Over 800 businesses attend Vietbuild exhibition

More than 800 domestic and foreign businesses will take part in the International Exhibition of Construction, Building Materials, Housing and Interior Decor (Vietbuild), in Ho Chi Minh City on July 2-6.

The 2,100-stand exhibition will jointly held by the Information Centre, the Ministry of Construction and AFC International Exhibition Joint Stock Company, the organising board told a press briefing on June 24.

Vietbuild 2011 will see the largest amount of registered participants, said Pham Van Bien, head of the board, adding that apart from domestic businesses, the event will draw more than 160 enterprises from 22 countries and territories around the world.

This year, the exposition will see an improvement in both scale and quality of participating companies, according to the organising board.

The exhibition was expected to offer a chance for businesses to explore markets and promote their business plans, they said.

Within the framework of the event, there will be 15 themed seminars introducing new construction technologies and a ceremony to honour outstanding construction businesses.

Coastal Da Nang offers discounted summer vacations

The central coastal city of Da Nang launched a programme “Da Nang-destination for 2011 summer” on June 25 with a variety of entertainments and discounts in hotel services.

The Ba Na tourist site, for example, opened the Fantasy Park for entertainment, offering a discount of 10 percent in hotel accommodation for weekdays in June.

The Son Tra tourist park has launched the Green Space tracking tour, bringing tourists to three sites of cultural and historic interest.

Chef contests, parades of tourist cyclos and many water sport and entertainment events are expected to draw tourists to the Bien Dong ( East Sea ) Park, Xuan Thieu, Sandy Beach and Furama resorts.

Travel agents also offer tourists with special tours for exploration of the coastal city such as diving deep under the sea to watch coral reefs and fishing with local fishermen.

Disbursed foreign investors poured $5.3b to VN in H1

Foreign investors poured US$5.3 billion into the country in the first half of the year, down nearly 2 per cent against the same period last year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency reported.

During the period, foreign investors also registered to pump nearly $5.67 billion into 587 projects, equal to 62.7 per cent of that invested in the same period last year. Of the investments, 455 were newly licensed projects with a total registered capital of $4.4 billion and the remaining 132 were existing projects accepting additional capital totalling $1.27 billion.

Processing and manufacturing topped the list of foreign direct investment targets, with 205 projects and $3.3 billion of registered capital, accounting for 58.8 per cent of the country's total FDI registered capital in the first six months. The construction industry followed with 54 projects totaling $474.8 million.

Among the 38 countries and territories invested in Viet Nam in the first six months of the year, Singapore was Viet Nam's largest investor with $1.33 billion, followed by South Korea and Hong Kong with $673.6 million and $631.8 million, respectively.

Attracting $1.47 billion of FDI registered capital in the first six months, HCM City was the country's biggest destination for foreign investors. The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Ha Noi ranked the second and third with $550.1 million and $498.5 million, respectively.

The agency also reported foreign invested firms fetched $22.95 billion from exports in the first half of the year, up 31.1 per cent over the same period last year. The firms also spent $21.36 billion for imports during the period, up 29.5 per cent.

Garment-textile industry earns $2.1 bln net in H1

Vietnamese garment-textile industry earned $2.1 billion net out of $6.16 billion export revenue in the first half of this year, according to Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex).

The newly updated data, a 30 percent year on year increase, has made the industry’s $13 billion full-year target within reach provided that there will be no specific changes on the world market, Sai Gon Tiep Thi newspaper quoted Le Tien Truong, deputy director of Vinatex.

This was the highest growth for the sector in the first months of the past four years, with export revenues to the European Union (EU) up by 40 percent, the US, around 20 percent and Japan, five percent, said Vinatex general director Tran Quang Nghi, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Its export revenues in June alone reached $1.15 billion, up 11 percent month on month.

Experts predicted that the US would become a market with larger prospects for Vietnam’s garment and textile sector as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks were being negotiated.

At present, Vietnam was the second-largest garment and textile exporter to the US but only made up 8 percent of total market share,said Vietnam News Agency.

Though the value of raw material imports in H1 surged on rising world prices, import volumes were on a fall (cotton imports in H1 declined some 10 percent year on year).

This resulted from the fact that garment and textile businesses have implemented various measures to promote the saving of materials and energy, and cutting administrative costs to boost their efficiency from the beginning of this year, said Vinatex.

Vinatex has delayed many projects in manufacturing materials for textile and dyeing to concentrate on finishing 52 other fiber-making projects having Returns on Equity above 20 percent.

Those finished projects have already found their customers for their total outputs, Truong said.

