On May 15, 2018, the Government issued Decree No.74/2018/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No.132/2008/ND-CP dated December 31, 2008 detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Product and Goods Quality. The Decree took effect since July 1, 2018.
Accordingly, Decree No.74/2018/ND-CP stipulates the principle for identification of products and goods likely to cause unsafety as follows:
– Possibility of causing unsafety of the product or goods;
– Requirements and ability to manage the state in each period.
– The chemical, physical and biological nature;
– Structure and principles of operation;
– The process of transportation, storage, preservation and use.
With detailed and specific regulations, Decree No.74/2018/ND-CP is expected to guide and instruct ministries, departments and agencies to institutionalize regulations on identification of products and goods likely to cause unsafety in the scope of management, thereby setting up a set of national technical regulations to manage these products.
On May 15, 2018, the People’s Committee of Hanoi issued Decision No.12/2018/QD-UBND amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Regulation detailing a number of issues on the granting construction permits in Hanoi issued in conjunction with the Decision No.20/2016/QD-UBND dated June 24, 2016. The Decision took effect since May 25, 2018.
Accordingly, Decision No.12/2018/QD-UBND stipulates the principle of granting construction permits as follows:
– Changing the structural plan in the design dossier already evaluated by the specialized construction agency in comparison with the architectural plan;
– Changing total floor area of construction due to technical errors, no change in construction density, no change in the main size of works and architectural solution works.
Therefore, Decision No.12/2018/QD-UBND is expected to increase the responsibility of state agencies in granting construction permits, ensuring the project is implemented in accordance with the decentralization and the legal regulations, avoiding reporting beyond the level.
On May 16, 2018, the Government issued Decree No.77/2018/ND-CP regulating the support for small irrigation, field irrigation and advanced irrigation development, water savings. The Decree took effect since July 1, 2018.
Accordingly, Decree No.77/2018/ND-CP specifies the forms of support as follows:
– Organizations and individuals investing and constructing of water storage facilities shall be exempt from land rent fee when the State leases land for construction of works;
– The local irrigation organization investing and constructing of water storage facilities shall be entitled to support up to 100% of the design cost and construction machine expenses.
– To support up to 50% of the cost of materials, construction machines and equipment for investment and construction of advanced irrigation systems, water savings for shallow plants, the support level shall not more than 40 million Vietnamdong/ha;
– To support up to 50% of expenses for field leveling, the support level shall not more than 10 million VND/ha.
– To support for investment and construction of sewer, solid canal: Support up to 70%, particularly in the midland, mountainous areas, the Central Highlands shall support up to 90% of the total investment and construction of works;
– To support for investment and construction of electric pump stations in the Mekong River Delta: Support up to 40% of the purchase value of construction machinery and equipment.
– Excluding the cost of site clearance.
With the detailed and specific regulations, Decree No.77/2018/ND-CP has the appropriate support mechanism for farmers to implement small irrigation, irrigation field, showing the concern of the State for the development of agriculture and farmer life.
On April 18, 2018, the Government issued Decree No.58/2018/ND-CP on agricultural insurance. The Decree took effect since June 5, 2018.
Accordingly, Decree No.58/2018/ND-CP regulates the type of risk supported by agricultural insurance and the level of support as follows:
1. The type of risk supported by insurance includes:
– Natural disaster: natural disaster must be announced or certified by competent state agencies;
– Disease: Animal disease or plant pests. The disease must be announced or certified by competent state agencies.
2. Level of agricultural insurance support
– Individuals engaged in agricultural production belong to poor or near poor households: To support up to 90% of agricultural insurance premiums.
– Individuals engaged in agricultural production not being poor or near poor households: To support up to 20% of agricultural insurance premiums.
– Organizations engaged in agricultural production in the model of cooperation, integration, large-scale production and application of advanced science and technology to production towards clean agriculture, high technology, friendly environment: To support up to 20% of agricultural insurance premiums.
With detailed and specific regulations, it can be seen that Decree No.58/2018/ND-CP aims to ensure the benefits and welfare of people working in the agricultural sector, thereby stabilizing the person life and promoting the sustainable development of agriculture.
On May 14, 2018, the Government issued Decree No.67/2018/ND-CP detailing some articles of the Law on Irrigation. The Decree took effect since June 22, 2018.
Accordingly, Decree No.67/2018/ND-CP stipulates types of permits for activities within the irrigation works’ protection area, including:
Therefore, Decree No.67/2018/ND-CP stipulated some new types of permits in comparison with previous documents, raising the capacity requirements of organizations and individuals who participated in activities within the irrigation works’ protection area, thus protecting water sources and aquatic resources.
At a conference in Hanoi, on May 15, on the Vietnamese economy’s outlook for 2018 and to 2020, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung highlighted the good socio-economic performance in the first months of 2018, especially the GDP growth of 7.38%, the highest rise in a first quarter in 10 years. The macro-economy was kept stable, and inflation was under control.
