Biggest private hospital opens

The Phuc Lam International General Hospital – the biggest private hospital in the north – opened at the Ecopark Urban Area in Van Giang District in Hung Yen Province on Saturday.

Located on a 3ha site, the 200-bed facility was built by the Phuc Lam Medical Group and is the first phase of what will ultimately be a 500-bed hospital built at a total cost of VND1.2 trillion (US$58 million).

The facility, equipped with modern facilities and applying advanced medical technology, will target affluent or foreign patients living in Ha Noi or the surrounding areas. The hospital will also help ease patient overload for hospitals in Ha Noi.

Bank funds Sai Gon – Hiep Phuoc port

The Ho Chi Minh based-Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank will extend a US$100 million credit to Saigon Port Group to fund the construction of Sai Gon – Hiep Phuoc port in the city’s Nha Be District.

The two signed a deal for the purpose Wednesday.

The 100-hectare port, being built in two phases, will have a 1,800-meter wharf with a capacity to handle 18 million tons of goods a year.

In the first phase, work on which began in May 2009, it will have an 800-meter wharf and a capacity of 8.5 million tons.

The work was expected to finish at the end of this month, but was delayed since a two-kilometer road to the port could not be finished due to lack of funds.

Following the loan deal, Saigon Port Group has said it will be able to finish the whole project by the end of next year.

Vietnam, Malaysia to pump oil from Diamond field

Vietnam and Malaysia are expected to start commercial production soon at a new oil field off Vietnam's southern coast after tests showed good crude oil reserves, a Vietnamese state-run newspaper reported on Thursday.

Drilling since April 2011 at the Diamond field in the 01-02 block, 162 km (100 miles) northeast of the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, has found oil and gas and assessment of the field's recoverable reserves was now under way, the New Energy newspaper said.

It gave no specific output details for the field.

Block 01-02, where Ruby, Pearl and Topaz oil fields are operational, is being developed by Malaysia's Petronas Carigali (PVCL) and Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corp (PVEP), units owned by state-run oil firms in the two countries.

Ruby, Pearl and Topaz now pump a combined 20,000 barrels per day, said the newspaper, which is run by the Vietnam Oil and Gas Association.

Petronas and PVEP have had success in developing Block 01-02 and are expected to bring in "greater achievements", Petrovietnam Chairman Dinh La Thang was quoted by the newspaper as saying during a visit to the field on Tuesday.

State-run Petronas, which wholly owns PVCL, has an 85 percent stake in the production-sharing contract of block 01-02 while PVEP, the exploration and production arm of state oil and gas group Petrovietnam, has 15 percent, the report said.

Vietnam set for catfish shortage

Vietnam is likely to face a shortage of catfish for processing and exporting from next month, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers has warned.

With input costs rising, catfish farmers have been reluctant to spend money, causing a shortage of mature catfish as a result, VASEP vice president Duong Ngoc Minh told Sai Gon Tiep Thi newspaper.

Catfish prices have been stable at VND24,000-24,500 a kilogram but are expected to rise due to the shortage, he added.

VASEP has agreed for a hike in the buying price of white-fleshed catfish fillet from $3.2 to $3.3 a kilogram starting next month to offset farmers’ losses.

But red-fleshed catfish fillet will remain unchanged at $2.3.

VASEP has allocated a monthly export volume of 5000 tons to 10 businesses.

It said in the first five months fishery exports topped 516,000 tons and were worth $ 2 billion, up 5.8 percent and 27.2 percent year on year.

The EU, the US, South Korea, ASEAN members, Mexico, and Canada saw exports grow by 23-68 percent.

Private postal services regulated
 
Businesses offering international postal services must have a minimum charter capital of VND5 billion (US$250,000) under a new Government decree.

Decree 47/2011/ND-CP, which comes into effect on August 15, also specifies that businesses providing local and interprovincial postal services are required to have a minimum charter capital of VND2 billion ($100,000).

Under the decree, applications for international and interprovincial postal services must be approved by the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Prime Minister must ratify foreign invested postal projects which have more than VND15 billion ($750,000) in capital.

It also states that compensation for damage shall be based directly on the contract signed between the postal services provider and the customer. Specifically, compensation will be equal to four times the fees paid by the customer for domestic postal services.

The decree also provides a schedule of specific compensation for packages damaged during international air freight.

Postal franchises and representatives of foreign companies who were operating in Viet Nam prior to the decree coming into effect must register to announce their operations are in compliance with the Law on Post and the decree within six months of its issuance.

According to an official of Viet Nam Post, the decree marked a milestone in improving the legal framework for postal services and created a fair playing field for all domestic and foreign postal operations.

