Business in brief 07 Jan 2013
Vietnam’s rice exports in 2012 has reached a record high of 7.72 million tons, surpassing the 7.7 million ton target it set earlier last year, the Vietnam Food Administration has reported. This is the highest quantity of rice the country has ever exported in a year, but the value it gained from the shipments has dropped by US$50 million compared to 2011 due to the slumping exporting prices. “Vietnam has set a new record in rice exporting thanks to the increase of rice production in 2012, which is 1.3 million tons higher than a year earlier,” the VFA commented. Meanwhile, Thailand has lost its three-decades-old title as the world’s top rice exporter last year, falling behind India and Vietnam, according to the Bangkok Post. While Vietnam has exported a record 7.7 million tons, India’s rice exports last year exceeded 9.5 million tons, the newspaper said, citing US Department of Agriculture figures.
Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s Skytrax award winning flag carrier, continues to expand its Asian network and will launch a new service from Almaty to Ho Chi Minh City. This follows the start of services to Hong Kong in August 2012 and increases of frequency to several Asian destinations in recent months. Air Astana currently operates services to Bangkok, Beijing, Delhi, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. The flight to Ho Chi Minh City will be operated via Bangkok, with a total flight time of nine hours. The return flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Almaty will be operated non-stop and take only seven hours. Flights will initially be operated on Wednesdays and Fridays using a Boeing 757 configured in a 16 business class / 150 economy class layout. Fares from Almaty to Ho Chi Minh City start from US$590 including governmental taxes, airport fees and charges.
Vietnam’s sole oil refinery, Dung Quat in the central province of Quang Ngai, has set itself a production target of 6.5 million tons of oil and revenues of VND120 trillion (US$5.75 billion) this year. The US$3-billion refinery also plans to raise its capacity from 135,000 barrels per day to 240,000 barrels, news website Vietnamplus reported Sunday. Last year the refinery produced around 5.5 million tons of products after shutting down for 68 days over several occasions. The plant, which meets 30 percent of the country’s demand for oil products, has been working at full capacity since mid-August when it shut down for a week to fix a problem in a processing unit.
Cambodia Angkor Air (CA Air) yesterday inaugurated the first non-stop flight route between Phnom Penh and Ha Noi in a bid to meet the increasing transportation demand between the two countries. The daily route is being flown by the short-to-medium range commercial passenger jet Airbus 321, which will make the 1,000km journey between the two capitals in about one hour. CA Air’s CEO Trinh Hong Quang. Quang said the new route is part of the airline’s master plan to expand its networks. Other new routes include Siem Reap - Bangkok, Siem Reap - Ha Noi and Phnom Penh - Bangkok. Direct flights to Hong Kong, Seoul and Singapore are under consideration, Quang added. The flight frequency between Phnom Penh and HCM City is also being increased. The Phnom Penh based airline, a 51/49 joint venture between the Cambodian Government and Vietnam’s flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, currently has 11 flight routes including three domestic flights and eight international flights.
The capital has announced that the Department of Transport has been working on finalizing procedures to start construction on 16 transport infrastructure projects in the first quarter of 2013. The projects include Tran Phu-Kim Ma, Ha Duc Bridge, Gom Bridge, Dam Mo bridge, Hong Phu bridge, among others. The department is also scheduled to finish and allow vehicles to travel on Yen Vi Bridge, Cat Linh-La Thanh-Lang road, and finish the pedestrian bridge crossing North Thang Long Industrial Zone before the Lunar New Year, which begins before mid-February. In 2013, the Department would also focus on various urban transport projects under commitments with the World Bank, and several sections of National Highway 1A.
Mobile operator Viettel and the An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ABBank) have co-operated to introduce BankPlus, a service that enables customers to conduct banking transactions on their phones. When BankPlus is activated, phone users can transfer up to VND200 million (US$9,600) per day to other ABBANK accounts, look up their account balance and transaction history and pay Viettel’s telecommunications service charges. The service is available on all models of mobile phones and requires no additional application installation.
A group from the ASEAN-Japan Promotion Centre on Trade, Investment and Tourism will visit HCM City and northern Ninh Binh province from January 13 to 19. It aims to support local handicraft and fine-arts enterprises in improving the quality of their products to meet the demands of Japanese consumers and penetrate the Japanese market. Southernmost province aims for $1 billion in exports this year
The Hoa Lac hi-tech park has so far granted investment licenses for 68 projects with VND52 trillion ($2.5 billion) total registered capital. Seven projects in the Hoa Lac hi-tech park with a total capital injection of $999 million received investment licenses in 2012. In 2012 alone, seven projects with a total capital injection of VND20.8 trillion ($999 million) received investment licenses. The figure was released at an annual investment conference held on January 4 to review the park’s activities in 2012. At the event, the park’s managers and government officials touched upon a number of difficulties to attract investors that lie ahead of them, and proposed a number of mechanisms and policies to address the issue.
The southernmost province of Ca Mau targets export turnover of more than US$1 billion this year, a year-on-year increase of 10.5 per cent, according to its People’s Committee. The province’s key exports will continue to be seafood, including shrimp and cuttlefish, to the key markets of the US, the EU, Japan, Australia, Canada, Russia, China and South Korea, as well as several countries and territories in Africa. The province’s People’s Committee said it had helped the Ca Mau Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers develop new trade promotions, with the main aim of expanding and stabilizing seafood export markets. The province has also encouraged local companies to improve their competitiveness by upgrading technologies, a move that would increase output and improve the quality and value of their seafood.
The 111-year-old Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi and the Park Hyatt Saigon have just received various awards selected by two prestigious magazines Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards 2013 and Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2013 compendium of the top-rated 500 hotels around the globe. The Readers’ Choice Awards polled responses from nearly 47,000 readers who rated resorts and hotels on a five-point scale across five standards such as cuisine, position, architecture space, room design and service quality via a secure website. The country can now lay claim to one of the top-three hotels in Southeast Asia, two of Asia’s top 15 resorts and one of Asia’s top 10 cities as its Sofitel Metropole Hanoi ranked 3rd among the top 20 hotels in Southeast Asia; the Park Hyatt Saigon and the Sheraton Saigon also scored top-20 finishes on the same list.
Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL) is expecting to earn billions of US dollars in the next 5 years from its $300 million initial investment in Myanmar this year. The realty developer will give priority to the development of its $300 million complex in Yangon in 2013 following the groundbreaking of the project after the Lunar New Year, said HAGL chairman Doan Nguyen Duc. HAGL and Myanmar’s Ministry of Hotels & Tourism on December 18 closed a BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract and a land leasing agreement to build the complex, the Hoang Anh Gia Lai Myanmar Center, consisting of a five-star hotel, shopping mall, office building, and apartments for lease. HAGL said it had been granted permission to lease an 8 hectare land plot in downtown Yangon, adding that all legal procedures on the Myanmar side have been completed.
The south-central province of Khanh Hoa province plans to increase total seafood export to over 63,000 tons, worth US$ 406 million in 2015. The provincial People’s Committee has approved a program to develop sustainable and highly competitive aquatic products. Accordingly, local businesses will invest in improving the quality of products, enabling all local aquatic products to meet national standards for food safety and environmental protection, as well as export markets’ requirements on products’ origin. Khanh Hoa seafood sector will maintain traditional markets, especially the three key markets - Japan, the US and EU, while penetrating new promising markets such as ASEAN, the Republic of Korea, China, the Middle East, and South America.
