ANT Lawyers

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

ANT Lawyers

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

ANT Lawyers

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

ANT Lawyers

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

ANT Lawyers

Vietnam Law Firm with English Speaking Lawyers

Chủ Nhật, 31 tháng 1, 2016

Is Apple About to Set-up Company in Vietnam?

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In the August 2015 work plan of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, it has been recently revealed that a section to review the registration of a company named Apple Vietnam company limited. Is it the American multinational teconology company with its famous products i.e. Mac, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, Apple watch…about to set-up company in Vietnam to promote and distribute its own products i.e. the upcoming Iphone 6s, and Iphone 6s plus?
According to the information from the official dealer of Apple in Vietnam, Apple has already had a representative in Vietnam and began contacting with agents in the country from early 2015. The current business activities of Apple with domestic partners are done through Apple Thailand. Therefore, Apple’s representative in Vietnam will help to smooth out this arrangement because of the better understanding the local market and no language barrier.
Although Apple has not had their representative office or official company in Vietnam but they have many authorized dealers to sell its products. Apple products like the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have always led the top 10 selling phones in many domestic retail systems since its launching in late 2014. According to the statistic of IDC, in the first quarter of 2015, Apple ranked 2nd in value in the largest smart phone manufacturers in Vietnam; in the tablet market, Apple accounted for 16.6% of the market – ranked 2nd in the market – but accounted for 29.1%, the highest in terms of market value.

Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 1, 2016

TPP Helps Vietnam Become an Important Base in The World Production Chain

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Vietnam is considered to be the biggest beneficiary country of the 12 countries participating in the TPP.
The fact that countries which have large markets like the US, Japan and Canada reducing import tax to 0% for Vietnam goods will create tremendous boost to export of Vietnam. Particularly the textile industry, turnover could increase significantly.

The textile and footwear industries, the agricultural, forestry and fishery goods of Vietnam will have the opportunity to increase export significantly.
Joining TPP will also help Vietnam and other countries to have new opportunities from new supply chain, which will be formed after TPP takes effect. TPP countries currently account for 40% of global GDP and 30% of global trade. Moreover, it includes major markets such as USA, Japan which will certainly open up many opportunities when the new supply chain formed.
Accordingly, a number of corporations and large companies in the world have considered investing in Vietnam with the goal of making Vietnam become one of the important bases in their production chain. Joining TPP will help this trend grow stronger, which is an important condition for Vietnam to step on stage to develop new industries with higher technological contents.
The commitments in TPP in service and investment are also expected to have a positive effect in improving the investment environment, contribute to attracting foreign investment. Many studies confirm that foreign investment will increase as TPP takes effect.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Vietnam enterprises will also can join into the public procurement market in the United States, Japan, Canada… According to the data from the US, the market for public procurement of this country is about 10-12 billion USD each year. This is an attractive distribution channel for export goods from Vietnam.
The completion and strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights will open opportunities to attract investment in sectors with high knowledge content, such as pharmaceutical manufacturing, including bio-medicine and especially vaccine.

TPP will create condition for enhancing growth, creating job and increasing income, contributing to poverty alleviation, improving the quality of human resources and health care for the community.

Thứ Tư, 27 tháng 1, 2016

Will Vietnam Become The Silicon Valley of South East Asia?

Kết quả hình ảnh cho Will Vietnam Become The Silicon Valley of South East Asia?
15 years ago, it was hard to find an information technology (IT) company in Vietnam, but now there are nearly 14,000 IT enterprises that produce and develop hardware, software and digital. The Government of Vietnam considered high-tech industry as one of the pillars to promote economic growth of the country. Vietnam has invested heavily in the construction of infrastructure and adopts economic policies to encourage both domestic and foreign enterprises to invest and do business in Vietnam.
Besides, Vietnam has more than 90 million in population with average age of over 30 years old, in which the number of programmers, engineers, young entrepreneurs and students are increasing, that will be the effort to promote economic growth and technological innovation in the country.
More than 20 years ago, the leading technology corporation IBM has opened an office in Da Nang in 1992 and then opened in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City in 1994. Also in 2012, Da Nang was recognized by IBM as one of 33 most dynamic cities in the world and was awarded by the company with 50 million USD under the program to support the improvement of infrastructure in three years time.
Many hi-tech parks are established under the IT projects of Vietnam in 2020 that has been responsive to the growing demand for infrastructure for hardware manufacturing, companies producing software and international information technology… This is giving the central city of Vietnam strength to become a center of high-tech boom.
Moreover, three largest IT universities in Vietnam (that are located in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City) are the main workforce for the high-tech zone with hundreds of IT students graduating each year. Many young engineers were recruited immediately to famous companies such as Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, LG, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba.
In October 2015, the Vietnam IT Conference will be held in Ho Chi Minh City with the attendance of representatives from 150 multinational IT companies, along with more than 200 IT companies from Vietnam and 20 universities. There will be speeches from Gartner, KPMG, HP, LogiGear, Microsoft, Samsung. This is the chance for Vietnam IT industry to present to the world and everyone will witness the boom of the Vietnam IT industry.

