, the book will provide comprehensive information on both listed and unlisted companies and independent analyses of the market and companies for the benefit of funds and other in-vestors
It will also provide an overview of the stock market since its establishment in 2001, assessments and analyses for the current year, and forecasts
It will carry a list of the best listed companies nominated by a group of experts
The Vietnamese version will be published by the end of May and the English version, titled Viet Nam Golden Stocks 2009, will be published abroad a few weeks later
More than 1,000 investment funds are soon set to enter Viet Nam, the publishers said in a press release
VNS
VIETNAM MAY SUBSIDIZE
GARMENT EXPORTS, INDUSTRY
SAYS