What do US investors want in Vietnam?

The event, themed “My Vietnam - Your investment destination” took place in New York City from July 1- 5 with the purpose of strengthening US investors’ confidence in development potential of the Vietnam market.

The event hosted by the State Securities Commission (SCC) and the Vietnam Ministry of Finance in collaboration with US partners was designed to create a substantive dialogue channel helping US businesses and investors better understand the situation in Vietnam and the Government’s renewal policies toward building a comprehensive and extensive partnership in the financial sector for the benefit of both countries.

Those in attendance included Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung, the head of Vietnam’s Permanent Representative Delegation to the UN, Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga, Marc Mealy, Vice President for Policy of the US-ASEAN Business Council, the Harbinger Foundation President, along with 150 Vietnamese businesses and over 160 US business representatives.

- Which fields of investment in Vietnam are interested in by US investors, especially billionaires?

Pham Viet Muon: There are four areas of the most interest, including: equitization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the stock market, government bonds and business establishment.

Indeed, foreign investors in general and US investors in particular have not participated much in the process of restructuring SOEs through equitization because the process of equitization has mainly occurred at SOEs of small and medium size, while US investors are interested in large ones.

- Vietnam’s capital market has great potential for US investors. Do they have an interest in this market, for example the stock market?

Pham Viet Muon: It is true that they are interested in Vietnam's stock market due to stable economic growth and the prospects for Vietnam’s high growth rate of 7%/year, especially the change of the government’s policy in allowing foreign investors to own 100% of domestic enterprises, except for those operating with certain conditions.

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- Some US billionaires participated in the investment promotion conference. Could you tell us about their biggest interests?

Pham Viet Muon: Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung talked with a number of US billionaires, who told the Minister about their concerns, such as their position when they invest in SOEs. Minister Dinh Tien Dung answered all of their questions. They promised to invest in Vietnam soon.

US investors also met with Vietnamese officials and representatives of big Vietnamese corporations as the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), the Vietnam Coal - Minerals Corporation ( Vinacomin), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), and stock exchanges.

- Previously, many American corporations came to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities, but there are few US investors in Vietnam. How can you explain this fact?

Pham Viet Muon: The reasons did not come from us. Firstly, the time for investment was immature. Secondly, large projects did not appear at the beginning when we just opened the door to attract foreign investment. That was not attractive to American investors, including many large investors and the world's billionaires.

The current situation is different. We are equitizing large SOEs and this is the time for the US investors.

Moreover, the areas we are calling for foreign investments are broad, including power, petroleum, coal, aviation ...

- A group of US investors is visiting Vietnam in the coming time. Is this one of the signs for a wave of US investment in Vietnam?

Pham Viet Muon: Currently, US investment in Vietnam is quite large, but compared with that from Japan, South Korea, and Singapore it remains low. The reason is US investors still expect the business environment in Vietnam to improve dramatically.

But we have a foundation for hope of a wave of US investment in Vietnam because we have signed the Vietnam - US Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is also in the process of negotiations, and once it is signed, it will boost trade between Vietnam and countries.

This is a great opportunity for Vietnam's economy as well as investors interested in Vietnam. Vietnam has also issued many open policies to attract foreign investors, for example the issuance of Decree 60/2015.

The recent event in the US is one of the actions to promote and concretize the agreements that Vietnam and the US have achieved.

PLTPHCM

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VIETNAM AND EUROPEAN UNION WILL ELIMINATE OVER 99% IMPORT TARIFFS ON EACH OTHER

At a press conference on October 30th in Vietnam informed of important agreements between Vietnam and European Union (EU), Mr. Bruno Angelet – Ambassador, Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) said that early August 2015, the EU and Vietnam has announced the conclusion of negotiations but the negotiation group continues to resolve the remaining technical issues, while improving documents.

Once completed, the Agreement must be approved by the National Assembly of Vietnam, the Council and the European Parliament. Accordingly, Vietnam and the EU will eliminate over 99% of import tariffs.

For the few remaining tariffs, both parties will grant each other tariff quota or tariff reduction. This can be seen as the highest level of commitment that Vietnam has achieved in the FTA has been signed so far.

In the investment sector, the commitments to ensure an open business and investment environment to help promote high quality investment flows of both the EU and other partners in Vietnam. Thus, Vietnam has the opportunity to become the connection for trade and investment activities between EU and other countries in the region.

In addition, the commitments related to investment, liberalization of trade, service, Government procurement and intellectual property protection… will also open up opportunities for both sides to approach each other’s markets and ensure balance overall benefit.

