Vietnam latest news - Thanh Nien Daily | South Koreans arrive in central Vietnam via new non-stop flight

South Koreans arrive in central Vietnam via new non-stop flight 

Last Updated: Friday, July 13, 2012 02:30:00

South Korean passengers who took the first non-stop flight from Incheon arrive at Cam Ranh, Khanh Hoa Province Thursday night.

Tourism authorities Khanh Hoa Province on Thursday night received nearly 140 South Korean visitors, the first to take advantage of a new non-stop flight from Incheon, Korea to Vietnam’s central coast.
Asiana Airlines, which is developing the new route, plans to provide two flights every week through the end of August, on Thursday and Sunday nights.
Each flight will take around three hours, leaving Incheon at 7:50 p.m. and arriving at Cam Ranh, a major port town of the province and Vietnam, at 10:40 p.m.
Khanh Hoa, famous for the resort town of Nha Trang, received 11,500 South Korean visitors in the first half of this year, according to figures from the province Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Chinese men arrested while choosing wives at Vietnam hotel | Look At Vietnam

Police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested two local men and their Chinese clients in a hotel on June 19 for taking part in an illegal marriage brokerage, as the foreigners awaited to select brides.
Thong A Loc, 59, from HCMC, confessed to being the organizer while Su Chuc Man, 43, acted as a translator for the Chinese clients, Cen Yi Bin, 41, and Huang Hui Huang, 27, news website VnExpress reported Friday.
Loc said the two women were 18 and 23 years of age, hailing from the Mekong Delta’s Bac Lieu and Hau Giang Provinces and came to HCMC hoping to land jobs abroad.
They were brought to the hotel immediately after arriving at HCMC’s Mien Tay Bus Station.
One of the women strenuously refused to show her body to the Chinese men. Police broke in during the struggle.
Loc said he had organized many successful bride auctions, in which he received at least US$1,000 from each foreigner who selected a wife.
Investigations showed that Loc started the illegal marriage brokerage in late 2011, after serving three years in jail for sending women to work abroad as prostitutes.
Many Vietnamese women from poor families in the Mekong Delta have made national headlines for becoming the victims of beatings, some of which have been fatal, at the hands of their Taiwanese or South Korean husbands, who were either too old or poor to marry local women in those countries.

RELATED CONTENT

Bride broker crackdown

The Vietnamese women married these men hoping for fairy tale lives. However, most of these arrangements do not go smoothly, plagued by language and cultural barriers.
In March this year, the South Korean consulate in Vietnam said that a Vietnamese woman was killed by her husband in South Korea.
Last year another Vietnamese woman was stabbed to death by her Korean husband. Similar tragedies were also reported in 2010 and 2007.

Vietnam still fumbles in the fight against counterfeit goods

December 2, 2011  about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam - Nearly all the high quality products which have high
sales have been counterfeited. Businesses have lost billions of dong because of
the counterfeit goods, while state management agencies still fumble in the fight
against counterfeiters.

When counterfeit goods look more beautiful than real goods
Nguyen Huu Vinh, Deputy Personnel and Administration Division of LG Vina, the
owner of cosmetics brands of Essance, Ohui and Whoo, said that counterfeit goods
not only cause reputational damage, but also badly affect the sales of the
enterprise.
He said that the turnover of the company in the last few years just reached
70-75 percent of the expected level, despite thorough market survey and
preparation for sale campaigns, because real goods have to compete with
counterfeit goods in the market.
Also according to Vinh, in the past, the products with Essance brand were most
counterfeited, because the products have reasonable prices. Previously,
counterfeit goods were made in HCM City and neighboring provinces. Nowadays,
they are made in China and then carried illegally to Vietnam.
“The packing of the products looks very good, and in some cases, it looks even
more beautiful than that of real goods,” he said. For example, the packing
sample which LG Vietnam ordered in South Korea contained errors. Meanwhile, the
error cannot be found in the counterfeit goods
Nguyen Ba Cuong Truc from Nghia Pincers Company said that on November 15, the
company, joining hands with the investigation agencies, discovered counterfeit
goods at two shops in Hanoi.
Truc said that though the company regularly examines the doubtful points of sale
and takes drastic measures to request sales agents to comply with the
commitments on refusing counterfeit goods, the company cannot be sure that all
the sales agents follow the promises.
Meanwhile, sales agents well understand that they would pocket huge profit when
selling counterfeit goods, which is double the profit they gain when selling
real goods.
Truc’s principle is that the thing that needs to do to fight against counterfeit
goods not to eliminate sales agents, but to guide consumers how to differentiate
real goods and counterfeit goods.
According to Lawyer Chau Huy Quang from LCT Law Firm, even the anti-counterfeit
stickers (the stamps used to stick on products to certify the real goods) also
can be counterfeited. This has made producers more puzzled in the fight against
counterfeit goods.
Meanwhile, Lawyer Tran Hai Duc said that some enterprises made real products at
first, but then they have products outsourced to Chinese producers. After the
products are made in China, they import the products and then stick their labels
to sell on the market. In this case, enterprises have their products themselves
counterfeited for bigger profits.
Enterprises and management agencies need to join hands
Do Hong Quang, Deputy Head of the Market Management Sub-department, admitted
that despite the great efforts, the sale of counterfeit and imitation goods
still continues.
Nguyen Thanh Nhan, Deputy Head of the Binh Duong provincial market management
sub-department, complained that he has got tired because of the overlapping and
contradictory regulations.
Nhan said that previously, the criminals of industrial property infringement
could face the criminal prosecution. However, other regulations stipulate that
the commercial-scale infringements would not face the criminal prosecution. Due
to the concept “commercial-scale infringement,” the agency could not take a lot
of counterfeit consignments of goods worth billions of dong into legal
proceedings.
Nhan also said that there lacks the cooperation between state management
agencies and enterprises. His sub-department asked gas trading companies to join
forces to clarify a counterfeit goods case, but none of them sent
representatives to the meeting.
Lawyer Chau Huy Quang agrees that the legal framework in fighting against
counterfeit goods is sufficient, but the implementation of the regulations is
not good.
“In the last five years, only 22 cases of intellectual property infringement
were found, which really does not truly reflect the real situation,” Quang said.
Source: TBKTSG

