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Vietnam aims to turn out 2.8 million tons of aquatic products this year, according to a plan set forth by the Department of Aquaculture under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). The amount is planned to include 1.2 million tons of tra fish, 380,000 tons of sea shrimp and 180,000 tons of mollusks. To that end, MARD has urged localities to take measures to protect livestock, minimize the losses caused by erratic weather this year and provide technical support for local farmers. In addition, localities should set up groups for production and help them link with processors and consumers, said the ministry.
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Hanoi will step up its efforts to complete a project designed to expand belt road 3 that links the inner district of Cau Giay to the Noi Bai international airport in preparations for the city's millennium anniversary in October. At the proposal of General Director of the Transport Engineering Design Inc Pham Huu Son, the project will be divided into two components to ensure its feasibility and make it easy to clear the project sites and deal with emerging issues. The first component will widen an 11.7-km section from Thang Long Bridge to the crossroads with national highway 2. The section will be enlarged to 29m and have six lanes, including four for big vehicles. The remaining 5.5 km section, which connects Mai Dich ward in Cau Giay with Thang Long Bridge, will also be expanded to 29m for six lanes in the first phase.
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The US dollar liquidity of the Vietnamese banking system has improved remarkably since the beginning of January, as major State-owned enterprises have complied with a Government order and sold about US$450 million to commercial banks. According to State Bank of Vietnam deputy governor Nguyen Dong Tien, most of the dollars were placed on non-term deposit by seven State-owned economic groups and corporations, including oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, mining giant Vinacomin, the Vietnam National Chemical Corporation (Vinachem) and Vietnam Airlines. The interbank exchange rate of 17,941 VND per US dollar has been stable for over a month, a situation rarely seen in recent years. Tien, meanwhile, said that the Government would get tougher on illegal currency traders.
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Vietnam Maritime Stock Bank said Friday its pretax profit more than doubled last year to VND1.1 trillion ($58.6 million). The bank's total assets were VND65 trillion at the end of 2009, up from VND48 trillion at the end of September, it said in a statement. The Hanoi-based bank has a registered capital of VND3 trillion, it added.
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Habubank will list shares on the stock exchange this year if market conditions prove favorable. The bank, of which Deutsche Bank holds a 10% stake, said it expected its shares to debut at a price of VND40,000-50,000 (US$2.16-2.70). However, Habubank shares were trading on February 2 on the over-the-counter market at around VND12,000 ($0.65) each. Habubank announced that it had beaten its 2009 profit target by over 26 per cent, with profits last year totalling VND504.8 billion. Bad debts were under control at 2.24 per cent of total outstanding loans, compared to 2.84 per cent in 2008, with the bank targeting improved security and the maintenance of internationally standardized ratios. Total assets of the Hanoi-based bank increased by 23.84 per cent last year to VND29 trillion. Outstanding loans reached VND13.35 trillion, up 27 per cent over 2008, while deposits grew by 27.59 per cent to VND25.5 trillion.
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State President Nguyen Minh Triet has expressed his wish for more Czech investors to cooperate with and do business in Vietnam. The President expressed this aspiration while receiving Karel Pleva, Chairman and CEO of the Czech Export Guarantee and Insurance Corporation (EGAP) in Hanoi on Feb. 4. President Triet praised EGAP projects in Vietnam and stated that the Vietnamese Government is exerting efforts to improve its investment environment and ensure legal equality for all types of investors. He stressed that Vietnam and the Czech Republic enjoy fine traditional relations.
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Vietnam’s first ship engine plant, a joint venture between the Bach Dang Shipbuilding Corporation and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd of Japan , was put into operation on February 3. The plant in the northern port city of Hai Phong will enable the country to build first ships using domestically made engines. The plant will churn out 22 diesel engines with a capacity of 2,600-23,500 Kw each year. The first engine will be installed at a 22,500-tonne ship ordered by the VINASHIN Petroleum Investment and Transport Joint Stock Company. The building of the plant is said to be a new step in a roadmap to develop the country’s shipbuilding industry with a target of producing domestically 60 percent of ship parts.
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A Pakistani delegation of 11 leading tannery and leather enterprises is visiting HCM City to seek business opportunities and enhance trade relations between the two countries. The Pakistan businesses displayed their products at the meeting. After visiting two Vietnamese leather shoe companies, the Pakistan delegation said they are confident that Pakistani leather would satisfy the Vietnamese enterprises’ demands. Two countries’ bilateral turnover has seen a sharp increase in recent years, reaching 10 million USD in 2000 and amounting to 150 million USD in 2008. Vietnam exports to Pakistan in 2008 equaled 95 million USD, mainly in tea, pepper, cotton, rubber and steel. Vietnam imported textile, leather shoe, medicine and food from Pakistan. Hung said Vietnam is a potential tannery and leather market with an annual growth rate of 16 percent.