EU can become the best partner in the future of Vietnam because Vietnam is also becoming one of the most dynamic countries and have good relationship with EU in the region. EU can support Vietnam in many fields such as governance models and provide excellent services in the field of infrastructure, training and education, the judiciary and law, health, social insurance and sustainable energy.

ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing intelligence, information, management or support and administrative services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:

• Market Entry
• Tax Advice
• Legal Advice
• Outsourcing Services

We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.

We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

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HOW VIETNAM REAL ESTATE SECTOR PERFORMED IN 2015?

The the real estate industry in 2015 have beee influenced by foreign investors and easier access to credit source.

With the credit easing policies, foreigners are allowed to buy houses in Vietnam and the infrastructure development has been the driving force for the recovery of the real estate market in 2015. The real estate industry outlook in 2015 will come from foreign investors and the easier access to credit source. Then, the B and C class apartment segment with prices ranging from 50,000 USD/apartments with full infrastructure, near the metro will attract attention in 2015.

Credit easing policy and interest rates on deposits and loans are at their lowest in 3 years; therefore, this is a good time to invest. Moreover, changes in Circular 36 will help reducing the risk factors for real estate loans, thereby creating more room for credit loan and lending rates are at their lowest in 3 years will encourage real estate businesses continue to develop projects to serve the increasing demand. It is expected that low interest rates will make the cash flow moving into other investment channels such as real estate.

Foreigners now can own houses are also the catalyst for the real estate market in 2015. Currently with nearly 80,000 foreigners are working in Vietnam, the home owning is expected to be a catalyst for the real estate market to become more active in 2015.

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In addition, the lending conditions for the 30,000 billion VND lending package will be simplified, thereby helping to speed up the disbursement of this package in 2015.

The year 2015 witnesses the return of speculators, private investors in the real estate market. Mainly the apartments in segment A and B are their targets when the price of those segment decreased by 20 -25% compared with the peak of the market.

Besides, the development of infrastructure is also the motivation for the growth of the real estate market. With the expectation that in 2015 the Government will maintain the spending of over 3 billion USD for infrastructure, construction and expansion of roads, railways, power grids…, that will actively support the development of real estate market. The most obvious evidence is the construction of Metro no.1 in 2014 has attracted more real estate projects on the path of the Metro line.

Some notably infrastructure projects in 2015:

+ Complete Nhat Tan Bridge: The Ring Road 2 connect with the Nhat Tan Bridge will help reducing the travel time around Hanoi as well as connecting to Noi Bai International Airport. This will be a positive landmark for real estate projects in the  northwest corridor of the capital.

+ Complete the Hanoi – Hai Phong highway: The 106 km long highway linking Hanoi and Hai Phong – the largest port city in Northern of Vietnam will help real estate projects in Long Bien and Gia Lam becomes more vibrant.

+ Complete the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) – Dau Giay highway and continue building the Ring Road 2 in HCMC will help the real estate projects in the Eastern of the city (District 2, 9, Thu Duc) becomes more attractive.

+ Construction of Ben Luc – Long Thanh highway: This is a part of Ring Road 3 that will connect Long An to Long Thanh International Airport in the future without having to go through the central districts of HCMC. The project is expected to help improving the real estate market in the Southern of HCMC.

ANT Consulting is here to assist you from the outset; providing corporate intelligence, risk advisory, management consulting services that assist market entrance, and ensure efficient business start-up operation.  Our services are as following:

• Market Entry
• Tax Advice
• Legal Advice
• Outsourcing Services

We strive to save your cost by guiding you towards economical solutions that comply with local legislation and procedures. We support you through early logistic solutions and carry you through as your business grows.  We aim to bridge the gap between international best practices and local cultures and assist foreign companies and organizations entering Vietnam market to overcome commercial and regulatory issues.

We could be reached at email: ant@antconsult.vn or tel: +848 3520 2779 .  To learn more about us, please visit www.antconsult.vn

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NESTLÉ SET UP THE 6TH FACTORY IN VIETNAM

This is the 6th plant of Nestlé in Vietnam and the 2nd factory located in Hung Yen. The project has investment capital of 70 million USD, which is expected to come into operation in 2017.

Nestlé Vietnam Company has just started construction of a new factory in Thang Long II Industrial Park in Hung Yen. As reported by the company, the new plant with capital investment of 70 million USD was built on an area of 10 hectares and expected to go into operation in 2017, creating jobs for hundreds of local workers.