Thứ Ba, 26 tháng 1, 2016

US Billionaire Mark Mobius Expanding Investment in Vietnam


US billionaire Mark Mobius – one of the most famous investor in the world visited Vietnam to seek and expand investment through M&A in Vietnam.

In the world, billionaire Mark Mobius is considered one of the best investors of the 20thcentury, alongside names such as Warren Buffett, George Soros and Julian Robertson.
During this business trip to Vietnam, Mark Mobius met partners in potential areas such as banking, logistic services. Till now, the Fund entitled Franklin Templaton by Mark Mobius as chairman has invested nearly 300 million USD (equivalent to nearly 6,000 billion VND) in Vietnam.
In particular, billionaire Mark Mobius has declared that Franklin Templeton Investment Fund may invest 3 billion USD to Vietnam market in the coming time. This figure is equivalent to 1/10 of the total GDP of Vietnam in 2014.

Thứ Hai, 25 tháng 1, 2016

Pharmaceutical and healthcare in Vietnam


Vietnam is a large and fast growing population, which is expected to reach 96 million by 2019, and it will continue to attract the interest of foreign players. Although the country’s regulatory environment will remain fairly challenging, the introduction of global standards for manufacturing and pharmacy distribution will improve the market value. Globally, Vietnam ranks 66th out of 83 countries surveyed in our ever-expanding pharmaceutical universe. Valued at US$1.54bn in 2009, it is expected the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market to post a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.03% in local currency terms (14.80% in US dollars), to reach a value of US$3.07bn in 2014. At over US$33 in 2014, spending per capita will have almost doubled in five years, with further growth expected through to 2019. Over the ten-year forecast period, overall market CAGR will slow somewhat (to 12.79% in local currency), due to a higher uptake of cheaper, domestically-produced medicines, patent expirations and likely measures to reduce consumption in government hospitals, as the government deals with budget deficits.

In common with many of its regional neighbors, the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market is underdeveloped and suffers from poor regulatory and intellectual property (IP) standards, which have held back foreign investment in the country. Low-cost, locally-produced generics – as well as counterfeit products – account for a sizeable proportion of drug consumption due to low consumer purchasing power and an under-funded healthcare system. Uneven and inadequate public insurance coverage means that patients are responsible for financing many of their medical needs, which in the past has hampered stronger market growth. Consequently, pharmaceutical consumption represents only 1.7% of Vietnam’s GDP, although we expect this figure to top 2% from 2014.

Moreover, membership of the WTO will serve to promote the development of Vietnam’s pharmaceutical sector as well as to reduce the role of counterfeit trade. The domestic industry, traditionally characterized by poor manufacturing standards and obsolete facilities, is likely to undergo a wave of consolidation in the face of rising pressure – and associated costs – on companies to implement international GMP standards. Additionally, WTO membership will have a positive effect on the sector as it encourages imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) and improves operational efficiency in what has traditionally been an overly bureaucratic and
less than dynamic industry.
Prescription medicines will remain dominant over the next five years, with the biggest focus on drugs for the treatment of infectious and chronic diseases. The over-the-counter (OTC) sector has the potential to be boosted by the re-categorisation of popular traditional medicines, although presently there are no such plans. In the meantime, market figures will remain distorted by the lack of a distinction made between prescription and OTC drugs, with most medicines available without a prescription.

