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

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

NESTLÉ SET UP THE 6TH FACTORY IN VIETNAM

set up 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.
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.

US GOVERNMENT SPONSORED 1 BILLION USD FOR VIETNAM WIND ENERGY

vietnam wind power plant
US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City has just signed a non refundable sponsorship for Cong Ly Construction, Trade and Tourism Co., Ltd an aid amount of nearly 1 billion USD to conduct a feasibility study program to develop Bac Lieu wind power plant with capacity of 300MW.
Accordingly, the research project involves conducting assessments on resources and wind energy; review of licensing issues and land controlling; grid connection and foundation design; estimating construction costs… The project has been approved by the Prime Minister and this is the first private project of Vietnam in the field of offshore wind power, which is benefit from the supporting programs of the US Government to Vietnam.
This activity is part of the implementation of commitments to comprehensive support Vietnam of the US Government. At the same time, the connection and promote cooperation between the two Governments will help organizations and enterprises of the two countries to have the opportunity to connect with many commercial activities.
According to the project investor, Bac Lieu wind power plant is implemented in 3 phases. The 1st phase has been operated since August 2013 and used 10 wind turbines which were produced by the General Electric Company, with capacity of 16MW. After 19 months of operation, it has provided about 60 million KW of electricity into the national grid. The 2nd phase of the project is being implemented and the number of wind turbines will increase by 50, which is expected to go into operation by mid 2016.
Directed to complete a project with capacity of 300MW, in the 3rd phase, the project will be extended to the sea of about 2.1 km. According to leaders of Bac Lieu province, the construction of the Bac Lieu wind power plant is included in the overall plan to solve the problem of energy, especially clean energy. Moreover, through the deployment of wind power plant project, it is showed the benefits for ecology, culture, protection of forests and fisheries resources.
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:
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

Sunday, 3 April 2016

VIETNAM EXPECTING STRONG CAPITAL WAVE FROM APPLE

apple invest in vietnam
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.
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.

Thursday, 31 March 2016

RISKS IN BUSINESS ACTIVITIES OF ENTERPRISE: THE ARISING CAUSES

Risk in vietnam
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.
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.

Tuesday, 29 March 2016

Highlights in Real Estate Investment in Vietnam

invest in real estate in vietnam
Vietnam is attracting interest of investors in both domestic and foreign market. Overall, investor confidence was returning to the Vietnam real estate market. Both buyers and sellers have enhanced activity in recent months.
The real estate market of Vietnam has overcome the recession period within 4 or 5 years ago but in the last 12 months, the market has recovered and noted positive signs as well as confidence in the market in general.
Law on housing and real estate business Law takes effect in July 2015 and has acted quickly and positively on the real estate market in Vietnam. The changes in the Law on housing have significantly eased the regulations on home ownership for foreigners, although there are still some limitations.

