Risk management in Vietnam

The concept of risk is not strange to businesses in particular and those who do business in general. “Doing businesses is taking the risk” became a popular saying of the business people, whether they are owners of large or small businesses.

Although business has to face with risk every day and every hour but risk management is relatively new concept, not many businesses have understanding about it. Therefore, the risk management activities of the business are often being conducted in a half-hearted way. Not many businesses, including large enterprises, have proper risk management departments in their organizational structure. Hence, the uncertainties and crises are usually occurs, causing negative effects and sometimes become disaster for the business.

There are always potential risks in any business environment, whether that environment is developed with clear and transparency rules, or that environment is primitive environment with many confusing and complicated. If the business environment is primitive with inexperienced entrepreneurs, there will be more risks. Risk can be derived from many factors in which the subjective factors may cause risk to occur more with more severe consequences, or vice versa, enterprise can stop the risk or significantly reduce its impact. This depends on the risk management capacity of organizations and businesses.

Risk management is the process of analyzing the environment (inside, outside) to identify, analyze, evaluate, classify, ranking and implementing appropriate solutions to respond to risks to eliminate or minimize the negative impacts that may have. In many cases, risk management includes identifying opportunities within the risk, in order to exploit, take advantage of them and bring benefits to compensate for the damages caused by the risk.

Risk management is different from risk control and risk handling. Risk control is the response activities for the risks that have been identified. Risk handling is dealing with risks and crisis after it has actually occurred. Risk management is the systematic activities, maintaining at every level and assigning to a specialized department.

Properly understand the nature and importance of risk management, business will definitely not hesitate in setting up a professional risk management system. An effective risk management system helps businesses to identify risks early (which are very diverse, extensive and constantly changing), evaluate the possibility to occur and the degree of harm to have effective response measures. Unfortunately, the subjectivity is still the characteristic of many businesses in the risky business environment.

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ALIBABA FROM CHINA ACQUIRES LAZADA VIETNAM

Recently, there is a trend that foreign company comes and buy company in Vietnam, in order to expand their business operation and also set foot in Vietnam market, where is emerging as a potential market of the area.

Alibaba Group – China’s giant technology corporation has spent 1 billion USD to acquire Lazada, thereby officially set foot in the online sales market of Vietnam.

On April 12th 2016, the China’s giant technology group named Alibaba Group announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire the control of e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, which is Lazada with an amount of 1 billion USD , thereby officially set foot in Vietnam.

The transaction includes an investment of 500 million USD in Lazada’s newly issued equity and the repurchase of shares of some Lazada’s shareholders include Rocket Internet SE, Tesco Plc and Investment AB Kinnevik with a total investment value of Alibaba reach approximately 1 billion USD.

This acquisition is expected to help worldwide brands and distributors that are trading on the platform of Alibaba, as well as local vendors can reach the consumer market of Southeast Asia. In addition, Alibaba deal with a certain number of shareholders of Lazada, giving Alibaba the right to purchase and shareholders the right to sell its remaining shares in Lazada at the market prices in 12-18 months after the completion of the transaction.

Lazada is headquartered in Singapore, which was founded and operated by Rocket Internet SE from Germany. The company carries out e-commercial activities in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to Bloomberg, the deal came from the objectives set by the billionaire cum Alibaba’s chairman Jack Ma, targeting at least half of company revenue comes from markets outside of China.

Through the deal with Lazada, Alibaba generate more revenue from sale of clothing and electronics in 6 regional markets in Southeast Asia where Lazada if operating, including Vietnam.

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SAIGON CO.OP COOPERATED WITH WILMAR (JAPAN) TO BUILD SAUCE FACTORY

Nam Duong International Food Co., Ltd will implement the project with a total investment capital of 577.2 billion VND (equivalent to 25.6 million USD) to build a new factory in Hiep Phuoc Industrial Zone (Nha Be, Ho Chi Minh City).

Accordingly, Nam Duong International Food Co., Ltd is a joint venture between Saigon Co-op (a large retailer in Vietnam) and Wilmar International Limited (Singapore) with the capital contribution ratio is 49% and 51% respectively.

After the joint venture was established, the preparing procedures for the new factory will be conducted expeditiously. The factory will specialize in manufacturing sauces and spices to serve the domestic and export market.

The brand “Nam Duong” owned by Saigon Co.op, which was founded in 1951, is one of the brands in the sauces and spices industry in Vietnam, with products: soy sauce, sauce, chili and tomato sauce. These products are preferred by domestic and abroad consumers. These products are now being exported to markets such as the US, Canada and Europe.

