Automobile sales down in November: VAMA

Domestic automobile sales decreased by 9 per cent in November compared to the same period last year to 11,198 units, reported the Viet Nam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA) yesterday.

This figure, the association said, was an increase of 777 units over October and 1,075 units compared to September.

Private car sales saw the biggest decrease, hitting only 3,770 in November, down by 16 per cent.

VAMA sales figure for the first 11 months of the year reached 99,978 units, down 4 per cent in comparison with the same period in 2009, in which sports utility, multi-purpose and cross-over vehicles decreased by 13 per cent, and commercial vehicles were down by 3 per cent.

In November, most members of VAMA saw downward trends in their sales.

Visuco (Suzuki) experienced a year-on-year decrease of 46 per cent, while GM Daewoo and Samco were down 37 per cent and 43 per cent respectively.

In November, Toyota Viet Nam sold just over 3,200 units, a year-on-year decrease of 7 per cent.

Experts attributed the decline to the devaluation of the Vietnamese dong and high interest rates.

Three-day correction ends today

After a three-day correction, the VN-Index rallied today, rising 1.68 per cent to close at 460.45 points.

Trading volume hit 59.8 million shares with a value of VND1.3 trillion (US$61.9 million).

185 listed stocks advanced, including many blue chips such as Phu My Fertiliser (DPM), up VND1,300; software producer FPT Corp (FPT) and PetroVietnam Finance (PVF), each up VND1,000; Ocean Group (OGC), up VND900; and Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), up VND500.

Among banking stocks, Sacombank (STB) and Vietcombank (VCB) made gains while VietinBank (CTG) dropped and Eximbank (EIB) closed unchanged. The State Bank yesterday set up an investigation team to check out the unusually high interest rates among commercial banks.

Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) posted the highest volume of 3.7 million shares and rose to the ceiling price of VND28,200.

33 stocks hit the ceiling price while only 8 dropped to the floor.

In Ha Noi, the HNX-Index gained 1.35 per cent to close at 111.99 points today.

Market volume rose to 52.8 million shares from 44.8 million on Wednesday, totalling VND994.3 billion ($47.3 million).

There were five time more advancers than on Wednesday, with 169 making gains, including blue chips such as Bao Viet Securities (BVS), up VND1,600; PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), up VND700; PetroVietnam Insurance (PVI), up VND400; and Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), up VND100.

Kim Long Securities (KLS) remained the most active stock with nearly 6 million shares changing hands, closing at VND15,900.

Coffee industry brews up plans

Viet Nam's coffee industry should invest in more professional facilities, adequate irrigation methods and efficient watering systems to gain a stronger foothold in the global market, speakers at the Asia International Coffee Conference (AICC) said yesterday in HCM City.

Speaking at the16th annual AICC conference, Luong Van Tu, chairman of the Viet Nam Coffee-Cocoa Association (VICOFA), said the industry had suffered lower export profits because of inconsistent quality.

The two-day conference is being attended by domestic and foreign experts, as well as coffee roasters, retailers, traders and producers.

Coffee selling prices had at times been lower than production costs, causing farmers' incomes to drop. With such low revenue, many of them had been unable to reinvest in their plantations, Tu said.

Moreover, current coffee cultivation practices in Viet Nam are seen as unsustainable, leading to high production costs, soil degradation and lower yields.

"Adverse weather and ageing coffee bushes have also contributed to low quality of Viet Nam's coffee. About 30 per cent of the country's coffee bushes are more than 20 years old," Tu noted.

Severe competition from other countries is another challenge faced by the local industry.

To address these concerns, VICOFA said it would provide market information and organise promotions for exporters.

VICOFA has also asked the Government to support coffee growers by offering preferential loans for a period of six or nine months.

Jose Sette, executive director of the International Coffee Organisation, said many countries faced similar challenges, including economic pressures such as interest rates, exchange rates and labour costs.

Other issues include infrastructure, management of pests and diseases and development of new coffee varieties that can adapt to climate change and resist disease.

Better fertility, erosion control, improved harvesting techniques and post-harvest processing were also essential for the sustainable development of the coffee industry, Sette said.

The top 10 coffee producers are Brazil, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Colombia, India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras and Uganda.

Doan Xuan Hoa, deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Agro-Processing and Trade Department, said that the Vietnamese coffee industry had showed weaknesses in cultivation, processing and exporting.

"Our coffee has high status, but the price offered for it is unstable in the global market because of the inconsistent quality," Hoa said.