The number of original design manufacturer (ODM) contracts has accounted for 5 percent of the industry’s total contracts this year, and is expected to reach 15 percent and 20 percent by 2015 and 2010 respectively.

Domestic consumption in the first half of 2011 has brought in VND8.3 trillion revenues for Vinatex, up 22-23 percent over the same period last year.

It is expecting to earn VND17 trillion from the domestic market by the year-end.

Developers introduce villa project in HCM City

Khanh Dien House Trading and Investment Joint Stock Company introduced its new HCM City eco-villa project at a press conference held in Ha Noi last Saturday.

Located in HCM City's District 9, the 8.2-ha Goldora Villa project includes 119 villas and associated infrastructure.

To date, the HCM City-bourse listed company has developed 15 real estate projects, mainly in the eastern part of HCM City. It has a charter capital of VND439 billion (US$21.3 million).

Seminar eyes business co-operation with India

A seminar was held in northern Vinh Phuc Province last Friday to discuss the potential for business co-operation between Viet Nam and India with talks highlighting the advantages of the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Participants heard reports on trade and investment co-operation between the two countries and learned about the influences and advantages of the ASEAN-India FTA and India's custom procedures and import policies.

Viet Nam's export structure recently changed with many new products entering the Indian market, including rubber, information technology hardware, electronic appliances, garments and textiles.

In terms of imports, Viet Nam utilised the ASEAN-India FTA to buy low-cost materials, effectively helping raise its product competitiveness.

Phone text banking service offered

The Vietnamese-invested Bank for Investment and Development of Cambodia (BIDC) and the Cambo Pay Company officially launched their new SMS banking service last Friday in Cambodia.

Through the BIDC system, customers will have access to bank services such as checking trade balances, transaction history, forex rates and money transfers at anytime and anywhere by sending messages to fixed numbers.

Exports to S. Korea can be higher

Despite increasing exports to South Korea, Vietnamese companies still find it hard to penetrate deeply into this market, heard a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City last week.

According to Vietnam Customs, the country’s exports to South Korea increased by nearly 50 percent year-on-year to more than US$3 billion last year, accounting for 4 percent of Vietnam’s total exports. Textile and garment products took the second position among the biggest export earners to the market behind crude oil.

Kim Euk Guen, director of Global Kim Co., Ltd, told the Saigon Times Daily after the seminar that Vietnam’s exports to Korea started the uptrend several years ago partly due to good prices of Vietnamese products and Vietnamese companies’ stronger interest in the Korean market.

Efforts by the two governments also contribute to the trend, he said after the seminar held by the HCMC Investment and Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) on Wednesday to help local enterprises enter South Korea’s market.

In addition, according to some local businesses, tariff reduction as committed in the free trade agreement (FTA) between ASEAN and South Korea also contributes to the increase. About 78 percent of Vietnam’s exports to South Korea are subject to preferential tariffs from the FTA, notably garment products.

However, the market is found as a potential but hard-to-access one, said local traders at the meeting.

The director of a local food trading company said she had seven years exporting Vietnam’s products to foreign markets, but succeeded in penetrating South Korea just in the last three years.

“Now the company has seven long-term Korean partners, but we still meet many difficulties to access the market. The biggest barrier is cultural difference,” she said.

“They are more reserved about Vietnamese partners. Therefore, they often take more tests on Vietnamese products,” she explained.

She asserted that there was high potential for Vietnamese goods to penetrate South Korea, but Vietnamese businesses didn’t tap the market well. High costs of visiting the country and joining exhibitions in Korea partly discouraged local traders.

“I knew some basa fish processors participating in an exhibition in Korea, but they failed to find the right partners. They, then, seemed to give up trying to enter the market,” she said, calling for more patience.

In the seminar in HCMC on Wednesday, Tran Thanh Quang, vice manager of sale and marketing department of Khatoco Ostrich – Crocodile Business Co., said the company was now exporting ostrich skin and shoes made from ostrich skin to Korea, but still didn’t know how to tap into this market.

Even for apparel products as the second biggest export from Vietnam to South Korea, most of made-in-Vietnam textile and garments imported by South Korea are made by Korean investors in Vietnam.

According to Dong Ook Byun, a consul at the Consulate General of Korea in HCMC, South Korea is an open market. It means that Vietnamese products are expected to meet strong competition from other countries’ as well as South Korean producers in their own country and producers elsewhere such as China.

In the first five months of this year, Vietnam exported US$1.8 billion worth of goods to South Korea, including US$267 million of textile and garment products, and imported $4.96 billion worth, according to Vietnam’s Customs.

Vietnam CPI rises 21 pct y-o-y

Vietnam’s consumer price index (CPI) in June rose by 1.09 percent against May, bringing the country’s CPI to 13.29 percent this year - a 20.82 percent rise year on year, according to Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO).

