UK to give US$114 million aid to Vietnam

May 27, 2011 about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam -
Before officially stopping its direct aid to Vietnam in 2016, the UK’s
non-refundable aid for Vietnam by 2015, will reach £70 million (around US$114
million), according to an agreement side on May 26.

Minister of State, Alan Duncan MP and Minister of Planning and Investment, Vo Hong Phuc at the signing ceremony.

On May 26, UK
Minister of State for International Development, Alan Duncan and Vietnamese
Minister of Planning and Investment, Vo Hong Phuc signed the UK-Vietnam
strategic partnership agreement for the 2011-2014 period in Hanoi.

Under the agreement, the UK
has committed itself to providing up to £70 million in aid to Vietnam until
2015.

The funding aims to support Vietnam in meeting the
Millennium Development Goals; achieving strong growth that is inclusive,
low-carbon and led by the private sector, along with strengthening efforts to
tackle corruption and enhance accountability.

The signing took place after the two governments stated to
heighten their relations to strategic partnership last September.

The UK
will replace Sweden as the
lead donor on anti-corruption in Vietnam.

“I am pleased to have agreed the next five years of our
development partnership. The aid commitment enshrined in the DPA Amendment
today, together with our new role as lead donor on anti-corruption in Vietnam, shows the great importance that the UK attaches to the bilateral relationship with Vietnam,” said Duncan.

The UK
and Vietnam
entered into a ten year DPA in 2006. By 2011, The UK, through the Department
for International Development (DFID), has granted over £380 million (US$619
million) in aid to Vietnam.

In addition, since 2006 nearly £19 million (US$30.95
million) in debt relief has been granted to Vietnam through the Multilateral
Debt Relief Initiative for humanitarian efforts.

In March 2011, the UK
confirmed that its aid to Vietnam
would end by 2016, marking the conclusion of the DPA.

Chung Hoang

Prince Andrew to visit Vietnam

ANOI — Prince Andrew is to arrive in Vietnam on Monday to give a royal boost to his country's trade and investment profile, authorities said.

During his two-day trip, the prince is to meet Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and other officials, and visit Vietnamese and British businesses including Rolls-Royce and HSBC, UK Trade and Investment said in a statement.

His visit "aims to raise the UK's profile as a major trading and investment partner for Vietnam, highlight further investment opportunities for British companies in Vietnam, and encourage Vietnam to regard the UK as a main business gateway into Europe," it said.

Britain is communist Vietnam's third-largest European Union investor, with total projects worth 2.1 billion dollars, the agency said. Bilateral trade was worth more than 1.9 billion dollars last year.

Prince Andrew, Britiain's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, has made three previous visits to Vietnam over the past decade.

Dubai property crash stuns holiday home investors-26 May, 2009

DUBAI – The UK Daily Telegraph has a revealing story about the state of the property market in the UAE.

The newspaper reports that an 800-strong group of mainly UK expat investors, from individuals who put deposits on holiday flats to property brokers, claim hundreds of millions of pounds is at risk.

Work has slowed or stopped on swathes of building sites, including on a second "Palm Island". The city was planning a series of artificial peninsulas in the shape of palm trees packed with seafront holiday villas, but only one is finished.

Of all the world's property crashes, says the Telegraph, Dubai's has been among the most spectacular.

According to an estimate from Morgan Stanley, projects worth £165 billion have been delayed or cancelled across the United Arab Emirates.

Prices in Dubai have fallen by more than 40 per cent since September.

As prices soared, many investors bought off-plan, either because it was cheaper, in the case of small-time buyers looking for a home in the sun, or because they could "flip" or sell on for a quick profit without ever having to pay the full value.

Investors on the end of a chain of "flippers" have been hit particularly hard as prices fell while building was put on hold. But even those who bought from developers now face the dilemma of whether to keep paying or cut their losses.

The situation has been made worse by local authorities which are revising rules on repaying money for property bought "off-plan" which could mean investors cannot get their full investment back.