This was also a necessary step in the preparations for opening the domestic postal market to include wholly foreign invested enterprises by the beginning of next year as part of Viet Nam's commitment to the World Trade Organisation.

Exports to US rise 22.5% in first half

Viet Nam earned over US$6.15 billion from exporting goods to the US in the first five months of the year, an increase of 22.5 per cent from the same period last year.

In a recent report, the General Department of Viet Nam Customs said that the US continued to be the largest consumer of Vietnamese exports, accounting for 17.7 per cent of Viet Nam's total export turnover.

The report's findings indicate that Viet Nam has now surpassed the Philippines and Indonesia on the list of ASEAN exporters to the US and has caught up with the current leader, Malaysia.

Viet Nam ships a variety of products to the US, including seafood, machinery, and textiles.

In the report, garments and textiles achieved the highest value, with over $2.55 billion in the first five months of the year. This figure has risen by 17.7 per cent since last year and now represents 50 per cent of the country's garment and textile exports. Footwear followed close behind with an export value of $714 million, making up over 30 per cent of total footwear exports.

The US was the largest importer of Vietnamese handbags, wallets and suitcases in the first five months of the year, spending $180 million on the products for an increase of 44 per cent. In exchange, Viet Nam spent $1.77 billion on imported goods from the US, an increase of 26 per cent over the same period last year.

As a result, Viet Nam had a trade surplus of $4.34 billion in its relationship to the US, an increase of 21 per cent.

The US Commerce Association forecast that Viet Nam would lead ASEAN exports to the US in 2011.

America’s Bunge launches Vietnam $100 mln plant for soybean crushing  
 
American leading food company Bunge inaugurated Monday its US$100 million soybean processing facility in southern Vietnam as the country’s biggest soybean crushing and oil refining plant so far.

The Bunge Vietnam plant, located in Phu My 1 Industrial Zone in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province’s Tan Thanh District, about 70 kilometers southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, started production on May 8, said Mr. Christopher White, Bunge chief executive for Asia.

Full capacity has been reached, he added.
 
The first phase is designed with a 3,000-ton-per-day crushing line, or one million tons of soybean a year, to turn out 600 tons of crude-degummed soybean oil and 2,500 tons of soymeal daily, Bunge said.

The facility will provide about 200,000 tons of soybean oil for the Vietnamese market and shipments to Asian countries, the American group added.

Bunge said it has been the top supplier of imported feed ingredients in Vietnam since 2002.

The country buys ingredients to make feed for livestock, poultry and fisheries such as fish and shrimp farming.

Bunge started construction of the Vietnam plant in December 2009. It is by the Thi Vai River. The site is adjacent to the Phu My Port in which the American corporation shares ownership.

HCM City succeeds in curbing prices
 
The city's efforts to stabilise the prices of four essential groups – food and foodstuff, school supplies, milk power and medicines – have been successful so far, said Le Ngoc Dao, deputy director of the Department of Industry and Trade.

Speaking at a meeting held on Thursday to review results of the price stabilisation programme this year after two months of implementation, Dao said as of now, many targeted goods were being sold at 10 per cent lower than market prices.

Enterprises participating in the programme had ensured enough quantity of the targeted goods and sold them at prices they'd committed to, she said.

The opening of more outlets to sell the price-stabilised goods in the city's outlying districts had also been strengthened by participating firms, she added.

For their part, the firms said that the supply of some of the goods had reduced now, and significantly impacted their ability to participate in the programme.

Pham Thi Huan, director of the Ba Huan Company, said her company needed to buy two million eggs a day, but the supply of eggs from provinces to her company recently reduced by 30 per cent because Chinese traders were directly buying salted eggs from Viet Nam for the coming Mid-Autumn Festival.

Food company Vissan said it was bearing a loss of nearly VND10,000 a kg on pork products because it was selling them at VND82,000-89,000 a kg while market prices had gone up to VND100,000 a kg.

Bui Hanh Thu, deputy general director of the supermarket chain Sai Gon Co.op, requested relevant agencies to supply sufficient market information, including purchasing power, price fluctuations and changes in State management policies, so participating companies could stock the right quantity of goods.

Dao said relevant departments and agencies would work with the firms to adjust prices of goods for which input costs have increased considerably, especially egg and pork.

She asked the enterprises to actively invest in increasing production of good and maintain adequate market supply.

The Department of Industry and Trade said it would work with participating companies to increase the quantity and variety of price-stabilised goods to supply to the market for the remaining months of the year, she said.

The city would also establish more outlets for selling these goods, especially in Hoc Mon and Can Gio districts and at industrial parks, so more workers can access goods under the price stabilisation programme, she added.

Few SMEs can approach subsidized credit  

Many projects providing preferential lending rates for small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) have been set up in an effort to financially support their businesses in dull times. However, the number of firms having approached the projects remains limited.