Medical Tourims Hub South Korea

South Korea becoming medical tourism hub 

October 16, 2011  about Health

The medical tourism market in South Korea is expected to grow around 30 percent during 2010-2012, according to a study from RNCOS, a global market research and information analysis company

A robotic operation performed at the Wonkwang University Hospital on September 29, 2011
Clean, modern facilities, and a warm welcome greet patients at several South Korean hospitals that have made it their goal to facilitate the growing trade in medical tourism here.
Thanh Nien Weekly visited four Korean hospitals late last month and was introduced to state-of-the-art medical institutions, qualified medical practitioners and the advanced practice of oriental medicine. South Korea is emerging as a major medical tourism destination and the country is trying to surpass Singapore, Thailand and India to become Asia’s new medical tourism hub.
To this end, Korea has over the years built up an impressive one-stop infrastructure to serve medical tourists, an increasing number of which are coming from the United States, Russia, China, Japan and many other nations in the region.
As part of the Medical Korea promotion project, the Korea International Medical Association (KIMA) – a government-private joint initiative founded in 2007 to promote Healthcare in Korea internationally – has held many familiarization tours like the one Thanh Nien Weekly was a part of.
One-stop services
Tourists arriving at Korea’s Incheon International Airport can find the Medical Tourism Information Center, which offers a rest area, information on medical institutions and travel agencies, and free Internet access.
In Seoul, foreigners can visit the Medical Tourism Promotion Center for a professional medical consultation. There, they can also use a BMI (body mass index) machine, a stress measurement device, and a blood pressure meter for free.
All hospitals we visited have reception desks for foreigners providing all services they need, including hospital and hotel reservations, consultations, payments, and more.

A room at Andong Hospital’s Guesthouse. Photo by Fang Pei

Managers at Andong, Bumin, Good Gang-An and Wonkwang University hospitals ensured us that they currently have professional interpreters who can help translate between Korean doctors and foreign patients.
With the growing number of Chinese and Russian visitors to Korean hospitals, many hospitals now provide booklets in Russian and in Chinese.
Good Gang-An Hospital said 90 percent of its foreign patients are currently from Russia. The number of foreign patients there has increased from only 88 in 2009 to 347 in 2010 and 285 in the first eight months of 2011. Bumin Hospital revealed it had so far received 420 foreign patients, including 70 from Russia and 40 from China.
Andong Hospital offers its Good Morning Health Tour program that allows guests to receive comprehensive medical check-ups and health examinations while staying at the Andong Hospital Guesthouse with comfortable and luxurious rooms overlooking the Nakdong River, said Kang Shin Hong, execute director of Andong Hospital Group.
Visitors to Andong have also a chance to discover many tourist attractions there, including the Bongjung-sa Temple built during Chosun dynasty in 672, the ancient Hahwae Village, the Wolyyoung Bridge - the largest wooden bridge in Korea, the Andong City Folk Museum and Gyemyoung-san Natural Forest.
Da Vinci Robot