As the leading retailer in Vietnam, Saigon Co.op understands the trend, tastes and appetites of consumers. On the other hand, Wilmar Group which has extensive experience in manufacturing and distribution of food worldwide. Through this joint venture, the Nam Duong’s sauces and spices products will meet the international production standards and safety and will be sold in a global distribution network but still preserve the traditional flavors in each product.

The main objective in the development strategy of Wilmar is aimed at building and developing closed business models with diverse agricultural commodities, proactive from input raw materials to produce and distribute finished products. Currently, the Group has more than 500 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Indonesia, Vietnam and 50 other countries worldwide. The Group develops based on multinational human resources base with 92,000 employees.

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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 RETAILING 2015: FIERCE COMPETITION

It is easy to see that 2015 was a very active year of Vietnam’s retail market, especially in merger and acquisition (M&A), association and joint venture activities… both in manufacturing and trading of retail businesses such as Kinh Do, Citimart, Metro and Nguyen Kim.

According to Euromonitor International – a market research firm, the retail sales in Asia – Pacific was about 4,000 billion USD in 2012 then the top 500 leading retailers accounted for 1,000 billion USD, representing for 24% of total sales. Vietnam retail market is considered attractive and high potential despite the world economy remains difficult.

In 2014, most of the domestic businesses tend to cluster and maintaining position, except some large enterprises like Co.opmart and Saigon Trading Corp (Satra). Even a few enterprises withdrew locations like Fivimart withdrew all locations in the South or Intimex, Hapro also withdrew some locations in the North. This was intended to reinforce the quality of the business and rebranding. Excepting for Satra and Co.opmart still have more new locations this year. Currently, Saigon Co.opmart has presented on 71 locations including 29 supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and expanded to 42 nationwide supermarkets, along with around 100 Co-op Food convenience stores.

According to the experts, the retail market of Vietnam is shifting from the model of mature market to postmodern market. The market is gradually concentrated and the number of companies decreased. Some large retailers failed, saturated real estate market. The model of hype supercenters dominates the retail industry in the postmodern period. At the end of the growth period will be an important change in the retail market for both retailers and suppliers.

Retailers seek future growth because there is no retail channel dominates the growth. Part of the development of hypermarkets in the mature phase will focus on the discount channel. According to the trend, the discount channel continues to grow in the postmodern period. Currently and in the coming time, retailers will frequently launch discount programs and deals to attract customers.

The factors that impact the global distribution market are the speed of technological change, change in demographics, buying behavior requires lasting communication connection and knowledge-based purchases. Therefore, retailers must take care of customers regularly with the best service.

As for foreign companies, except Walmart corporation (USA) is in the exploratory stage, most of the major corporations in the world have joined the Vietnam retail market such as Lotte, Big C, Metro, Parkson , Aeon… Foreign enterprises are entering Vietnam market by many different ways: joint venture, association, cooperative transfer location.

Read More

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Assistance in Setting up Business in Vietnam

M&A Services in Vietnam

Vietnam retail market is very potential. Currently, Vietnam has more than 90 million people, in which the young population accounts for more than half. The average GDP of this country is approximately 2,000 USD / person. In the future, this figure will increase and that will be a prerequisite for the development of Vietnam retail industry, especially modern retail. According to statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the market share of modern retail in Vietnam makes up only 25% of total retail sales. The whole country has about 724 supermarkets and 132 shopping centers. Moreover, the number of truly convenience store, which is branded and operated in store chain, is just hundreds stores. Most supermarkets and shopping centers concentrated in major cities and urban areas. In rural areas and suburbs, they are virtually absent from the retail system, they are major distribute in installments. Therefore, the market share of modern retail market of Vietnam is still quite a lot.

However, this market will have fierce competition between domestic and foreign enterprises. Foreign investors are not only penetrating into Vietnam by the ways of joint ventures in the distribution chain right from production process. For example, C.P Company, which is belong to C.P Group (Thailand) is accounting for 50% market share of eggs, 30% market share of chicken, 7% market share of animal feed in Vietnam. Hence, foreign companies are holding a supply chain from production to distribution. Besides, foreign companies are mostly big enterprises that have advantages in capital and experiences. They have good strategies and that will be the biggest challenges for domestic businesses on the path to affirm its position.