Vietnamese drug makers account for only 40% of the total medicines market, while the country imports around 90% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in drug production. However, capacity is improving gradually, and in Q409 the government announced its aim to ensure that 60% of domestic demand is met by local pharmaceutical companies during 2010. At the start of 2005, there were more than 10,000 kinds of medicines registered for sale in Vietnam, of which some 60% were produced locally. The figures represent a marked improvement on 1995 when the local sector produced only 80 substances, as well as on 2002, when 384 products were manufactured.
Vietnam’s pharmaceutical market was valued at around VND27,351bn (US$1.54bn) in 2009. Over the next five years, BMI forecasts that the market should grow at a CAGR of 16.0% in local currency terms to reach a value of VND57,515bn (US$3.07bn) in 2014. BMI’s long-range forecast is for the market to reach VND91,166bn (US$5.61bn) in 2019, equating to a CAGR of 12.8%.

Chủ Nhật, 24 tháng 1, 2016

Can Vietnam Become a New Production Center of The World?

Vietnam now is a machining and production center, just behind Singapore on the total investment amount of China.
China is following the model of the Japanese economy and then has higher production costs. Therefore, Chinese enterprises are now diverting into neighboring countries to find the location for new manufacturing facilities.
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With great potential for growth, young population structure and lower wage costs, Vietnam will benefit from the development of infrastructure associated with competition for positions in regional influence between China and other major economies.
This is an opportunity for Vietnam to improve its position in the value chain by becoming a global center of production of low-value commodities.
To enhance accessing to investment capitals, becoming a center of manufacturing, global outsourcing and enhancing the position in the value chain, in the long term, Vietnam will actively screening the list of projects FDI under the strategy and development-oriented by the Government.
Vietnam needs to invest in education and training to develop workforce skills. In addition, Vietnam also needs to focus more on investment in environmental infrastructure, especially in transportation and services.
Along with the continuous integration in ASEAN and by the importance of this region for the 4 largest economies in the world, Vietnam has many advantages to attract multinational companies to invest in order to take use existing opportunities of Southeast Asia area.

Thứ Năm, 21 tháng 1, 2016

FDI Wave from the UK into Ho Chi Minh City

Set-up factory in Vietnam
UK businesses are gradually becoming the largest investors in Vietnam.
The southern key industrial zone (SKEZ) including Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and neighboring provinces such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Long An and Ba Ria – Vung Tau.
SKEZ include 106 active industrial zones with a total area of 33,500ha. Those industrial parks have the advantage that lie near the highway, intercity road, seaport and international airport.
HCMC is the economic center of SKEZ, therefore this is the area that always receives the largest amount of FDI projects.
According to Savills Vietnam, in the first half of 2015, UK businesses have invested the most in HCMC, accounted for 59% of total FDI capitals, followed by investors from the British Virgin Islands (15%) and South Korea ranks 3rd (10%).
HCMC has 16 active industrial parks, operating with 2,300ha leased land, attracted 425 million USD from FDI, increase by 50% compared with 2014.
Currently, HCMC has announced plans to open 7 new industrial parks, with a total area of around 2,000 ha to welcome FDI inflows in the textile, service and food processing industries.
Moreover, in recent years, HCMC has adopted preferential tax policies to encourage new businesses operating in the high-tech industry and related scientific disciplines.
Especially in infrastructure development, in order to welcome foreign investors, infrastructure of the city has been growing rapidly with many underway projects, such as the HCMC – Long Thanh highway, the metro 1 and the belt roads of the city.
In early 2016, two key roads will begin construction includes the belt road no.3 connecting Nhon Trach District, Dong Nai and Ben Luc – Long Thanh highway.

