[Round-up] Vietnam’s Party Chief to Visit Indonesia, Myanmar, PM Calls for More Thai Investment

At a meeting with Thai enterprises in Bangkok on August 18, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has urged Thai firms to grasp opportunities arising from merger & acquisition activities and the equitization of state-owned enterprises and their divestment in transport, infrastructure, food, agriculture, telecommunications, trade, services and construction in Vietnam.

Thai business representatives pledged to keep expanding their business operations in Vietnam in the fields of retail, food, farm produce manufacturing and processing, energy, tourism and transport, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has asked the Transport Ministry, investors and contractors to work closely with localities on site clearance to speed up the progress of key transport projects.

Chairing a meeting of the State Steering Committee for key transport works in Hanoi on August 17, Dung urged the Transport Ministry to promptly complete the north-south highway project and plans for transport investment in the Mekong Delta to report to the prime minister and submit them to the National Assembly.

The Vietnam Food Association (VFA) aims to ship 2 million tons of rice to foreign countries in the last five months of the year, increasing total rice export for the whole year to 5.2 million tons, up 6% year-on-year, according to VNA.

The country exported an estimated 3.24 million tons of rice at FOB value of 1.4 billion USD in the past seven months, representing an increase of 11 percent in volume and 11.4 percent in value over the same period last year.

Vietnam’s southern largest economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City and China’s Guangdong province hold a wide range of potentials for stronger trade and investment ties, participants remarked at a conference held in the city on August 18.

Chu Tien Dung, Chairman of the HCM City Enterprises Association, said HCM City wants to increase two-way trade value with Guangdong as the city has a lot of advantages in producing electronic equipment and components, wood and wooden furniture, agricultural and aquatic products, garments and textiles.

Energy production from solid waste in urban areas is forecast to increase by between 10% and 16% in Vietnam, experts said at a workshop jointly held by the General Directorate of Energy under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Hanoi on August 18.

Participants said waste-to-energy production is becoming a useful solution in the world, and in Vietnam, environmental issues and demand for land in urban areas also lead to an urgent need for the waste-to-energy solution, thus helping to ensure energy security.

The shift to digital banking has helped banks to provide modern and convenient services to customers, but this has also exposed them to many security risks, VNA cited experts as saying at a conference in Hanoi on August 16.

The experts noted that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is taking place in many countries, bringing opportunities to effect far-reaching changes. This also applies to the banking system in terms of their asset size, capital and network.

The Vietnam Online Marketing Forum 2017 came to Hanoi on August 17, aiming to boost online marketing and e-commerce in Vietnam and introduce the latest digital marketing trends to local businesses.

The forum, focusing on marketing trends, discussed affiliate marketing trends and search engine marketing, programmatic marketing, multichannel marketing, mobile marketing, social marketing and content marketing.

Hanoi’s Department of Information and Communications on August 18 organized an investment promotion conference to call for investment in 12 startup projects under the Hanoi Innovative Business Incubator of Information Technology.

Among the 12 projects that underwent three rounds of selection by the incubator’s advisory council, the projects on information technology application in classifying rubbish, easy-learning application, and an e-commerce platform of online retail agents received investors’ attention.

The Ministry of Construction and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) held a workshop in Hanoi on August 17 to review the implementation of the Green City Planning Decision Support System (GDSS) in Vietnam, according to VNA.

The Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements coordinated efforts with the Ministry of Construction and two other provinces to build a set of green urban indicators and a GDSS to evaluate urban development nationwide. This is a foundation to building a legal framework and guidance documents for green city planning in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese government is expected to collect an additional 59 trillion dong ($2.6 billion) for state coffers if value-added tax (VAT) rate is hiked to 12% from the current 10%.

With such an increase, VAT will account for 33% of Vietnam’s budget collection, according to Ho Chi Minh City Securities.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has expressed hope that Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd will expand investment in the field of beverages in the Southeast Asian country, especially those made from Vietnamese fresh fruits given abundant fruit supply and high demand.

At a reception for the group’s Executive Vice President and Senior Executive Officer Keisuke Nishimura in Hanoi on August 17, Hue said that the Vietnamese government encourages non-alcoholic and non-carbonated drinks, besides beer.