The government’s Decree No.56/2009/ND-CP states that SMEs will be provided with financial supports, technological improvement and human resource training.

The Prime Minister has also instructed the Vietnam Development Bank to provide a guarantee against loans from local commercial banks for SMEs.

Tran Buu Long, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Credit Guarantee Fund, said the HCMC People’s Committee released economic stimulus programs in 2009 to support businesses, which were located in the city.

Under the programs, either projects on purchases of equipments and technologies made by hospitals, schools and sport centers or ones on biological technologies for production and electrical appliance manufacture would be offered loans with preferential interest rates.

There are also many other funds in HCMC including technology and science development funds and environmental protection funds. However, statistics show the number of corporations participating in the funds remains limited.

A director of a HCMC-based company, who asked not to be named, told Dau Tu Tai Chinh Newspaper that many businesses complaint that they struggled to approach those funds, which released too many requirements.

Nguyen Tan Binh, vice head of the Leadership and Management Science Research Institution, says all preferential credit programs made to businesses require projects submitted for the funds’ support must be feasible.

However, many companies do not know how a feasible project is, Binh said.

Among a few businesses meeting up requirements of the HCMC Credit Guarantee Fund are computer firm Nguyen Kim, Loc Tai, Minh Lam and computer repairing station iCare.

“SMEs grappled to approach credit support funds as they cannot make explicit accounting reports. They believe that they have to keep their business plans in secret,” said Diep Dung, general director of the HCMC Financial Investment State-Owned Corporation.

“However, to achieve preferential credits, businesses have to submit reports showing the feasibility of their investment projects.”

Financial experts said small companies in Vietnam struggling with limited capital are facing difficulties in securing loans from banks due to the tight monetary policies implemented by the government.

The state bank has ordered all lenders to limit credit to non-production businesses at 22 percent of total loans by June 30, and at 16 percent by the end of the year.
 
Pork, egg traders strive to maintain price  

Food companies in Ho Chi Minh City have had a hard time maintaining prices of pork and eggs owing to acute shortage of supplies, in order to stay by their commitment to the city’s price stabilization program.    

Companies complained about the situation at a meeting held by the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade on June 23 to review two months of implementation of the program in 2011.
 
Tran Tan An, deputy general director of Vietnamese food company Vissan, said the price of live pork soared to VND63,000 per kilogram in HCMC, while it was VND68,000 per kilogram in the northern provinces on June 23.
 
The price hike has made the price of pork thigh rise to VND105,000-130,000 per kilogram.
 
Pham Thi Huan, director of Ba Huan Company, a leading egg supplier to the HCMC market, said her company demands about 2 million eggs per day, but farmers have been able to meet only 70 percent of the demand as they now sell their eggs to China.
 
She said the company is committed to provide farmers with poultry feed and buy all their eggs, but since egg prices have surged so sharply farmers can’t sell their eggs to Ba Huan Co. at a price that is 5 percent cheaper than the market price.
 
She believed that egg prices will continue to hike.
 
A duck egg currently costs VND3.600-3.700 in the market, while that supplied by companies participating in the program goes for VND2.950-3.250.
 
Pork and egg traders have worried that prices will increase more sharply from September to lunar New Year 2012.
 
Addressing the meeting, Le Ngoc Dao, the department’s deputy director, asked traders to keep supplying the products at quantities that they have committed, while relevant agencies will consider the situation to set reasonable selling prices.
 
Ms. Dao said relevant agencies will discuss with participating enterprises about increasing quantity and category of price-stabilized goods towards the end of the year.
 
The city has considered adding more milk products of companies like Dutch Lady, Nutifood and Vinamilk to the list of price-stabilized goods, she added.
 
She said in addition to developing product sources, the city will expand retail shops, especially in Hoc Mon and Can Gio districts, industrial parks and export processing zones, to serve the poor and workers.
 
Mr. Dao said that so far, prices of many price-stabilized goods have been kept 10 percent lower than the market prices.
 
The city has budgeted VND412 billion for stabilizing prices of nine essential food items from April 1, 2011 until after lunar New Year 2012.
 
Zone set to attract $1.5b in investment

The Chan May-Lang Co Economic Zone in central Thua Thien-Hue Province aims to attract between VND30 trillion (US$1.5 billion) and VND35 trillion ($1.7 billion) during 2011-15, according to its management board.

The management board said that, in order to reach its targets, the zone would continue to upgrade its infrastructure, adding that, since 2006, the province has poured more than VND1.25 trillion into projects focused on upgrading transportation, electricity, water and waste treatment facilities in order to attract investors.