Of the 11 commodity groups, only the price of posts and telecommunications services saw a month-on-month decline of 0.01 percent.

The sharpest price increase, 1.79 percent, was found in food and catering services, of which food surged the strongest - 2.47 percent.

The remaining 9 categories rose less than 1 percent.

The price of other goods and services group took the lead with 0.86 percent, followed by culture, entertainment and tourism (0.77 percent), beverage and tobacco (0.76 percent), household appliances (0.72 percent), and apparel-headwear-footwear (0.62 percent).

The rest, including the highest price increase groups in May - housing and construction materials, and transportation - rose less than 0.6 percent.

Not included in the basket of the consumer price index, the rise of gold price index continued to slow down, 0.36 percent compared to 1.43 percent in May, while the decreasing US dollar price index was down 0.78 percent compared to the 0.98 percent in May.

In terms of regions, the northeastern region saw highest price increase of 1.85 percent, followed by the Red River Delta and northern central region with 1.45 percent and 1.37 percent respectively.

In terms of locations, the northern Thai Nguyen Province saw the highest CPI increase of 2.17 percent, followed by coastal Hai Phong City (1.51 percent) and Hanoi (1.21 percent).

Vietnam has recently revised its inflation target in 2011 to 15 percent from 7 percent set at the beginning of this year.

VN-France trade rises 24%
 
The two-way trade between Viet Nam and France rose to 772.4 million euros (US$1.1 billion) in the first four months of 2011, up by 24.3 per cent compared with the same period last year.

According to the Vietnamese Embassy to France, the figures may reach 1,150 million euros ($1.65 billion) in the first half of 2011, a year-on-year increase of 21.94 per cent.

Viet Nam's export value to France in the first four months amounted to 594.1 million euros ($855 million), up by 39.68 per cent over last year. The figures are expected to increase to 1.15 billion euros, or a 35.51 per cent rise, in the first half of the year.

The sharp increase in the export of electrical appliances and electronic products indicates a major change in Vietnamese goods exported to France.

In 2010, the export value of these products was double that of the previous year's figures, reaching 105.5 million euros.

The export turnover of these products to the French market in the first four months of the year amounted to 107.3 million euros, 7.5 times higher than the same period last year.

Pham Xuan Yen, commercial counsellor at the Vietnamese Embassy to France, said Viet Nam attained robust growth in the export of textile and garment products to France despite a downward trend of consumption of these products in this market.

Yen said it indicated that Vietnamese goods' competitiveness had improved in the French market.

Viet Nam's imports of French goods reached 178.3 million euros in the first four months, a slump of 9.06 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The import of traditional French goods such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, perfume, electrical appliances and electronic products are expected to rise by over 15 per cent compared with last year.

Viet Nam also spent 6.8 million euros to import automobiles, tractors and spare parts from France in the first four months, 77 times higher compared with the same period last year.

In the first half of the year, imports of French goods to Viet Nam are estimated to drop by 6.6 per cent.

Trade with Cambodia jumps 41%

The trade value between Viet Nam and Cambodia in the first five months rose by 41 per cent to more than US$1 billion, the Viet Nam Trade Office in Phnom Penh said.

Viet Nam's exports were worth $891 million, an increase of 139 per cent, while Cambodia's exports rose by just 3.2 per cent to $124 million.

Tran Tu, an attache at the Trade Office, said the robust growth in investments by Vietnamese companies in Cambodia was the main reason for the sharp increase in trade.

More than 330 Vietnamese firms operate in the neighbouring country, mainly in rubber cultivation, manufacturing, farm processing and health care. Regular promotional campaigns by Vietnamese companies also helped boost Viet Nam's exports, Tu said. Steel, food,and chemical products were among its major exports, while Cambodia exported tobacco, rubber and seafood.

Cambodian exports to Viet Nam only rose slightly since the high inflation in Viet Nam was affecting demand, the English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper quoted Kong Phutheara, head of the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce's Statistics Bureau, as saying. Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh attributed the surge in trade to the commitment by both countries to increase trade to $2 billion this year.

Deutsche Bank becomes major shareholder in FPT, PPC

Deutsche Bank AG London has raised its stakes in FPT Corp and Pha Lai Thermal Power Joint Stock Co (PPT) to 5.03 percent and 5 percent respectively.

The UK bank, previously owning 4.98 percent of FPT shares, has purchased 94,460 shares into FPT to raise its ownership to more than 9.7 million shares.

It has also bought 95,670 shares of PPC to increase the number of its stake by 0.03 percent to 16.1 million shares.