The Dubai Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has drafted new rules under which investors who pull out of contracts are refunded on a sliding scale, depending on how much has been built.

But developers are still entitled to 30 per cent of the money paid even if nothing has been built at all, giving them an incentive to claim projects are still viable.

RERA is preparing further revisions. It may also order 27 projects to be cancelled with full refunds – if the money is left.

Alexis Waller, a lawyer at the Dubai offices of legal firm Clyde and Co, told the Telegraph that many investors signed contracts which did not specify what would be built when.

"Investors signed up to payment schedules that were in no way linked to milestones," she said. "That's how the market worked here, and purchasers didn't query it because they were making so much money from property.

“It's become an issue because they are no longer making money."

Source: Daily Telegraph, London



Dubai property crash stuns holiday home investors-26 May, 2009

Doubts raised about plan to advertise on BBC

Right after the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) announced their plan to advertise Vietnam’s tourism on BBC World and taxis in the UK, a lot of travel firms and hotels have doubts about the feasibility of the plan.

Is it feasible?

In fact, the idea of advertising on the BBC was approved by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) last year. However, at that time, many travel firms voiced concern over the feasibility of the plan. The travel firms wanted to know if MCST thoroughly considered the main audience of the channel and if the travelers watched this channel for tourism information.

According to Nguyen Quoc Ky, Director of Vietravel, it is necessary to set up advertisement plans based on thorough analysis. It is also necessary to know what the key markets are for Vietnam and how high the tourism demand is in the markets.

Meanwhile, Baron Ah Moo, CEO of Indochina Land’s Hotels and Resorts, said that BBC is really a famous politics and economics TV channel, but the main audience of the channel is businessmen.

The businessmen watch BBC in order to get information about political situations, labor markets and investment policies in countries. Therefore, tourism advertisement pieces will not catch the attention from audience, even if they are broadcasted on BBC World.

Luu Duc Ke, Director of Hanoitourist, related that when he asked a Spanish senior marketing expert about the efficiency of tourism advertisement pieces on CNN and BBC, he said that the audience absolutely does not expect to get tourism information on CNN and BBC. The marketing expert said that it would be better to advertise on Discovery or Geographic, which specializes in tourism.

Mr. Baron Ah Moo said that Vietnam needs to thoroughly consider the taste of travelers, listen to advisors and travel firms in order to build up specific advertisement programs for different markets.

The argument of state management agencies

An official from the Culture, Sports and Tourism Centre, who asked to not be named, said that there are three factors for which the International Cooperation Department under MCST decided to advertise on BBC.

BBC is a channel shown worldwide, including Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. BBC is broadcasted in 200 countries and territories. Statistics showed that 276 million families watch BBC and the channel is viewed in 1.5 million hotel rooms worldwide. In Japan, for example, hotel rooms do not have CNN, but have BBC.
Moreover, BBC has good experience in advertising tourism as it has done this for more than 40 nations, including the big tourism countries like Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.
The noteworthy thing is that the mode BBC offers to Vietnam proves to be very reasonable. BBC has offered to send a delegation to Vietnam to make a video clip which will be broadcasted on BBC. The total expenses prove to be reasonable, $204,600.

Regarding the main audience of BBC, the official said that at first, Vietnam needs to advertise its national image, so that travelers can have a good impression of the country, and then it needs to advertise tours. The more people the information can reach, the better for Vietnam’s tourism, no matter who the people are.

“It is quite good to aim to businessmen, and it is also good to target popular travelers. Tourists not only watch tourism channels, they also watch other channels, especially news channels.”

“In the global economic crisis, tourists tend to travel to near-by countries. Therefore, Asia Pacific should be the choice. Europe has always been one of the key markets for Vietnam. Meanwhile, North America has always been a big market,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ky thinks that there are four markets Vietnam needs to target on, East Asia, North East Asia (Japan, China and South Korea), ASEAN and inner-region, Australia (which bears less financial crisis’ impacts than Europe and US), and cruise tourism.