Up to date, the Chan May-Lang Co Industrial Zone has attracted 34 projects with total capital of around VND36.5 trillion ($1.7 billion). Ten projects have received foreign investments of around $1.32 billion.

Some of the largest projects include Laguna-Hue, invested by Singapore's Banyan Tree Group ($875 million) and the Lang Co Golf Project with total capital of VND5.2 trillion ($252 million).

Around 1.5 million tonnes of cargo have been transported through the Chan May Port, which also welcomes around 40 tourism vessels annually.

In the near future, the zone is hoped to become a key factor in contributing to the development of the central region.

Foreign tourists surge 18% in H1  

The number of international tourists visiting Vietnam in the first half this year has reached around 3 million, an increase of over 18 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the General Statistics.
 
Visitors arriving by air had increased by 24 percent, while overland and sea travelers had seen a year-on-year decrease.

China, Republic of Korea, Japan, U.S., Taiwan, Australia, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore made most of the bulk of foreign tourists to Vietnam this year.

By June, Vietnam had received its 447,000 tourist, an increase of over 19 percent since last year.

International tourists arriving in Ho Chi Minh City in the first six months of this year are estimated around 1.65 million, an increase of 10 per cent since last year.

There has been a sharp increase in visitors from Russia which are amongst the top ten foreign tourists in the city.

Import tax exemption sought for salts used to make drugs

The Ministry of Health has asked the Ministry of Finance to make domestic pharmaceutical producers exempt from import tax on salt used for drug production.

The salt used for drug production is currently subject to a 50 per cent import tax because it is not included in the import quota approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

Viet Nam has to import the salt, natri chloride, used for drug production because no local firms have produced the salt.

Health Deputy Minister Cao Minh Quang said the Government should ease the levy to stabilise the local pharmaceutical market.

In another move, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has recently asked MoIT to revoke an import quota licence for 50,000 tonnes of salt used in the chemical industry, saying that domestic supply could meet local production and consumption demands.

An Van Khanh, deputy director of MARD's Department of Agro-Forestry-Fisheries and Salt, said importing now would have a negative impact on the domestic price and consumption.

Khanh said the country's salt production area was estimated at 14,850ha this year, down 2 per cent compared with last year. Salt output reached 415,000 tonnes in the middle of May, equivalent to only 56 per cent of the same period last year.

However, around 235,000 tonnes have been stockpiled by farmers and enterprises, and domestic salt supply will also increase over the next two months in line with the harvest in northern and central areas.

According to the ministry, this year's domestic salt supply was forecast to surpass demand by roughly 110,000 tonnes.

At present, the price of salt in northern areas and particularly central regions remains low, fluctuating between VND450-700 per kilo, and farmers are operating at a loss of roughly VND200-300 per kilo. At the start of 2011, MoIT issued a circular assigning an import quota of 100,000 tonnes of industrial salt and 2,000 tonnes of refined salt for this year.

Inspecting State budget management and use

The Ministry of Finance has imposed a mechanism for financial inspections on groups, corporations and State-owned businesses.

Accordingly, from the third quarter of 2011, the Finance Ministry will strictly monitor investment projects using the State budget, as well as the effectiveness of business operations and their ability to pay their debts.

Those businesses that show signs of financial instability will have to conduct special financial inspection mechanisms and produce quarterly rather than annual, financial reports like other businesses. Businesses suffering heavy losses will have to make report to the Prime Minister for consideration and settlement.

June CPI hits a record low in nine months

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in June increased by 1.09 percent over last month, up 13.29 percent against December 2010 and up 20.82 percent compared to June 2010, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).  

The CPI on average increased 16.03 percent in the first six months of the year as compared to the same period last year.

The June CPI saw an increase of 0.25-1.79 percent in ten out of 11 groups of commodities while post and telecommunications continued to fall by 0.01 percent.

The biggest price hikes in the month were seen in beverages and services with 1.79 percent, followed by food with 2.47 percent, foodstuff with 0.33 percent.

Culture, tourism and entertainment saw an increase of 0.77 percent while beverages and tobacco rose 0.76 percent.

Home appliances and equipment saw an increase of 0.72 percent due to price hikes for inputs such as petrol and electricity. Garments and textiles, and footwear went up 0.62 percent, housing and construction materials up 0.56 percent, education 0.47 percent and transportation 0.39 percent.

Taking measures to contain inflation, promoting solutions to support poor households and reducing income tax for civil servants will help people overcome difficulties as the price of essential goods continues to escalate.

The GSO has announced that inflation reached 13.29 percent in first half of the year and the World Bank has forecasted that Vietnam’s inflation will hit 15 percent by the end of the year.

Many economic experts say that businesses are worried about prices in the remaining months of the year as bank interest rates remain high.