Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia & Myanmar join to develop tourism

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Vietnam prepares for “four countries – on destination” program

LookAtVietnam - The fact that four countries including Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia and Myanmar join forces to develop tourism is believed to bring new big
opportunities to travel firms. However, there are still many things to be done
in order to reap the fruits.

New opportunities

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

The participants at the 7th International Tourism Exhibition (ITE) held in HCM
City several days ago all forecast a new wave of investments in infrastructure,
hotels, resorts and entertainment complexes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and
Myanmar in the time to come. Therefore, joining forces in the “four countries –
one destination” program will clearly help attract more international investors.

The Lao General Department of Tourism said that the country now has 1028 tourism
sites which are awaiting investments. Laos allows to have 100 percent foreign
ownership ratio in hotels and restaurants, and 30-70 percent foreign ownership
ratios in the travel firms. Tourism is the second foreign currency earner, just
after to mining, in Laos, where the tourism growth rate has been stable in the
last 20 years at 29 percent per annul.

In Myanmar, investors need to have at least 300,000 dollars to set up a legal
entity in the service sector. Foreign investors can team up with domestic
companies to set up joint ventures, while they have to contribute at least 35
percent of capital. Myanmar now has 36 hotel projects with 6560 hotel rooms, of
which 31 projects have been completed.

The international tourism organization has forecast that the tourists in the
world tend to flock to South East Asia and East Asia. In 2010, the region
surpassed America to become the second biggest region in the world, just after
Europe, in terms of the tourists, accounting for 22 percent of the world’s
market share. Meanwhile, the figure is expected to increase to 27 percent by
2020.

Statistics show that ASEAN now attracts 36 percent of the total number of
tourists worldwide, and 38 percent of the total revenue from tourism industry in
the region.

Analysts have also pointed out that joining forces with regional countries to
develop tourism is a wise move. The national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines
said that four out of every 10 international tourists to Vietnam tend to visit
many different destinations, and three of them choose to visit Laos, Cambodia,
or Myanmar.

Great efforts needed

This is not for the first time regional countries sit together to discuss the
cooperation for tourism development. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia once put forward
the idea of joining forces to attract tourists. A project on the tourism
sustainable development in Mekong sub-region was initiated and funded by ADB,
which aimed to develop infrastructure for tourism and push up the sub-regional
cooperation. However, the initial achievements remain modest

Therefore, Vietnamese travel firms say they need to prepare well for the “four
countries – one nation program). Tran Hung Viet, General Director of
Saigontourist, said that the travel firm has conducted a program on surveying
the trans-Indochina and Myanmar tours, and has released the publications
providing information about the four countries.

Meanwhile, Vietnam Airlines has increased the frequency of the flights on the
air routes to Siem Reap, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and Vientiane in Laos to 106
flights per week from 59 flights currently.

Vuong Dinh Hai from CFIS Vietnam, a foreign investment research center, said
that it is necessary to make heavier investment in infrastructure in order to
pave the way for tourism development. More and more tourists travel to Vietnam
by sea, while cruises still have to dock at cargo ports, because there still are
no specific ports for receiving tourists.

Meanwhile, there has been no legal document on the development of the ports for
tourism. The overall strategy on seaport development until 2020 also does not
show the investment scale and the details of the tourism ports.

Source: TBKTVN

India Worries as China Builds Ports in South Asia

India Worries as China Builds Ports in South Asia
Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press
A Chinese construction crew at work in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, in 2008. China has invested millions to develop the port.

Published: February 15, 2010
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.

Ships will dock along this long wall and other similar structures nearby once the port in Hambantota is complete.

Enlarge This Image

Nadeem Khawer/European Pressphoto Agency
As trade in South Asia grows, China has been developing port facilities like this one in Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan.
Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbors.

As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal. These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of the continent in trade and economic development.

But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat.

“There is a method in the madness in terms of where they are locating their ports and staging points,” Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary who is now a member of the government’s National Security Advisory Board, said of China. “This kind of effort is aimed at counterbalancing and undermining India’s natural influence in these areas.”