Thứ Tư, 20 tháng 1, 2016

How to Enter Financial Services Market in Vietnam

Vietnam Financial Service Market
As the Vietnam economy continues to grow, financial services as well grows to keep up.  When most parts of the world were hit by global financial crisis in 2009, Vietnam was one of a few that enjoyed positive growth rate and HSBC in its Vietnam monitor issue volume 28 projected 7.2% growth in 2010.
The Vietnam financial market has been developing however still at immature stage.  The Vietnam stock market is one of the channel to raise capital for the development and it is getting more active, attracting investors from South East Astia.  There are more than one hundred securities companies founded to compete in the growing market in 2010.  Top ten companies control more than 50% of the market share in brokerage fee.  In the year 2008 and 2009, many companies have been suffering due to tough competition, poor management, bad market situation impacted by global financial crisis and lack of governance experience from Vietnam State Securities Commission.
According to World Trade Ornatization access commitments, the Vietnam securities company can be 100% owned by foreign firms by the year 2012.  The competition amongst players will be getting more fierce.  Japan is interested in acquiring Vietnam securities companies.
Financial services are typical products therefore owning some characteristics of its own kinds.  Consumer purchasing behaviour is greatly influenced by the type of financial product being purchased.  The emphasis of trust and having relationship, especially in the particular contracting contexts, are also of highly pertinent to the strategies of financial service providers (Beckett et al., 2000).  Corporate reputation dimensions associated with important variables encompassing of customer satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and word of mouth (Walsh et al., 2009) are also factors of considerations beside price, service quality, and relationships ( Bowman et al., 2000), convenience.
The study of how investors behave when it comes to decision of which securities companies to go with shall give insights into the buying behaviour of financial services in Vietnam and would add to the limited research in the area.
With rapid change and more sophisticated customers, it has become very important that financial institutions determine the factors which are pertinent to the customers’ selection process (Boyd et al., 1994) when considering entering Vietnam securities market.

Thứ Ba, 19 tháng 1, 2016

Risk Management Necessity in Vietnam?

Risk Consulting in Vietnam

As Vietnam further integrates into the world business, more investors are eyeing Vietnam for investment. As part of investment due diligence, risk management are always well considered before foreign investors decide to do business with Vietnam partners.

In any parts of the world inluding Vietnam, risk is an inevitable factor in business operation activities; higher return is always accompanied by higher risks. Coping and managing risk is an integral part of any business in order to make profit and create value to shareholders in import export transaction, investment, or merger and acquisition activities in Vietnam.
However, in our daily consulting practice, we have seen a number of businesses whom do not manage risk effectively and furthermore not fully understand about the risks that they are facing.
Typical risks in developing countries like Vietnam are political risks, policy risks, regulations risks, credit risks, bribery and corruptions, and organized crimes.
On daily transaction in trading, according to Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade, there are situations a number of corporate scams between Vietnam and foreign enterprises are reported. In particular, foreign companies sell goods or provide services to partners in Vietnam and in return the Vietnam partner fail to pay.
On a larger scale in FDI through business formation or M&A origination and execution, businesses that do not improve the risk management process will have to face with a lot of different types of risks: serious financial losses, adversely affecting cash flows and the value of shares, decreasing prestige with customers, employees and investors.
Many business leaders often put heavy emphasis on the business activity, profit, and revenues instead of concentrating more on risk management especially understading business partners through corporate intelligence investigation, background studying, adverse media search through professional consultants in Vietnam whom understand languages, cultures, legal environment and busieness practices. Further searches could help foreign investors to understand the company itself, owners, shareholders, members of board of directors of partner companies whom make daily decisions of the business.
In the period that global crisis has been predicted that almost bottom out and start to show signs of recovery, although the recovery process can occur with different speed and characteristics depending on sector and location of the business, the fully preparation of business in all aspects including process and risk management strategy could helps business not falling into the passive and also have more possibilities to take advantage of growth opportunities after the recession.
Recently in Vietnam with the impact of high inflation rate and economic recession caused by the global financial crisis, enterprises are increasingly concern about risk management activities. Many experts believe that an effective and well organized risk management system will help businesses withstand and overcome fluctuations.

Foreign Corporations Want to Invest in The Vietnam Seaports

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Sebrina Group Holdings Ltd (Singapore) expressed their desire to seek more opportunities for cooperation between the Group and the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam in the near future; they also showed their interest in the projects to build seaport in Vietnam…
At the meeting with Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang on September 3rd, Mr. Nasrat Muzayyin – CEO and Co-founder of Sebrina Group Holdings Ltd (Singapore) expressed his desire to seek more cooperation opportunities between the Group and the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam in the coming time.
Accordingly, Sebrina Holdings is a strong business in the energy sector. The Group wants to find out traffic projects related to energy in Vietnam. Simultaneously, the Group also expressed interest in the projects to build seaport in Vietnam.
Presently, Vietnam needs to develop breakthrough many sectors, in which transportation infrastructure is seen as one of the bottlenecks that need to develop rapidly in the future.
On that basis, the Minister appreciated the interest of foreign investors, including the Sebrina Group Holdings Ltd and pledged to create favorable conditions for investors to access to essential information about projects for researching and investment in developing the transportation infrastructure in Vietnam.