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In 3 years, Nestlé has continually set up new plants and expand existing plants. The investment activities are continued to expand expressed the firm belief in the rapid development of Vietnam’s economy. At the same time, assessing that Vietnam is having many advantages in attracting investment with a young and dynamic population, growing consumer markets and favorable business environment.

Nestlé Group specializes in manufacturing and supplying nutrition and health products. Founded in 1866 and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, till now, the group has developed 447 plants in 86 countries with 339,000 employees, owns more than 2,000 brands with 10,000 products.

Estimating that every day, there are about 1 billion of Nestlé products are sold worldwide. Nestlé operates in Southeast Asia since the early years of the last century, the first sales offices located in Saigon in 1912. In 1995, Nestlé Vietnam was born. So far the total investment capital of Nestlé in Vietnam reached over 520 million USD, employs approximately 2,000 employees and operates 5 plants.

Earlier, in 1992, Nestlé joint ventured with Long An Trading Company to founded La Vie Co., Ltd. In 2001, the company continues to build La Vie mineral water plant in Nhu Quynh town, Van Lam district, Hung Yen with registered capital of more than 10.3 million USD.

As noted by the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Nestlé Vietnam is one of the 100% foreign investments that have invested very soon in Vietnam. Since going into operation so far, the company has maintained a fairly annual growth rate, especially in 2015, the growth rate of the company reached approximately 15%.

According to the Swiss Ambassador in Vietnam, Switzerland is in the list of 20 largest investors in the world. In Vietnam, investment projects of Swiss firms are growing significantly. The Swiss company has been operating in Vietnam for many years, contributing more than 2 billion USD of investment capital in Vietnam, bringing the Swiss became the 4th largest investor in Vietnam, surpassing Germany.

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VIETNAM EXPECTING STRONG CAPITAL WAVE FROM APPLE

Leaders of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Binh Duong and Bac Ninh will create the most favorable conditions to invite and welcome Apple projects to be invested in Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City

Apple has proposed to build a database center serving Asia in Vietnam. The project has a total investment of approximately 1 billion USD. Presently, Apple is looking for place to put on the project construction headquarter.

According to Mr Nguyen Van Hung from HCMC’s Department of Planning and Investment, the leaders of the City have surveyed and contacted with Apple in the United States. The City always ready to welcome the high-tech projects.

Moreover, according to Mr Le Hoai Quoc from HCMC hi tech park, their management board has also actively contact with representatives of Apple in the previous year. The general view of the city as well as the management board is looking forward and welcoming the projects with high technological content. Therefore, the city has been very interested and willing to introduce to the Apple representatives about the preferred location for their investment projects. However, it seems they have chosen Hanoi.

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Binh Duong

Similarly, in Binh Duong, Binh Duong People’s Committee also said that they are looking forward to welcome Apple’s projects to Binh Duong.

If their choice is Binh Duong, Apple will enjoy all the best preferential policies according to the criteria of high technology sector.

Binh Duong has favorable conditions, clear mechanisms and policies to attract investment with the most beautiful and modern infrastructure in the country.

In terms of location, Binh Duong is the HCMC’s gateway center. It is just 30 minutes driving from Tan Son Nhat airport to Binh Duong. All the conditions are not inferior to Bac Ninh and Bac Giang.

Binh Duong is the place that gathering most of the supporting technology manufacturing enterprises from Japan and South Korea. Hence, if Apple headquarter is located here, this province certainly can meet part of their business requirements. Binh Duong seems to be the only one area in Vietnam that develops high technology.

Bac Ninh

Bac Ninh is the province that is attracting a lot of high-tech projects, including Samsung as one of Apple’s major competitor.

This seems to be opportunities for both investors to compete with each other because everything is equal.

In addition to the general incentives policy of the Government, Bac Ninh is ready to offer their own incentive policies. In any case that the supporting was not enough, Bac Ninh will looking for further support.

In terms of the incentives policies for high-tech enterprises, Bac Ninh is currently leading the country, other provinces still have to learn from Bac Ninh to develop their policies. Moreover, Samsung and Nokia are still located in Bac Ninh therefore Apple will feel satisfy.

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RISKS IN BUSINESS ACTIVITIES OF ENTERPRISE: THE ARISING CAUSES

Risk is something that nobody expected but we have to accept to live together with it. Identifying risks and creating solutions to prevent it and also minimize losses when it happens are what businesses should do. That is positive solution instead of accepting risks.