India and China, the world’s two fastest-growing economies, have a history of tense relations. They share a contested Himalayan border over which they fought a war in 1962. India has given shelter to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet as China exerted control over it. And China has close military ties with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars.

But the two countries also do an increasingly booming business with each other. China recently became India’s largest trading partner, and both have worked together to advance similar positions in global trade and climate change negotiations.

Chinese officials deny ulterior motives for their projects in South Asia. And top Indian leaders have tried to play down talk of a rivalry with China, saying there is enough room in the world for both economies to rise simultaneously.

As recently as the 1990s, China’s and India’s trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last decade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties.

For China, these countries provide both new markets and alternative routes to the Indian Ocean, which its ships now reach through a narrow channel between Indonesia and Malaysia known as the Strait of Malacca. India, for its part, needs to improve economic ties with its neighbors to broaden its growth and to help foster peace in the region. Some of the shift in trade toward China comes from heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, which has hampered trade between the two countries. But China has also made inroads in nations that have been more friendly with India, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Moreover, protectionist sentiments have marred India’s relationships with its neighbors. South Asia has a free-trade agreement, but countries that are part of the pact get few benefits, economists say, because India and its neighbors refuse to lower tariffs on many goods and services to protect their own businesses. By contrast, the countries of Southeast Asia have minimal or no duties on most goods and services that they import from one another.

India has had some success in establishing closer ties with Sri Lanka, with which it has a strong bilateral trade agreement. But China has become a partner of choice for big projects here like the Hambantota port. China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 percent of the cost of the $1 billion project, and China Harbour Engineering, which is part of a state-owned company, is building it. Similar arrangements have been struck for an international airport being built nearby.

Sri Lankan officials want to turn Hambantota, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and is the home constituency for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, into the second-largest urban area in the country after the capital, Colombo. (It is the ninth-biggest today.) The government is also building a convention center, a government complex and a cricket stadium.

Sri Lanka needs foreign assistance to make those dreams a reality, because the government’s finances are stretched by a large debt it accumulated in paying for a 25-year civil war that ended in May. In 2009, the country borrowed $2.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Rajapaksa has said he offered the Hambantota port project first to India, but officials there turned it down. In an interview, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States, said the country looked for investors in America and around the world, but China offered the best terms. “We don’t have favorites,” he said.

Still, Sri Lankan officials have refused to disclose information that would allow analysts to compare China’s proposals with those submitted by other bidders. The country has also kept private details about other projects that are being financed and built by China, including a power plant, an arts center and a special economic zone.

The Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan newspaper, recently estimated that China was involved in projects totaling $6 billion — more than any other country, including India and Japan, which have historically been big donors and investors in Sri Lanka.

Harsha de Silva, a prominent economist in Colombo and an adviser to the country’s main opposition party, said the Sri Lankan government appeared to prefer awarding projects to China because it did not impose “conditions for reform, transparency and competitive bidding” that would be part of contracts with countries like India and the United States or organizations like the World Bank.

Other analysts say China is winning big projects here and elsewhere in the region because its companies offer lower costs. Chinese companies are also competitive because they have acquired a lot of expertise in building large infrastructure projects in China, said Jerry Lou, Morgan Stanley’s China strategist.

In 10 years, Chinese companies have become the biggest suppliers to ports of cranes used to move shipping containers, displacing South Korean and Japanese companies, he said. “They are running at very high efficiency and at the lowest costs,” Mr. Lou said. “China is a game-changer, rather than a new player in the world’s construction industry.”

India is starting to respond to China’s growing influence by becoming more aggressive in courting trade partners. India recently signed a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Korea. Officials have even begun talking about signing a trade deal with China to bolster exports.

India’s chief trade negotiator, D. K. Mittal, acknowledged that the country’s economic ties with its neighbors were not as strong as they should be and blamed political distrust between the countries. But he said leaders were now determined to improve economic relations, something he said was highlighted in a recent agreement with Bangladesh.

In that deal, India agreed to sell electricity to Bangladesh, provide it with a $1 billion line of credit for infrastructure projects and reduce tariffs on imports. Bangladesh agreed to allow Indian ships to use a port that is being redeveloped by China. “The political leaders have to rise above and say, ‘I want this to happen,’ ” Mr. Mittal said in an interview. “That’s what the leaders are realizing.”