Thứ Hai, 18 tháng 1, 2016

The UK Entreprises Encouraged to Explore the Potential Market in Vietnam

The UK Entreprises Encouraged to Explore the Potential Market in Vietnam

In addition to improvement of the business environment in Vietnam, Deputy Foreign Minister Hugo Swire also affirmed that Vietnam and UK will plan to raise awareness for the UK investors about potential business market in Vietnam.

Talking to the press after the Vietnam – UK 4th annual strategic dialogue in Hanoi today (February 27th), Mr. Hugo Swire said, one of the highlights of the conference is how to strengthen bilateral trade relations.  According to him, a number of the businesses of the UK have succeeded in Vietnam but the UK wants more and more enterprises to be successful in Vietnam in the future.  To do this, the improvement in business environment is one of the problems the UK stressed many times before. Mr. Hugo Swire said that transparency and openness of Vietnam are still big challenges affecting the decision for UK enterprises to invest in Vietnam.  Besides, another fact acknowledged by Mr Hugo Swire is that many businesses in the UK have not understood the potential markets in Vietnam.
Therefore, during the dialogue taken place today, he said, Vietnam and the UK have discussed a program to raise awareness of UK businesses in London to Vietnam market.  According to Mr Hugo Swire, the completion of free trade agreement between Vietnam and the EU will open up many prospects to attract British investors to Set-up company in Vietnam.
“These problems, if be solved, they will bring to resonance as well as open new horizons for UK businesses to enter into Vietnam,” said Deputy Foreign Minister.
Reviewing more specific about the Vietnam market, he also said, high-end consumer goods is one of the prioritized potentials for businesses of both countries.
According to him, many designers in the UK now want to introduce products to Vietnam and this may be a priority in the coming time. According to him, four other areas in which the Uk interested are education, energy, especially nuclear energy, health, transportation and infrastructure.
According to Mr Hugo Swire, a detailed plan to strengthen relations and cooperation between the two countries on these issues will be discussed in more detail at the annual meeting of the Joint Committee on Economic Cooperation in the future.
Also on bilateral cooperation, Deputy Foreign Minister said the capital of official development assistance (ODA) will end in 2016 but the UK is committed to continue the support for Vietnam by other methods.
One of the forms of assistance is Newton fund currently being deployed in Vietnam to invest in the fields of science and technology, particularly creative ideas, innovation.
According to Hugo Swire, the UK and Vietnam are still under discussion for formal cooperation framework to help the Newton fund operating efficiently. However, representatives from the UK said, one of the activities of the program is the exchange of scientists between the two countries , thus supporting the implementation of the research to develop economics and society.

Chủ Nhật, 17 tháng 1, 2016

Vietnamese Restaurant Chain Attracts Foreign Funds

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To meet the demand of growing of young consumer, the food and beverage services in Vietnam have been attracting investment in setting up business, M&A activity.

The Vietnam business community recently is not out of surprise when a series of Vietnamese restaurant chains are invested by famous overseas funds with millions of USD.
The start-up project with the restaurant chain named “Kafe Group” by Chi Anh Dao, a female chef and businesswoman born in 1984 has just got the attention by receiving an investment amount of 5.5 million USD (over 120 billion VND) from Cassia Investments – an investment fund from Hong Kong (China).
Previously at the end of 2014, the chain of 100 restaurants named “Mon Hue” (Hue Dishes) of Huy Vietnam Food Processing Co., Ltd has been invested by Franklin Templeton fund, a fund managed by billionaire Mark Mobius with 11 million USD investment capitals.
According to the owner of “Mon Hue” restaurant, this food chain also receives investment capital from 4 other investors from Singapore, Hong Kong (China)… Currently, this chain includes 3 brands: Mon Hue, Rice Express and Mr. Hung Noodles.
Before KAfe Group and Huy Vietnam, Golden Gate – including such brands as Kichi Kichi, Sumo BBQ, Ashima, Vuvuzela… received the investment flow with 2.6 million USD from Mekong Capital Fund in 2009. Next, Standard Chartered Private Equity Fund from Standard Chartered Bank has spent 35 million USD to repurchase these shares.
Besides buying shares of Vietnam companies, the culinary market has continuously welcome many foreign brands opening restaurant in Vietnam such as Tokyo Deli, Coca Suki, Sakura, Oshima…
According to experts, investing in culinary market is the trend of modern business model. In particular, food chains seem to be less affected by the economic downturn as they meet the indispensable needs of life. Therefore, this food and beverage service sector in Vietnam is always attractive to funds.