2015 and the coming years, Vietnam retail market will continue to be active and witnessing fierce competition among enterprises, particularly between foreign and domestic firms. We will continue to witness the landing of foreign enterprises in Vietnam market such as: Aeon Japan with the Aeon Mall Him Lam project in Sai Dong, Long Bien; the Lotte Group plans to open 60 locations (now have 9 locations). The domestic businesses are making plans to expand the distribution points not only in the city center but also the suburban areas such as Citimart has extended an additional 70 locations with scale from 1,000 to 2,000 m2 / location in the coming time…

2015 is also a year full of opportunities and challenges for the retail sector of Vietnam. From the date of November 1st 2015, Vietnam allows the establishment of 100% foreign investment capital retail companies under Vietnam’s commitments upon WTO accession. Besides, 2015 is year that ASEAN economic community (AEC) has officially been established, which allows the flows of resources, goods and human capital… to be freely moving in the area. Moreover, the TPP agreement with 12 participating countries that was signed in 2015. With this agreement, more than 10,000 kinds of goods from the member countries will be completely tariff eliminated. This will cause many difficulties and disadvantages for domestic goods but it is also the motivation for the production and distribution, enhance the competitiveness of enterprises in Vietnam.

According to the survey, the majority of retail brands that selected Vietnam in 2015 on par with Hong Kong, Singapore, even higher than Indonesia and Malaysia. Three big cities that are Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang belong to the top 10 of the most vibrant retail markets in Asia – Pacific region due to its large and young population, after-tax income growth rapidly, quality retail networks that can attract multinational enterprises.

Vietnam currently has about 8,546 markets, 1 million small shops, 724 supermarkets, 132 trade centers and more than 400 convenience stores. Currently, the rural market with nearly 70% of the population but almost completely overlooked. As planned by 2020, Vietnam would grow up to 1,200 – 1,300 supermarket, 180 trade centers and 157 shopping centers. This suggests that the Vietnam retail market is very attractive for manufacturers, businesses and retailers to penetrate.

Read More

VIETNAM RETAILING 2015: FIERCE COMPETITION

It is easy to see that 2015 was a very active year of Vietnam’s retail market, especially in merger and acquisition (M&A), association and joint venture activities… both in manufacturing and trading of retail businesses such as Kinh Do, Citimart, Metro and Nguyen Kim.

According to Euromonitor International – a market research firm, the retail sales in Asia – Pacific was about 4,000 billion USD in 2012 then the top 500 leading retailers accounted for 1,000 billion USD, representing for 24% of total sales. Vietnam retail market is considered attractive and high potential despite the world economy remains difficult.

In 2014, most of the domestic businesses tend to cluster and maintaining position, except some large enterprises like Co.opmart and Saigon Trading Corp (Satra). Even a few enterprises withdrew locations like Fivimart withdrew all locations in the South or Intimex, Hapro also withdrew some locations in the North. This was intended to reinforce the quality of the business and rebranding. Excepting for Satra and Co.opmart still have more new locations this year. Currently, Saigon Co.opmart has presented on 71 locations including 29 supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and expanded to 42 nationwide supermarkets, along with around 100 Co-op Food convenience stores.

According to the experts, the retail market of Vietnam is shifting from the model of mature market to postmodern market. The market is gradually concentrated and the number of companies decreased. Some large retailers failed, saturated real estate market. The model of hype supercenters dominates the retail industry in the postmodern period. At the end of the growth period will be an important change in the retail market for both retailers and suppliers.

Retailers seek future growth because there is no retail channel dominates the growth. Part of the development of hypermarkets in the mature phase will focus on the discount channel. According to the trend, the discount channel continues to grow in the postmodern period. Currently and in the coming time, retailers will frequently launch discount programs and deals to attract customers.

The factors that impact the global distribution market are the speed of technological change, change in demographics, buying behavior requires lasting communication connection and knowledge-based purchases. Therefore, retailers must take care of customers regularly with the best service.

As for foreign companies, except Walmart corporation (USA) is in the exploratory stage, most of the major corporations in the world have joined the Vietnam retail market such as Lotte, Big C, Metro, Parkson , Aeon… Foreign enterprises are entering Vietnam market by many different ways: joint venture, association, cooperative transfer location.

Read More

Benefits of Setting up Business in Hanoi

Benefits of Setting up Business in Da Nang

Benefits of Setting up Business in Ho Chi Minh City

Assistance in Setting up Business in Vietnam

M&A Services in Vietnam

Vietnam retail market is very potential. Currently, Vietnam has more than 90 million people, in which the young population accounts for more than half. The average GDP of this country is approximately 2,000 USD / person. In the future, this figure will increase and that will be a prerequisite for the development of Vietnam retail industry, especially modern retail. According to statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the market share of modern retail in Vietnam makes up only 25% of total retail sales. The whole country has about 724 supermarkets and 132 shopping centers. Moreover, the number of truly convenience store, which is branded and operated in store chain, is just hundreds stores. Most supermarkets and shopping centers concentrated in major cities and urban areas. In rural areas and suburbs, they are virtually absent from the retail system, they are major distribute in installments. Therefore, the market share of modern retail market of Vietnam is still quite a lot.