13 countries meet in bid to save wild tigers -

HUA HIN, Thailand -- Efforts to save the wild tiger are at a critical point and it will take greater political will and cooperation from Asian countries to prevent the big cats from becoming extinct, conservationists and the World Bank warned Wednesday.

The dire message was offered to 13 tiger range states attending the first Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The aim of the three-day meeting is to convince countries to pledge to spend more on tiger conservation and set targets for boosting their numbers - vows that would then be finalized by heads of state in September at a meeting in Vladivostok, Russia.

"There will be no room left for tigers and other wildlife in Asia without a more responsible and sustainable program for economic growth and infrastructure," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a video message to the 180 delegates.
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"The tiger may be only one species, but the tigers' plight highlights the biodiversity crisis in Asia," he said.

Thailand's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti told delegates the time had come for his fellow ministers to commit to "bold commitments and actions so that we can collectively turn the tide of extinction on the tiger."

Tiger numbers have plummeted because of human encroachment, the loss of more than nine-tenths of their habitat, and poaching to supply the vibrant trade in tiger parts. From an estimated 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the number today is less than 3,600.

John Seidensticker, head of conservation ecology at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and chairman of the Save the Tiger Fund, recalled how he watched the Javan and Bali tigers disappear in the 20th century, adding that "losing a tiger is like losing a very close, dear relative and I'm still saddened by that experience."

He said conservationists have over the years been successful in banning trade in tiger parts, outlawing hunting and boosting protection measures. But he said he and others never foresaw the breakneck economic development in Asia that would "pave over" key tiger forests and grasslands and create a market for tiger parts that has caused poaching to skyrocket.

Still, Seidensticker and others said the meeting itself offered hope, showing that the bid to save tigers has gone beyond passionate environmentalists and scientists and is now being embraced by government officials and key donors like the World Bank.

The meeting is being organized by Thailand and the Global Tiger Initiative, a coalition formed in 2008 by the World Bank, the Smithsonian Institute and nearly 40 conservation groups. It aims to double tiger numbers by 2022.

"That this meeting is happening is hugely important," said John Robinson, executive vice president of conservation and science for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

Robinson said the political will to save the tigers must be strengthened, funding increased for impoverished countries where tigers remain and forests expanded to ensure that tigers and humans don't clash - a problem especially common in India and Indonesia.

Relocating communities is an option as long as the villagers are compensated adequately, Robinson said.

The World Bank said countries must work to minimize the impact of roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects on tiger habitat - something the bank has vowed to do in projects it funds. It also called on countries to better train and equip their forest rangers and reduce corruption in the government agencies tasked with running national parks and protected areas.

"Corruption has been rampant and all pervasive in some of the countries as far as forest management is concerned," said Keshav Varma, the Global Tiger Initiative's program director, told delegates. "Corruption is gradually and persistently nibbling away at our natural resources. The politics of money is drowning out the weak voices of the tiger and the poor."

The 13 countries attending the meeting are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Online scams soliciting relief donations for China, Myanmar :

Singapore - Cyber swindlers posing as victims in disaster- hit China and Myanmar are targeting citizens of Singapore and elsewhere with email scams and phony websites soliciting donations, news reports said Tuesday. The frauds have prompted widespread alerts from sources including information technology firms in Singapore about the attempts to capitalize on the earthquake and cyclone, which have claimed at least 150,000 lives.
Experts told The Straits Times that the perpetrators are hoping to tap into the generosity of Singaporeans by posing as victims and charities.
Other messages promise news updates but are laced with viruses that attack the users' computers and steal personal information, the report said.
The best defence is common sense, said Paul Ducklin, Asia-Pacific head of technology at IT security firm Sophos.
"Sadly, some people have forgotten or perhaps have never learned from the lessons of the past," he was quoted as saying. "Untrusted files from unknown sources are just that: unknown and untrusted. Don't open them."
Computer users can also protect their systems with spam filters or anti-malware software.