So what “risk” is? There are many definitions of risk, in which there are two main points. First, risks are unexpected events. Second, when risk occurs, it causes losses to people and society. The business operations of enterprises are very diverse. In theory, such operations are always come with risk. Instead of statistic the risks (very difficult), we should approach the issue from the step of identification the causes of risk. It will help businesses to have better prevention against the risk. Here are some common causes of risks that businesses often encounter.

There are 8 main causes of risk. First, that is the natural environment, such as storm, flood, drought, earthquake, volcano, tsunami, sea level rising and the earth “hot” up… These risks often have some common characteristics: the ability to forecast and predict is low, happen suddenly, cause damages on a massive scale, not just for one region, one industry, one community but for the whole economy, a number of countries or the whole world. The prediction and forecast of these natural disasters are difficult but they active as a rule. Hence, enterprises can proactively prevent or choose appropriate solutions.

The second risk is the risks from social environment, social structure and population. That is the change of value, standard, human behavior, the scale of values in society and the social characteristics… They are source of risk for commercial operations and investment activities of enterprises. However, a society that encourages nurturing the creative values and the inspiration investment would certainly the good protective shield for businesses.

Thirdly, there are risks come from the environment where the cultural background is low… A society where there is low literacy, lack of cultural norms, morality is not enhanced then how well the law will be enforce? Once the laws are not enforced effectively, a thousand risks may occur. There will be a stunning political rights, the rising of kinds of crimes such as theft, looting, rioting, economic fraud underground, reneged contract, counterfeiting, piracy, inciting religion, ethnicity and hatred… As a result, the kind of snatching, fraud and deceptive business will dominate.

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Fourth are the risks from political environment, where lack of institutions to protect the freedom, democracy, property rights of people in general and businesses in particular. Political environment includes the stability in politics, security and safety for enterprises and people. A country that usually has national policy changes, coups, wars, riots, ethnic and religious conflicts, intervention in markets that lack of standards, policies were dominated by the interest groups, discrimination, corruption… are causing serious risks to businesses, causing them to lack of business confidence, lose investment momentum and can harm the economy and society.

Fifth are the risks come from economic environment. A strong economy is an economy that has high resistance with the ability to resolve the crisis in the best way in the direction of transparency, low cost, high sustainability. An economic environment where there are often crisis, inflation, erratic pricing, instable supply and demand, exchange rate changes frequently, shortage of goods and services, uncontrollable monopoly, fair competition is only on paper… along with the lack of technocratic skills shall be considered to be major risks for enterprises. Furthermore, on the other hand, the challenges come from an economy with high competitiveness, the drastic changes of technical science and information technology would also be the risk for enterprises that lack of the ability to adapt to changes.

Sixth are the risks that resulting from the regulatory environment that lack of transparency in three fields of legislative, executive and judicial. This is also the danger of healthy businesses. A system of legal documents should be issued with the effective participation of the business community, according to the criteria of sustainable, friendly, fair and easy to apply. An effective law enforcement system should be operated under the motto support, promote and facilitate business. A system of reliable justice, respect for justice and ensuring effective law enforcement with a society that respect for ethic and law would be an ideal environment to encourage investment and development of business. Conversely, a business environment where the law is inconsistent, contradictory, overlapping, change suddenly and shady, law enforcement lacks transparency, openness and efficiency, the application of the law lacks fairness, property ownership right and the right to protect the contract are not only abused but also the cost is too high… are sources of risk, causing severe damage to the business.

Seventh is the risk coming from business partners. They can be investors, joint ventures, cooperation or customers of the business. Have you ever questioning that where do they come from and are they reliable in terms of skills, experience, financial strength, legal and corporate governance. When establishing a relationship in business, both parties should understand and trust each other before coming to the steps of negotiating, signing and implementing contracts. Regarding business contract, it should be made very carefully because each paragraph stalking the risks that businesses need to take into consideration such as terms, payment, tax, limitation of liability, termination of the contract ahead of time and contract dispute resolution…Hence, the contract should be made carefully by a professional unit.

Eighth is the risk coming from the enterprise itself such as business attitudes towards risk, mistakes in business strategy and enterprise management, the weakness of the managers and employees, lack of ethics and business culture, lack of motivation, lack of internal unity…The most important thing is to regularly inspect and test the control systems of corporate is effective or not. Corporate governance is the whole system of rules and regulations. Good corporate governance will help the strategic decisions of the enterprise to be issued in the most enlightened and effective way, along with the best elimination of risk. Good corporate governance ensures utilizing all resources of business.

Before conducting business operations, businesses have to conduct risk analysis from at least 8 reasons above, then who dares to ensure that doing business is easy.

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