The average consumer price index (CPI) in the first four months of 2018 rose 2.8%. The monetary market and the banking system remained stable with the system’s liquidity ensured, he said.
The Minister added that disbursement of foreign direct investment was estimated at US$5.1 billion, up 6.3%. The number of newly-established enterprises was over 41,200, with combined capital of approximately VND 412 trillion.
Total import-export revenue in the period was estimated to hit US$73.76 billion, a rise of 19% annually, with a trade surplus of roughly US$3.39 billion.
President of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIE) Nguyen Mai held that foreign investment (FDI) has played an important role in the Vietnamese economy. Last year, the FDI disbursement reached a record figure of US$17.5 billion. He predicted that FDI disbursement this year may hit US$19 billion.
Meanwhile, Warrick Cleine, President and General Director of KPMG Vietnam asserted that foreign investors are becoming more confident in the Vietnamese economy. A number of forecasts by international organisations put the country’s average GDP growth in the 2018-2020 at around 6.85% and even 7% in some years.
However, Minister Dung said the Vietnamese Government has been highly aware of the possible impacts by the economy’s internal problems and outside influence.
The country aims for fast and sustainable economic growth on the basis of making full use of humankind’s science-technology advances, especially from the 4.0 industrial revolution, towards the goal of a modern industrialised country with an advanced market economy.
Minister Dung also highlighted the need for the joint efforts of all sectors at every level, as well as all economic players, in maintaining the growth trend not only in 2018 but also in the following years.
Source: nhandanonline
Vietnam is drafting a bill for the operation of three special economic zones that includes land rental and tariff exemptions for investors, but some members of the country’s legislative National Assembly think the bill is unnecessary.
Legislator Le Thanh Van said at a Wednesday meeting in Hanoi that the special economic zones (SEZs), Van Don in Quang Ninh, Bac Van Phong in Khanh Hoa and Phu Quoc in Kien Giang, already lie in favorable locations in the north, south and center of the country. The government has invested significantly in infrastructure in the three areas so more preferential treatment for investors in terms of tax and land rental is unnecessary, said Van.
The bill exempts investors from land lease fees for less than 70 years, and in some cases, the term can be extended to less than 99 years with permission from the prime minister. Van argued that the terms were too long given that all three zones stand in “sensitive positions for national security and defense.”
He pointed out that what is more important for investors at these special zones is transparency from local authorities.
“If the authorities are corrupt and make it difficult for businesses then the sum that investors have to spend on unofficial fees can be even higher than their tax and land lease fees,” said Van.
Parliament member Phan Nguyen Nhu Khue shared Van’s opinion.
He said the assembly should reconsider the lease term because “99 years is way too long and what will future generations do if there are problems with national security and defense in those areas?”
The assembly’s deputy chairman Uong Chu Luu said the it will continue working on the draft bill and open it for further discussions at a meeting on May 20.
According to the plan, the Van Don SEZ will focus on high tech, supporting industries, tourism and services, creating jobs for 132,000 people and contributing $4 billion to the state budget between 2021 and 2030.
The Bac Van Phong SEZ will specialize in information-technology, electronics, mechanics, logistics, tourism, and finance. It should generate 65,000 jobs and $2.2 billion for the state budget from 2021-2030.
The Phu Quoc SEZ will lure investors in tourism, services and healthcare with a workforce of 57,600, and bring in about $3.3 billion in the same period.
Source: e.vnexpress.net
According to the Bloomberg news, the large corporations as Samsung, Intel have poured money into the factories in Vietnam leading Southeast Asian countries to emerge as new tiger in Asia. After renovation in the 1980s, Vietnam’s economy has grown rapidly, exceeding 7% before leveling off in recent years due to the increase in bad debt from the state sector.
Not only is the Southeast Asian nation gaining ground as a cheaper manufacturing alternative to neighboring China, Vietnam is also a politically palatable destination for Japanese firms boosting investment in the region amid recurring China-Japan spats.
“It is quite possible that Vietnam could become the fastest-growing economy in Asia,” said Vikram Nehru, a senior associate in the Asia Program and Bakrie Chair in Southeast Asian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “It has all the ingredients for rapid growth if it can address the challenges in the state sector.”
Mekong Star
Signs of Vietnam’s growing clout are gathering: In 2014 the country overtook regional counterparts to become the biggest exporter to the US from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, muscling ahead of its more established manufacturing rivals of Thailand and Malaysia.
Disbursed foreign investment in Vietnam has soared in the past 14 years to reach US$12.35 billion in 2014, up 7.4 % from 2013 and compared with US$2.4 billion in 2000, figures from the Foreign Investment Agency show. Samsung’s operations in the country are growing so big that it got government approval to operate its own terminal at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport.
And manufacturers are shifting from China. Japanese printer maker Kyocera Document Solutions Inc., a unit of Kyocera Corp., plans to quadruple its annual printer production in Vietnam to 2 million units by March 2018, the company said this month. Part of its operation in China will be moved to Hai Phong, making Vietnam the company’s biggest manufacturing base for printers, with another plant planned by August, it said.