However, this market will have fierce competition between domestic and foreign enterprises. Foreign investors are not only penetrating into Vietnam by the ways of joint ventures in the distribution chain right from production process. For example, C.P Company, which is belong to C.P Group (Thailand) is accounting for 50% market share of eggs, 30% market share of chicken, 7% market share of animal feed in Vietnam. Hence, foreign companies are holding a supply chain from production to distribution. Besides, foreign companies are mostly big enterprises that have advantages in capital and experiences. They have good strategies and that will be the biggest challenges for domestic businesses on the path to affirm its position.

2015 and the coming years, Vietnam retail market will continue to be active and witnessing fierce competition among enterprises, particularly between foreign and domestic firms. We will continue to witness the landing of foreign enterprises in Vietnam market such as: Aeon Japan with the Aeon Mall Him Lam project in Sai Dong, Long Bien; the Lotte Group plans to open 60 locations (now have 9 locations). The domestic businesses are making plans to expand the distribution points not only in the city center but also the suburban areas such as Citimart has extended an additional 70 locations with scale from 1,000 to 2,000 m2 / location in the coming time…

2015 is also a year full of opportunities and challenges for the retail sector of Vietnam. From the date of November 1st 2015, Vietnam allows the establishment of 100% foreign investment capital retail companies under Vietnam’s commitments upon WTO accession. Besides, 2015 is year that ASEAN economic community (AEC) has officially been established, which allows the flows of resources, goods and human capital… to be freely moving in the area. Moreover, the TPP agreement with 12 participating countries that was signed in 2015. With this agreement, more than 10,000 kinds of goods from the member countries will be completely tariff eliminated. This will cause many difficulties and disadvantages for domestic goods but it is also the motivation for the production and distribution, enhance the competitiveness of enterprises in Vietnam.

According to the survey, the majority of retail brands that selected Vietnam in 2015 on par with Hong Kong, Singapore, even higher than Indonesia and Malaysia. Three big cities that are Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang belong to the top 10 of the most vibrant retail markets in Asia – Pacific region due to its large and young population, after-tax income growth rapidly, quality retail networks that can attract multinational enterprises.

Vietnam currently has about 8,546 markets, 1 million small shops, 724 supermarkets, 132 trade centers and more than 400 convenience stores. Currently, the rural market with nearly 70% of the population but almost completely overlooked. As planned by 2020, Vietnam would grow up to 1,200 – 1,300 supermarket, 180 trade centers and 157 shopping centers. This suggests that the Vietnam retail market is very attractive for manufacturers, businesses and retailers to penetrate.

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FOREIGN EXPERTS FELT “BREATHE EASY” WHEN LIVING IN VIETNAM

Vietnam ranked 21st in the economic ranking, but ranked 5th when talking about the saving ability of foreign experts.

According to the survey from HSBC. Most of foreign experts believe that Vietnam had a more comfortable life with less spending on housing costs (62%), travel (73%), clothing (68%), goods and necessities (62%), essential services like electricity, water, telephone (70%) and bills (77%).

Thus, experts are likely to save more (68%) while living in Vietnam.

More than half of the foreign experts (62%) said that in Vietnam they can afford to hire a maid and nanny, something that they cannot afford while living at home country, and can enjoy the luxury vacation (52%), compared with only 28% and 36% of global experts.

The survey from HSBC also showed that Vietnam ranked 22nd in the ranking on experience, but 2nd in the ability to make friends. More than half of the foreign experts (56%) find that they integrate quickly into life and culture of Vietnam, and the majority of foreign experts find it easy to make new friends in Vietnam (68%).

Stabilize the life in Vietnam is relatively easy, with 36% of the experts feel like home once or within six months after moving to Vietnam. Most of foreign experts also enjoy integrated into in Vietnam (61%), enjoy and cook Vietnamese foods (78%).

Vietnam ranked 31st in the ranking about family. Almost half of the foreign experts (43%) said that the cost of child care in Vietnam is less expensive than at home country, and most of foreign experts (74%) send their children to the international School.

Vietnam is developing very fast and owns a dynamic business environment. This is an attractive destination for entrepreneurs seeking start-up opportunity and new business projects.

As an emerging market, Vietnam brings foreign experts many challenges and chances to develop career. With significant attractions in terms of tourism, culture and people, Vietnam also brings foreign experts wonderful experiences along with ease of integration and stabilizes the life in Vietnam.

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