“Hot spots” of FDI inflows
According to a recent report of Jones Lang LaSalle Vietnam (JLL), a series of free trade agreements such as TPP, EU and ASEAN will further promote the medium and long term development. Interest rates and inflation rate have declined significantly and became more stable in the past two years, helping the investment activity to occur more positive in bothHo Chi Minh City and Hanoi. With some domestic and foreign investors such as CapitaLand and Keppel Land, they have spurred the construction activities thanks to the growing revenue in the last 12 months.
Accordingly, the amount of disbursed FDI in the period from January to September of 2015 rose by 8.4% compared to the same period last year, reaching 9.7 billion USD. This is the strongest growth since the late 1980s, contrary to the slowdown of the Chinese economy. The amount of registered capital of new investors also rose even more sharply with 11 billion USD, focused primarily on the manufacturing industry, in which the energy and electronics industries are the sectors with the highest registered capital investment in the year, followed by the real estate sector.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, FDI investment in the industrial park in Vietnam accounted for 67% of total FDI in Vietnam with 11 billion USD and accounting for 59% of the total 1,400 projects in the first 9 months of 2015. A notable transaction is the event that Amata Corporation acquired the land worth 279 million USD in Long Thanh (Dong Nai) for the purpose of building residential and industrial areas valued of 500 million USD.
According to JLL, the residential real estate prices in Vietnam maintained an average rate with 2 bedroom apartments, 70 m2, 10 – 15 minutes to reach the central area of Ho Chi Minh City, which are sold at the price of 1,600 – 2,000 USD/m2, equivalent to 112,000 – 140,000 USD/apartment. When compared with the big cities in the region, the price is believed to increase significantly.
Who dominated the real estate market of Vietnam?
JLL’s report showed that domestic investors are boosting investment activity in the real estate market of Vietnam. The largest real estate investors in Vietnam are Vingroup and Novaland Group.
Vingroup is Vietnam’s largest real estate development and management with market capitalization of about 3.4 billion USD. Vingroup’s investment portfolio includes 45 real estate projects spread across many sectors of the real estate market, including Vinhomes luxury apartments and villas; Vincom Center and Vincom Mega Mall; Vincom Office; 5 star Vinpearl resort; Vinpearl Luxury resort….
Novaland Group has participated in the real estate market in 2007 with the first project is Sunrise City with investment capital of 500 million USD located on Nguyen Huu Tho road, district 7. The real estate business of Novaland focused on the apartment complex segment from mid to high classes and the segment of house land with 25 projects that are being implemented throughout the downtown districts.
Vietnam is becoming an attractive place for foreign investment in the medium term than many other countries in Southeast Asia. Data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA) recorded that there are more attention from a number of private investment funds that are allocated foreign capital into Vietnam in an attempt to increase their market presence in Vietnam.
In the 2nd quarter of 2015, a joint venture of Warburg Pincus – a US investment fund, has invested 100 million USD into Vincom Retail, the Vietnam’s largest trade center ownership and management in Vietnam. Also in this quarter, Gaw Capital Partners has received the transfer of 4 real estate projects under various segments from Indochina Land with a total value of 106 million USD. Gamuda Land has also receive the transfer of 40% shares (equivalent to 64.1 million USD) in the Celadon City project, a modern urban area with initial investment by a joint venture between Sacomreal, Thanh Thanh Cong (TTC) and An Phu Gia.
The current real estate profit margin is high
JLL’s analysis shows that investors are now enjoying 6 – 7% profitability rate for residential real estate and 9 – 11% for commercial real estate, depending on location, completion time, quality of the project and the signing time of the tenants.
According to General Director of JLL Vietnam, real estate investment in emerging markets has always been seen as risky investments but with higher potential profits. Investors are willing to engage in joint venture projects in these markets, where they will combine with local investors who wish to have capital supporting – in order to have a foothold in the market before and also experience the exponential growth in the future when the economy of these market growing fast.
Moreover, the emerging markets such as Vietnam will have the potential growth factors, including population growth and high urbanization rate. Investors and project developers can take advantage of these factors.

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Korean Investors Interested in Vietnam Stock Market

invest in vietnam stock market
Came to Vietnam this time, the Korea Financial Investment Association included CEOs of many securities companies, fund management companies with managed capital flows of about 350 billion USD.
At the workshop named “Capital market and prospects for investment cooperation between Vietnam – Korea”, organized by Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and the Korea Financial Investment Association, many investors expressed their interest in Vietnam’s exchange traded funds (ETF), the obstacles that these funds may be encountered when listed on the Korean stock market, or the opportunities to invest in state owned enterprises (SOE) that are about to be equitized and divested.
According to the Chairman of HOSE, as of the beginning of December 2015, Vietnam financial market has 34 legal entities which are branches and offices of Korean companies that are operating, supplying a variety of services, create excitement and enhance the value added to the market.
In recent years, the authorities have taken many ways to attract foreign investors such as loosening room, promoting the equitization of SOE, launched new products, efforts to improve the market… thereby creating attractiveness and long-term potential for Vietnam stock market, which opens up attractive investment opportunities for these investors.
The workshop is expected to provide more information, introduce potential areas with different views for Korean investors.
According to the President of the Korea Financial Investment Association, annually, the Association often organizes visits to financial agencies in many different countries to learn about investment demand. This year, the delegation come to Vietnam are all the CEOs of the securities companies, fund management companies with managed capital flows of about 350 billion VND.
The reasons for choosing Vietnam of the Association to be the destination to explore investment opportunities because Vietnam is getting more attention from international investors, especially when TPP was signed and Vietnam is also member of Asean Economic Community.
In addition, the Government of Vietnam is making efforts to improve the investment environment, this is the foundation for Vietnam’s economy to develop and become an attractive destination.
Korean investors at the workshop expressed their interest in Vietnam stock market, especially investor structure, the number of listed companies, the number of fund management companies, establishing pension fund, listing the ETF Vietnam on the Korea stock market and investment opportunities to invest in SOE that are about to equitized and divested.