Vietnam not keen on advertisement

Pham Hoang Tuan, Deputy Head of the Tourism Promotion Division under Vietnamtourism in Hanoi, said that Vietnam is still not keen on advertisement, pricing and offering tourism products.

Having returned from ITB (in Germany) and MITT (in Russia) trade fairs, Dang Bao Hieu, Director of Focus Travel, said that he was disappointed when seeing that the publications advertising ‘Impressive Vietnam’ were very poor.

Ky from Vietravel said that state management agencies should have overall advertisement campaigns which aim for long-term development, rather than short-term ones.

“I cannot see any bandmaster, who takes the responsibility for promotion tourism at the national level,” said director of a travel firm.

In April, the International Cooperation Agency under the VNAT will kick off the advertisement plan. It remains unclear about the broadcasting time. However, in general, there are two main tourism seasons, in June-July and September-October. Therefore, the advertisement pieces will appear in June 2009 at the soonest.
Ha Yen

Young overseas Vietnamese do business at home

Many people considered Trinh Sonny a “crazy man” when he quit a 100,000 USD/year salary job in the US to return to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities. Bobby H, working for a leading computer group in the US, plans to explore business opportunities in Vietnam. They are two of many young overseas Vietnamese who have a burning passion: enriching themselves in the homeland.
1. Seeing Trinh Sonny (called Son in Vietnamese) on an ancient street of Vietnam, one can easily recognise him as an overseas Vietnamese by his glossy short hair with gel and his puzzled expression when crossing the crowded street.
Son can speak Vietnamese better than many young overseas Vietnamese who grow up abroad. He said his Vietnamese was very poor but after a few months living in Vietnam, his Vietnamese has improved remarkably. This is the second time Son has returned to Vietnam after 28 years and he will stay here for six months.
Leaving the International Business Faculty at Temple University, Son worked very hard and became an official at the US Department of Commerce. Working at this position, he built good relationships with the Malaysian, German and UK embassies and he thought he would become an effective commercial channel between the US and these countries.
But a Vietnam in the renovation period with many challenges and opportunities is much more interesting and attractive to this young man. Moreover, the country is Son’s homeland. Son said he will spend 6 months to explore the Vietnamese market, hoping to learn about advantages of Vietnamese firms to help them enter the US market.
“Though the US government paid me a high salary the job was not so interesting, because after 25 years I will receive only pension. I’m still young and I want to do more lucrative and interesting things than be a government official,” he said.
He is seeking good sources of Vietnamese commodities to export to the US. Although understanding the challenges from the gap in lifestyle and business thinking between Vietnamese and US companies, Son believes that he can speed up the US-Vietnam bilateral trade relationship. “I would not take the risk if it was just for the money,” Son added.
There is one more thing to bind Son with Vietnam: Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese family relationships. Son loves the way that everybody in a family shows their love and affection for each other.
Son has travelled to HCM City to survey that bustling market.
2. Like Son, Bobby H and his mother left Vietnam for the US when he was just 6 months old. He was working in IT Accerture consultancy firm in the US, earning about $250 per hour. After 6 years of experience, he was appointed head of a branch. However, Bobby H is more careful than Son as he hasn’t quit his job in the US to seek business opportunities in Vietnam.
This year’s visit is his first time returning to Vietnam. He hopes to learn more about Vietnam’s market, especially real estate and IT.
He wants to devote himself to the current job and he will invest in Vietnam once he saves a good sum of money. H also wishes to transmit his experience to Vietnamese students.
Both Son and Bobby H share a common idea of doing business in the homeland to enrich themselves and their home country.
Previously, Nguyen Bao Hoang returned to Vietnam from the US to become the CEO of the IDG Vietnam Venture and the two above overseas men are likely to follow Hoang’s path.