Distribution

He also noted that the Vietnamese coffee sector had not established a professional production and trade system that applies modern trading methods such as forwards, options and future exchange.

Only 20 of the 168 exporters nationwide export large quantities, and there is only one local coffee exchange centre of Buon Ma Thuot.

The competitiveness of coffee producers and traders remained at a low level, and traders did not have financial resources to buy coffee for storage so they could wait for a good price to sell, Sette said.

"The companies need better coffee storage to ensure benefits from exports," he noted.

Many companies had not paid attention to enhancing quality and applying high standards, he added.

"Linkages between processors and traders as well as companies and farmers are weak. Farmers do not have enough information about the market and face many risks in their production," he said.

Jonathan Clark, general director of Dakman Coffee Exporter, said Viet Nam should improve coffee quality to improve its image in the world market.

Nguyen Duc Tuan Vinh, general director of Nedcoffee Viet Nam, said there should be rewards and penalties in the quality-control system. This would help to add value to Vietnamese coffee products.

Viet Nam is the largest robusta producer worldwide, about 500,000ha in area, which includes 1 million tonnes of green coffee yield each year and more than US$1.5 billion in export turnover.

Vietnamese coffee is sold in 100 countries and territories, including big markets such as Spain, Japan, South Korea and the US as well as new markets like Africa and Eastern Europe. The coffee industry represents 2 per cent of Vietnamese GDP.

Construction begins on Nghe An port

Building of the US$491 million Cua Lo deep water port in central Nghe An Province started on Monday.

"It will cover an area of 110ha of land and 700ha of water in Nghi Thiet Commune, Nghi Loc District," said deputy director of the International Transportation Investment Joint Stock Company (ITID), Truong Xuan Tu.

The first phase of the three-phase project will include a wharf for 30,000-tonne vessels and another for 50,000-tonne vessels.

The work is scheduled for completion in 2015.

Four wharves for 30,000-tonne vessels and two for 50,000-tonne vessels will be built during the second phase of construction to 2020.

The last phase, to 2030, will include the building of eight wharves for 30,000-tonne vessels, three for 50,000-tonne vessels and one for 100,000-tonne vessels.

"After the first phase, it is estimated that the port will be able to deal with 3 million tonnes of cargo per year, and that figure will increase to 15-18 million tonnes when the port is fully finished," said Tu.

"This is a key project for Nghe An Province. It will be built with modern and advanced technologies that have been tried and tested in many countries around the world," said provincial People's Committee chairman Phan Dinh Trac.

The project is being jointly invested in by ITID and the Dong Nam Nghe An Economic Zone.

"The main capital for the project is being provided by ITID with the financial assistance of the North Asia Commercial Joint-Stock Bank," said Tu.

Japan Port Consultants Ltd has been selected as the project's consultant.

"The company has already provided consultancy services for a number of port projects in the central region and we have worked with them before with successful results," Tu said.

The deep water port is designed to meet export-import demand and the socio-economic development of Nghe An and other north-central provinces.

It will also be used to tranship goods from Thailand and Laos.

Delta urged to develop rice varieties

The Mekong Delta should pour more investment into research and technology to create high-yield, disease-resistant rice varieties that can adapt to climate change, according to speakers at a meeting held in Can Tho on Tuesday.

Held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Can Tho City People's Committee, the meeting looked at the development of rice and tra fish cultivation in a sustainable manner.

Le Van Banh, head of the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, said the reclamation of land for rice cultivation, improvement of irrigating systems and creation of new rice varieties had increased the Delta's rice output from 4.2 million tonnes in 1976 to 21 million tonnes this year.

Despite progress, rice production still lacked high-yield and high-quality rice varieties, processing technologies and a sufficient number of warehouses. There was also a high rate of post-harvest losses (14 per cent).

The knowledge and skills of farmers were uneven and the investment in the Delta's agriculture sector was still low, leaving farmers at high risk.

Participants said the Delta should develop rice co-operatives to create large rice-growing areas and find stable outlets for rice production.

Co-operation between the State, enterprises, farmers and scientists must be improved.

The delta should also improve farmers' knowledge and skills, mechanise rice production, build rice brandnames, improve market information systems, and call on more non-State investors investing in creating new rice varieties, they said.

Le Ngoc Dien from the Can Tho City Sub-department of Fisheries said the area under tra fish breeding had increased from 1,290ha in 1997 to 5,540ha last year. Tra output has also risen from 17 tonnes per hectare in 1997 to 250 tonnes per hectare in 2009.