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The country’s largest tour operator, Saigontourist Holding Company, targets 10% growth for this year, its general director Nguyen Huu Tho has said. Speaking at a company meeting in HCM City on Feb. 3, Tho said Saigontourist expects to serve 2.15 million domestic and foreign tourists and earn revenues of 9 trillion VND (487.3 million USD) this year. Saigontourist planned to increase spending in other countries, especially in the US and Japan, to promote its brand and speed up construction and upgrade of its numerous hotels in HCM City and other major destinations to increase the number of luxury rooms to 2,500 by 2013. Despite the economic difficulties, Saigontourist achieved a turnover of 8.2 trillion VND (443.9 million USD) last year, an increase of 6.9% over 2008, Tho told the year-end meeting.
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Foreign investors were net buyers of VND291.1 billion ($ 15.7 million) of Vietnamese stocks Thursday out of a total VND1.82 trillion traded, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange said. Volume traded totaled 36.96 million shares, with foreigners accounting for 21.2% of that volume, the stock market operator said. Foreign investors have been net buyers of VND735.7 billion of Vietnamese stocks so far this month.
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Singapore firms Keppel Corp and Ezra Holdings said on Friday they have set up a joint venture to supply a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) in a deal worth up to $1 billion. Keppel, Ezra, EOC Ltd and PetroVietnam Corp will provide the FPSO and related services to Premier Oil in Vietnam.
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Vietnam's banking system reported credit growth of one per cent in January, a good sign for achieving the target of 25 per cent growth this year while still considered reasonable in terms of seasonal production cycles and demand for capital. Before Lunar New Year, companies often focus on summarising business results and planning for the new year, said State Bank deputy governor Nguyen Dong Tien on February 2. The increase in credit growth for January was therefore not low in comparison with previous years, Tien said. The rate of growth was 0.65 per cent in January 2009 and 0.9 per cent in January 2008, while credit growth actually slowed by one per cent in January 2007.
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Vietnamese agricultural and seafood produce will find entry into the Japanese market easier thanks to the Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Japan. Under the agreement that took effect last October, 784 out of 2,020 agricultural products and 64 out of 330 seafood items that Vietnam exports to Japan will enjoy tariff exemption. The rates on the remaining items will be gradually reduced over the next few years. Japan is Vietnam's major market for frozen shrimp with yearly revenues estimated at almost US$400 million, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers.
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Ho Chi Minh City does not have enough land to bury the hazardous industrial wastes it is producing in increasing quantities. The city has seven private companies that treat hazardous wastes, but they can only handle 0.5-1 ton a day, far below the requirement. They are unable to handle more volumes because there is a shortage of land for safe landfills and lack of funds. Besides, most of them use incineration, distillation, and other solid waste technologies that produce an untreatable end product. The only way for them to treat this is by building environmentally safe landfills.
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Samsung SDI Co., a South Korean maker of plasma display panels (PDP) and lithium-ion batteries, said Thursday it will invest US$5 million to set up Samsung SDI Vietnam Co., a manufacturer of secondary battery packs. The planned company will be established in Hanoi and supply lithium-ion battery packs used for cell phones and personal computers, Samsung said in a regulatory filing.
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Kinh Bac City Development Holding Co, listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, will issue US$200 million worth of convertible bonds overseas in accordance with an agreement signed last week with Credit Suisse. The bonds will have a five-year maturity and an annual interest rate of 6-6.2 percent. They will be converted into shares at a projected value at 130 percent of the average price during 10-15 continuous trading sessions prior to the issue date. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest bank, will be the issuing underwriter for Kinh Bac's bonds.
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Japan Airlines Corp said Thursday that it will raise the number of flights between Tokyo and Vietnam's two major cities under an operational plan for the first half of fiscal 2010. The Narita-Hanoi route will have seven flights a week, up from three, and another will be added for service to Ho Chi Minh City, bringing the total to seven flights a week. JAL will also increase flights on the Sapporo route from 14 times a week to 21 in order to improve connections. The embattled carrier, however, intends to reduce service to Shanghai and Sao Paulo and will withdraw from 12 domestic routes, including flights to and from Shizuoka and Matsumoto airports.
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Vietnam's first ship engine plant, a joint venture between the Bach Dang Shipbuilding Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd of Japan, was put into operation on February 3. The plant in the northern port city of Hai Phong will enable the country to build its first ships using domestically made engines. The plant will churn out 22 diesel engines with a capacity of2,600-23,500 Kw each year. The first engine will be installed at a 22,500-tonne ship ordered by the VINASHIN Petroleum Investment and Transport Joint Stock Company. The building of the plant is said to be a new step in a roadmap to develop the country's shipbuilding industry with a target of producing domestically 60 percent of ship parts. The Bach Dang shipyard is also carrying out projects to build two other diesel engine plants.
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The number of new mobile phone subscribers reached 4.3 million in the first month of this year, up 169% against the same period last year, according to the National Statistics Office. To date, Vietnam has around 135.3 million telephone subscribers, a 62% rise from last year. Of the figure, nearly 15% are fixed phone subscribers and the remaining 85% are mobile phone owners. The number of broad-band Internet subscribers rose sharply to 3.1 million, marking a 46% rise over the same period last year. The country is forecast to see a sharper rise in the number of mobile phone subscribers as several network operators are planning fee reductions and attractive service packages in an attempt to grab a larger market share. Vietnam now has eight mobile phone service providers. The Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel) now holds the largest market share, followed by the first two giants, MobiFone and VinaPhone.
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