“Vietnam will displace Thailand as the greater Mekong star,” said Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING Groep NV, referring to the Mekong River basin region that includes the nations of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, along with China’s Yunnan province.
Exports from Thailand, one of the nations dubbed by analysts and the media as a rapidly developing tiger economy before the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, have contracted in the last two years. By contrast, Vietnam in 2014 saw its shipments overseas jump almost 14 %.
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. this month upgraded Vietnam’s GDP forecast to 6.5 % for this year and next, citing strengthening retail sales, accelerating industrial production and improving construction. “The economy’s structure is shifting, it is moving from agriculture to manufacturing,” said Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank’s country director for Vietnam. “You can see there is a progression happening.”
‘Big Winner’
“Vietnam is really the big winner from China losing its competitiveness because of rising wages” and a strong currency, said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research in Hong Kong at HSBC Holdings Plc. “By moving very early into the space vacated by China, Vietnam has first-mover advantage and it is now starting to show.”
Vietnam’s annual real gross domestic product growth could average 5.3 % in the 2014-50 period, a pace only bettered by Nigeria, according to PwC’s “The World in 2050” report. Growth in China may fall below 4 %. Vietnam’s benchmark stock index has climbed 5.5 % this year, compared with Indonesia’s 4.1 % increase, Malaysia’s 2.4 % and Thailand’s 2.2 %.
Demographics are a big help. Some 13 % of China’s population in 2012 was already 60 or older, compared with 9 % in Vietnam, according to the United Nations. More than 40 % of Vietnam’s population of about 90 million in 2013 was in the labor force aged 15 to 49, government data show.
The average monthly wage in Vietnam was US$197 in 2013 compared with US$391 for Thailand and US$613 for China, according to International Labour Organization calculations. That disparity is widening. The Economist Intelligence Unit predicts that in 2019, manufacturing labor costs per hour in China will be 177 % of those in Vietnam, up from 147 % in 2012.
Bad Loans
John Hawksworth, one of the authors of the PwC report, said that lenders in Vietnam are creaking under bad loans, and the government has struggled to overhaul inefficient state-owned companies. Inadequate infrastructure, skills gaps and corruption remain risks. Vietnam ranked 119 out of 175 countries and territories in the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. China came in at 100th place. Meanwhile, other Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia are also competing to win manufacturing jobs.
“It’s not guaranteed that Vietnam will fulfil its potential,” said Hawksworth. “Part of it is that Vietnam is simply in a good geographic location and part of it is that it does have some catching up to do in terms of GDP per capita.”
Much of the work being transferred to Vietnam is in low-end manufacturing as China moves up the value chain: labor-intensive work in textiles, garments, furniture and electronics. Meanwhile, China is gradually improving value. “The productivity of Vietnam’s manufacturing sector is very low,” Karel Eloot, Shanghai-based director at McKinsey & Co.’s Asia Operations Practice, said in November. “That’s the biggest blowback for further expansion in Vietnam.”
However, the government is working on some of the economy’s biggest millstones. Vietnam will attempt to sell a record amount of shares in state-owned companies this year, a deputy general director of the finance ministry’s corporate finance department, said in an interview March 13. The plan to sell stakes in about 280 entities this year is “credit positive” for banks, Moody’s Investors Service said.
There are other positives. Vietnam is in talks on a free trade deal with the European Union and is part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Source: Dan Tri newspaper
Vietnam’s fishery sector will gain advantages and export opportunities once the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) take effect.
Vuong Duc Anh, from the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Department of Export-Import, said the CPTPP and EVFTA are new-generation trade deals with trade facilitation as a core value via cutting tariffs.
Under the EVFTA, aquatic products, excluding canned tuna and fish balls, will enjoy a zero tax for a maximum of seven years. While under the CPTPP, Canada and Peru will cut taxes to zero percent once the deal takes effect. Other countries will offer tax reductions in accordance with roadmaps.
Anh said the signing of the EVFTA and CPTPP will afford Vietnamese fishery firms chances to expand export markets, especially new markets such as Canada, Peru and Mexico, given that Vietnam’s rivals Thailand and China have yet to sign the FTAs with the European Union and have yet to join the CPTPP.
Vietnam now ranks second globally in terms of shrimp exports with a market share of 14 percent, behind India (15 percent). India has yet to join the CPTPP while its FTA negotiations with the EU have been stalled.
According to experts, Vietnamese aquatic firms will also have chances to improve technology and product quality, join the regional supply chain and diversify materials supply sources. In particular, signing new-generation FTAs also requires the State to reform mechanisms, thereby creating a stable and transparent business environment.
However, domestic enterprises also face competition with foreign rivals and stringent regulations on product quality and trace of origin. Therefore, they need to build business plans for medium and long term and renew technologies to join the global value chain for sustainable growth.
Source: VASEP
Source: international.gc.ca