Many tra fish breeding areas have met the Safe Quality Food 1000 (SQF 1000) and Global Good Agricultural Practices (Global GAP) standards.

Sugar cane growers see high yields

Nearly 800,000 tonnes of sugarcane have been processed into around 55,000 tonnes of white sugar by 15 mills in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta and south-eastern region since the crushing season began last week.

With more than 75,000ha under cultivation in the two regions, the volume of sugarcane harvested during the 2009-10 crop is projected at 5 million tonnes, the Viet Nam Sugar Association said in a report released at a meeting held on Tuesday in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang.

Most factories had signed contracts to provide capital, fertilisers and sugarcane breeds to farmers and consume their produce, the report said.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Bui Ba Bong said at the meeting that cities and provinces in the two regions, which are among the country's largest sugarcane farming areas, should maintain the cultivation area.

He also called for closer co-operation between farmers and factories as well as among the factories themselves. The factories should participate in the sugar price stabilisation programme during the run up to the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, he added.

Sugarcane is currently being purchased in the Mekong Delta region at VND1.1-1.2 million (US$55-60) per tonne and at VND950,000-1 million (US$47-50) per tonne in the south-eastern region.

HCM City hosts online marketing conference

Online marketing could help local exporters introduce their products efficiently and effectively to potential buyers around the world, experts said at a conference in HCM City yesterday.

Ghislain Le Chatelier, head of Google Southeast Asia, told the conference titled "Export Solutions for Vietnamese Brands" that applying IT and online marketing methods to promote exports was a popular worldwide trend.

But many Vietnamese exporters had not utilised these applications in the most effective way, the official added.

"Internet development has not only changed media consumption but also the way we interact with customers," he said.

He noted that e-commerce was new, but growing rapidly in Viet Nam, citing a recent online consumer benchmark study by Netpop Research that found 73 per cent of respondents saying they'd purchased something online compared to 16 per cent last year.

Vo Minh Hoang, an official with the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade, said the city's economy was recovering and regaining its growth rate after the economic recession last year.

The city's export turnover this year is expected to reach US$21 billion for a year-on-year increase of 5.1 per cent. With the rapid growth of information technology, the internet offered a huge source of information as well as a quick and effective marketing channel, Chatelier said.

Online marketing had more advantages than traditional marketing channels, making it much easier to change a product's image or its advertising contents, Hoang said.

Local exporters should therefore intensify the use of online marketing to promote exports and raise their competitiveness, he added.

Some Vietnamese companies have been successful with online exports, like the Tre Lang Living Bamboo Company that sells bamboo-based furniture products; Vegetexco, which sells canned vegetable products; and Viet Source Processing Import and Export Joint Stock Co, which exports spices and other agro- based products.

The number of enterprises participating in trading exchanges has also increased sharply in recent times, Hoang said, adding that earnings from online exports at some companies even accounted for more than half of their total export revenues.

Intensive training

In a related development, a free workshop offering intensive training to enhance online marketing skills of suppliers from Viet Nam opens today in Ha Noi's Noi Bai Industrial Zone.

The first workshop of its kind aims to help Vietnamese firms land more export orders and equip small- and medium- sized manufacturers with needed export marketing and inquiry management skills.

The "How to Win More Export Orders" workshop is co-hosted by the US-based non-profit organisation Kearny Alliance and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation's helmet-maker Protec.

"While the participants are all experienced exporters, many may not be familiar with the latest online marketing channels and know how best to manage their inquiries. Suppliers told us they need more knowledge in these areas to help them become more competitive," said Alexander Boome, visiting programme director of Kearny Alliance Asia.

"Our aim is to help them convert more sales leads into more orders more effectively. The ultimate goal is sustainable job creation," he said.

He appreciated greatly the backing of Global Sources "who support us with real-case buyers for our workshop content and free online marketing platform where the suppliers can communicate with quality buyers worldwide."

Na Huong, deputy general director of Protec, said: "We are delighted to assist the Kearny Alliance with necessary facilities and venues to make the workshop happen for Viet Nam's exporters.

"We believe the knowledge and skills the workshop provides to local suppliers is practical."

The Developing Country Export Assistance Programme team is scheduling further training programmes in HCM City early next year.

Kearny Alliance partners with other international organisations to further its mission of "Aid though Trade" to advance international development and poverty alleviation through trade-related business, education, training and applied research.

Source: VNS