By the end of Friday’s trading session, FPT shares fell to VND49,500 per share, down two consecutive sessions, while that of PPC rose 2 straight sessions to VND7,700 per share.

Financial co-operation with Laos stepped up

Viet Nam was willing to share experience and work closely with Laos to promote the training of Lao lecturers, undergraduates and postgraduates in the field of finance and banking in Viet Nam.

Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung made the statement at a reception for Lao Minister of Finance Somdi Duongdi in Ha Noi yesterday.

Hung said he completely agreed with co-operation programmes between the two countries' finance ministries and asked them to continue co-operating in this field, contributing to expanding bilateral trade investment.

He said ministries and sectors of the two countries should promote the sharing of experience and assist each other, especially in human resources training for the finance and banking sector, to meet the demand of the State economic management system at central and local levels.

Somdi thanked the Vietnamese Government and Finance Ministry for their precious support to Laos in building financial mechanisms and policies and law, which affirm the Vietnam-Laos traditional friendship as an invaluable asset fostered by the two leaders and peoples.

Somdi said he hoped the Vietnamese Government provide continued support to Laos in training human resources and sharing experience in financial management in the near future, adding that in the coming time, officials of the two finance ministries would hold an exchange to tighten their co-operation.

HCMC bank proposes separating gold and forex trade

The Ho Chi Minh City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is calling for a policy to discourage gold shops from doubling as foreign exchange dealers.

According to current SBV regulations, people can own foreign currencies but can only sell them to banks and forex dealers licensed by the central bank. Gold shops can apply for a license to be a forex dealer, which means they can buy - not sell - foreign currencies.

But SBV-HCMC said many gold shops with such a license were illegally selling foreign currencies, which was the main cause of recent price fluctuations in the gold and forex markets.

At present, there are seven out of 74 forex dealers in HCMC which also trade in gold.
 
Regulators put squeeze on stock investments

Despite a raft of positive economic data, investors continued to hesitate to buy into the nation's stock markets last week.

The Government announced last week that inflation rose in June by just 1.09 per cent over May, its slowest pace since the beginning of the year.

"However, inflation in the first six months has already reached over 13 per cent, so the 15-per-cent rate targeted by the Government for the year will be very difficult to achieve," said Nguyen Van Quy, an analyst with a Ha Noi-based securities company.

The ability of banks to lend to securities investors also faces a permanent restriction under a circular being drafted to replace Circular No 13 on prudent ratios in the operations of credit institutions. Under the draft, a bank's total outstanding loans for securities investment would not be able to exceed 3 per cent of the equity of the bank. Under the current rules in Circular No 13, that ratio is a whopping 20 per cent.

Closing out the week on the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost a cumulative 1.26 per cent of its value from the previous Friday to close at 433.40 points. The average daily trading value was VND541 billion (US$26.3 million), dipping 36 per cent from the previous week. Value reached its lowest point in a month on Thursday, when trades totalled just under VND318 billion ($15.4 million).

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange last week, the HNX-Index dropped 1.11 per cent to 75.78 points, while the value of trades slumped by 44 per cent from the previous week to a daily average of only VND415 billion ($20.1 million).

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers, but by a modest total of only VND25.1 billion ($1.2 million) worth of shares.

Real estate developer Vincom (VIC) continued to attract investors as it topped a net buy value of VND11.5 billion ($558,300).

"Information about non-manufacturing credit, which will have a new cap of 22 per cent by the end of this month, will be the centre of attention in the coming week," said analysts of the financial information website vietstock.vn. "In addition, first-half earnings reports will also affect investor decisions".

Maritime strategy calls for concerted effort

A high level meeting on sea and island strategy to 2020 was held in the central coastal province of Binh Dinh on Saturday.

Meeting organisers, including the Party Central Committee's Information and Education Commission and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Planning and Investment, and Finance, hailed the public education efforts that had been made by Binh Dinh Province.

They also lauded the province's effective investment in infrastructure for socio-economic development in coastal areas and on islands, specifically citing coastal road No 639, the Nhon Hoi economic zone and the Quy Nhon, Thi Nai and De Gi seaports.

Leaders from relevant agencies called on the province to systematically intensify its public awareness campaigns on the defence and development of the sea and island economy. Public education should focus on the outlook, objectives and strategic orientations of socio-economic development and the security of sea waters and islands, they said.

Campaigns should highlight the significant and important positions of the sea and islands in national construction and defence and affirm Viet Nam's sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos with the naval force playing the flagship role.

Foreign affairs, scientific and technological development, strengthening of the fishing fleet and construction of coastal and island infrastructure facilities should go along with environmental protection and natural disaster control, the coastal province was advised.