Thứ Năm, 14 tháng 1, 2016

Will Vietnam Become The Silicon Valley of South East Asia?

15 years ago, it was hard to find an information technology (IT) company in Vietnam, but now there are nearly 14,000 IT enterprises that produce and develop hardware, software and digital. The Government of Vietnam considered high-tech industry as one of the pillars to promote economic growth of the country. Vietnam has invested heavily in the construction of infrastructure and adopts economic policies to encourage both domestic and foreign enterprises to invest and do business in Vietnam.
Besides, Vietnam has more than 90 million in population with average age of over 30 years old, in which the number of programmers, engineers, young entrepreneurs and students are increasing, that will be the effort to promote economic growth and technological innovation in the country.
More than 20 years ago, the leading technology corporation IBM has opened an office in Da Nang in 1992 and then opened in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City in 1994. Also in 2012, Da Nang was recognized by IBM as one of 33 most dynamic cities in the world and was awarded by the company with 50 million USD under the program to support the improvement of infrastructure in three years time.
Many hi-tech parks are established under the IT projects of Vietnam in 2020 that has been responsive to the growing demand for infrastructure for hardware manufacturing, companies producing software and international information technology… This is giving the central city of Vietnam strength to become a center of high-tech boom.
Moreover, three largest IT universities in Vietnam (that are located in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City) are the main workforce for the high-tech zone with hundreds of IT students graduating each year. Many young engineers were recruited immediately to famous companies such as Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, LG, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba.
In October 2015, the Vietnam IT Conference will be held in Ho Chi Minh City with the attendance of representatives from 150 multinational IT companies, along with more than 200 IT companies from Vietnam and 20 universities. There will be speeches from Gartner, KPMG, HP, LogiGear, Microsoft, Samsung. This is the chance for Vietnam IT industry to present to the world and everyone will witness the boom of the Vietnam IT industry.

Thứ Tư, 13 tháng 1, 2016

Vietnam Reduce Visa Granting Fee to Attract Investment

Vietnam visa fees have been revised to make easy for the foreigners entering Vietnam.  This is expected to increase tourists and facilitate the investment.
The Ministry of Finance has issued Circular 157 regulate the fees for granting passport, visa and papers on entry, exit, transit and residence in Vietnam.
Accordingly, from the date of November 23rd 2015, the new fees related to the entry of foreigners, overseas Vietnamese are significantly reduced.
Specifically, the visa fees for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese are reduced as follow: visa valid once fell from 45 USD to 25 USD; visa valid up to 3 months decreased from 95 USD to 50 USD, visa valid more than 3 months to 6 months and visa valid over 6 months to 1 year stays at 95 USD and 135 USD.
In addition, the fee rates for granting visa valid from 1 year to 2 years are 145 USD; visa valid over 2 years to 5 years have the rate of 155 USD.
The reduction of the visa fee rates for foreigners to Vietnam, including tourists to conform to the new regulations of the Law on entry, exit, transit and residence of foreigners in Vietnam, at the same time, encouraging tourism development.
At the same time, also for the purpose of encouraging tourism, the fee rates for visa valid several times, visa valid for no more than 3 months for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese in the conference, workshop or travel has been reduced from 95 USD to 50 USD.
In addition, for tourists traveling to Vietnam and then go to Laos, Cambodia… then return to Vietnam to exit the country in less than 30 days, the 5 USD fee level is applied instead of the current 45 USD.

Thứ Ba, 12 tháng 1, 2016

How Vietnam Telecommunications Develop in 2015

There have been changes within the Vietnam telecom industry with the restructuring of VNPT and Viettel, which made the competition becoming more intense.
The year 2014 has undergone with many changes within the telecommunications industry of Vietnam. The change in personnel and structure of the two corporations that are VNPT and Viettel made the competition becoming more intense. According to experts, the year 2015 will continue to witness a lot of breaks as well as new trends in the telecommunication industry, therefore the management agencies and enterprises must change to adapt to the actual needs.
The following are update intelligence from Vietnam corporate insights for the purpose of risk management for foreign investors interested in telecom business while expanding into Vietnam.
Telecommunications industry in 2014: Many prominent imprints
To implement the Resolution No. 01/NQ-CP of the Government dated January 2nd 2014, Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications has submitted to the Government a series of Decrees, Decision of the Prime Minister, issued many Circulars related to state management in the field of telecommunications, as well as implementing various related projects, facilitating the development of infrastructure and telecommunications services; approving a series of other important projects such as number portability; implement the systems to ensure safety and security for the national domain name servers; deployment of projects concerning data collection of telecommunication enterprises to ensure the controlling of all mobile subscribers…
In addition, 2014 was the year that telecommunication businesses leave many important marks. Although the economy is still in the recovery process, along with competition in the market, the impact of OTT… but the large telecommunication businesses like Viettel, VNPT, MobiFone still achieve high sales, maintaining the domestic market and outreaching international market.
Viettel – the goal is to become a global enterprise
End of 2014, Viettel’s revenue reached 196,650 billion VND, increased by 20% compared with 2013, profit before tax reached 40,532 billion VND and contributing to the state budget over 15,434 billion VND.
Regarding telecommunication networks, 3G network is investing to expand and improve the quality with more than 29,032 3G BTS stations (2G with 34,603 stations). The ultra-wide band fixed network has been deployed across the country. The telecommunication infrastructure can ensure to supply all telecommunication, television and information technology services to customers.
Also in 2014, Viettel has also launched services in two countries Peru and Cameroon, bringing the total number of countries that Viettel invested to 9 countries.
With these successes, Viettel has showed the determination to achieve revenue of 230,000 billion VND in 2015. Their goal in the future is to become a global enterprise. Therefore, in addition to maintain its position in the country, Viettel has to strengthen their business abroad.
As of the end of 2014, Viettel reached 57.4 million subscribers (mobile accounts for 55.5 million subscribers). Viettel’s foreign market reached 17.5 million mobile subscribers and 815 thousand of fixed subscribers.
VNPT, MobiFone – change to develop
2014 was a volatile year of VNPT when the group decided to separate Mobilefone from the system to carry out restructuring. The objective set for the board is to put VNPT back to the 1st position after being dropped into the setback phase.
VNPT’s total revenue in 2014 was 101,055 billion VND, contributing 5,850 billion VND to the state budget. Total subscribers were around 30.5 million (mobile subscribers accounted for 26 million). In addition, the total number of broadband internet subscribers reached over 3 million subscribers; total IPTV subscriber was about 1 million subscribers.
Mobifone, which was separated from VNPT, has achieved certain success. Revenue was estimated at 36,605 billion VND, profit before tax was estimated at 7,300 billion VND. State budget contribution was estimated at 3,926 billion VND.
Total active subscribers on MobiFone so far reached 40.2 million subscribers, in which in 2014 the number increased by 1 million subscribers.
MobiFone has also developed additional of 4,566 2G + 3G BTS stations, bringing the total number of BTS 2G + 3G station up to 33,939 stations (2G: 19,647 stations; 3G: 14,292 stations).
The immediate goal of MobiFone leader is still promoting the inherent strengths and successfully implementing the privatization.
Highlight trends of the telecommunications industry in 2015
With the restructuring of enterprises and the market, the competition will increase. The separation of MobiFone into independent business will create more competition, helping the market grow better and bringing more benefits to consumers.
Besides, the trend of technology convergence of telecommunication services – radio and television – information technology have also leveraged enterprises to deploy business plans, devise solutions and services to ensure the assembly convergence and services integration on one platform.
With the development of personal devices, all service applications that previously could only be implemented to agencies, businesses, organizations and households, can now be supplied to each citizen and is used anywhere. Therefore, enterprises when deploying need to mass-oriented to people, takes customer as center to provide services.
Although the telecommunications market could be considered as saturated with the monopoly of the 3 large networks mentioned above, but its development needs remain enormous. As people’s living standard is significantly improved, the demand for quality services will also increase. That’s the potential, the main development direction that Vietnam telecommunications businesses should lead to.
And with many challenges
In addition to growth opportunities, telecommunications industry also has many challenges that need to be solved as policies are insufficient and incomplete; training of human resources is limited, especially the team of skilled engineers; still heavily dependent on foreign technology… The state authorities, enterprises also need to draw from experiences in terms of mechanisms and policies to encourage youth creativity, building new business model… contributing to the overall development of the country’s telecommunications industry.

How to Enter Financial Services Market in Vietnam

Vietnam Financial Service Market
As the Vietnam economy continues to grow, financial services as well grows to keep up.  When most parts of the world were hit by global financial crisis in 2009, Vietnam was one of a few that enjoyed positive growth rate and HSBC in its Vietnam monitor issue volume 28 projected 7.2% growth in 2010.
The Vietnam financial market has been developing however still at immature stage.  The Vietnam stock market is one of the channel to raise capital for the development and it is getting more active, attracting investors from South East Astia.  There are more than one hundred securities companies founded to compete in the growing market in 2010.  Top ten companies control more than 50% of the market share in brokerage fee.  In the year 2008 and 2009, many companies have been suffering due to tough competition, poor management, bad market situation impacted by global financial crisis and lack of governance experience from Vietnam State Securities Commission.
According to World Trade Ornatization access commitments, the Vietnam securities company can be 100% owned by foreign firms by the year 2012.  The competition amongst players will be getting more fierce.  Japan is interested in acquiring Vietnam securities companies.
Financial services are typical products therefore owning some characteristics of its own kinds.  Consumer purchasing behaviour is greatly influenced by the type of financial product being purchased.  The emphasis of trust and having relationship, especially in the particular contracting contexts, are also of highly pertinent to the strategies of financial service providers (Beckett et al., 2000).  Corporate reputation dimensions associated with important variables encompassing of customer satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and word of mouth (Walsh et al., 2009) are also factors of considerations beside price, service quality, and relationships ( Bowman et al., 2000), convenience.
The study of how investors behave when it comes to decision of which securities companies to go with shall give insights into the buying behaviour of financial services in Vietnam and would add to the limited research in the area.
With rapid change and more sophisticated customers, it has become very important that financial institutions determine the factors which are pertinent to the customers’ selection process (Boyd et al., 1994) when considering entering Vietnam securities market.

Thứ Hai, 11 tháng 1, 2016

Foreign Capital Poured Strongly into Ho Chi Minh City

It has been reported the foreign direct investment (FDI) is strong up to the end of August 2015.  The trend of foreign investors relocating manufacturing site to Vietnam, build factory,and make direct investment through setting up company or business venture has been progressively realized thanks to Vietnam’s policy welcoming FDI and the uncertainties of China.
There are 249 newly registered projects in the form of 100% foreign investment capital, reaching USD 744 million; 78 joint venture projects reaching USD 1,573.6 million.
In terms of investment sector, Vietnam real estate sector topped in the capital pouring in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam with 5 projects and the capital reached USD 1,428.4 million, accounting for 61.6% of total newly registered capital, 41 industrial projects with USD 585.7 million (25.3%).  In the third place is the financial and service sector with 90 projects and USD 116 million investment capital (5%); education and training with 8 projects at USD 71.3 million investment capital (3.1%); 53 information and communication projects at 20 million USD investment capital; 17 transport and warehouse projects…
The demographic of investors are diverse.  There are 35 countries and territories having investment projects in Ho Chi Minh City. In particular, United Kingdom following the recent visit of British Prime Minister has 5 projects with investment capital of USD 1,201.4 million (accounting for 51.8% of total investment in Ho Chi Minh City); British Virgin Islands have 7 projects, at USD 306.5 million investment capital (13.2%); South Korea with 71 projects, at USD 232.8 million investment capital (10%); Singapore has 52 projects with USD 107.6 million investment capital (4.6%); Japan has 57 projects, investment capital of 29.9 million USD; Hong Kong has 13 projects, investment capital of 47.8 million USD (2.1%).