Businesses cry foul over taxes for foreigners | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update

bu

Businesses cry foul over taxes for foreigners

June 14, 2011 about Business, News

LookAtVietnam - Businesses are arguing current personal income tax rates towards foreigners are unjustified.
In light of current regulations 85 per cent of foreigners’ house rental paid by employers is considered a personal income and foreigners are subject to pay tax on that money.
“We pay our foreign experts a monthly wage of $3,000 and house rental $1,000. They, however, still pay personal income tax (PIT) for the monthly income of $3,850 which is unreasonably high according to the progressive PIT list,” said Alpha To Omega Forwarding Company Limited chief accountant Nguyen Thi Thuy Tinh.
Tinh said relevant competent bodies should help ease financial burdens on businesses through introducing more tax incentives to foreign experts residing and working in Vietnam such as increasing their tax allowances.
A Samsung Vina representative, echoed the need for increases in foreign experts’ tax allowances, voiced some difficulties in handling PIT payments in Vietnam.
“Many our foreign experts currently rent houses in Hanoi’s Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh new urban area and most cannot show relevant vouchers since the landlords refused to give them to evade tax payments. In these cases, the individuals incur PIT for a lump sum of $4,000 per month but not $3,850 as above stated,” said the representative.
“They can show their house leasing contracts to tax organisations to enjoy the PIT tax reductions and the leasing contracts will help the tax bodies unveil tenants’ tax fraud,” said deputy minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan.
Tinh pointed out another tax imposition that under current laws local and foreign firms when buying cars (worth VND1.6 million or $77,300 maximally) to transport experts and managers to work, the money is dubbed as legitimate expenses to be deducted when defining taxable incomes.
However, if firms do not buy cars but lease them from specialised transport firms, the sum is considered the personal income of the beneficiaries and incurs taxes.
“Imposing PIT on car lease fees in this case is unjustified and puts more pressure on businesses as they have to pay such taxes on behalf of their employees,” Tinh said.
Tuan admitted the regulation was unreasonable. “This is under the scope of authority of the MoF and it will work with its affiliates to seek a remedy,” Tuan said.
Scores of South Korean firms voiced concerns that around 100,000 South Koreans are working in Ho Chi Minh City and another 30,000-40,000 are working in Hanoi. More than half came to Vietnam to source investment opportunities and then stay in the countries less than 183 days. Therefore, imposing PIT on these individuals would not be justified.
“In the above case, foreign expatriates having incomes in Vietnam can pay PIT via relevant income-paying organisations,” Tuan said.
Source: VIR

A South Korean man killed his Vietnamese wife on May 24

Another Vietnamese bride murdered in South Korea

May 25, 2011 about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam - A South Korean man
killed his Vietnamese wife on May 24, in Jeongto District of North Kyeongsang
Province. The Vietnamese women just had a baby for 19 days.

The murder occurred
at 1.10 am (local time). The husband, named Lim Chae Won, 37, was immediately
arrested.

Lim admitted to
police that he stabbed Hoang when she was attempting to leave the house with
their 19-month-old son. He said Hoang had asked for a divorce many times after
moving to South Korea
with him in August 2010.

The Vietnamese
Embassy in South Korea has identified
the Vietnamese woman as Hoang Thi Nam,
23, from Thang Hai Commune, in Binh Thuan Province’s
Phan Thiet City.

An autopsy result
showed that Nam
was stabbed 53 times and died on the spot.

Nam
had married Lim Chae Won, 37, in April and moved to South Korea in August 2010.

A neighbor called
the police after hearing Lim kick a neighbor’s door and shout that he had
killed a person. When officers arrived at Lim’s house, they found the couple’s
19-day-old baby lying next to his bleeding mother and his father outside the
house with a knife in hand.

Nam reportedly lived in Simthow, a center for
ill-treated foreign brides, from October 5 to November 22 last year before Lim
came and took her home.

Two South Korean
senior officials visited the Vietnamese embassy on May 24 afternoon to express
their sympathy. The said local officials would keep their Vietnamese
counterparts fully informed about any developments in the case.

The police were
investigating further.

In July 2010, a
mentally challenged man killed another Vietnamese mail order bride, Thach Thi
Hoang Ngoc, one week after her arrival to Korea. Notably, Ngoc could not
speak Korean and he did not know that her husband was a mental patient. Five
days before coming to Vietnam
to met Ngoc, the Korean husband was hospitalized.

This man was
sentenced 12 years in jail by the Pusan
City court in October
2010. He will be treated in prison and will have to wear a control electronic
bracelet for the next ten years.

South Korean
President, Lee Myung-bak in a speech on the radio apologized and offered his
condolences to the family of Thach Thi Hong Ngoc.

In South Korea,
out of ten rural men, four get married with foreign women. The South Korean
government has recently tightened control over match-making companies and opened
pre-marriage education centers for those who plan to marry foreign people.

Thu Hang

Nepal is becoming Major Tourism Destination

 Nepal is becoming a major tourism destination for Asian travellers, a local media reported Tuesday, citing a report.

The World Bank South Asia Economic Update 2010 reveals that travellers from East Asia made up 26.5 percent of the total tourist arrivals in Nepal, China's Xinhua news agency quoted The Kathmandu Post daily as saying.

The statistics of the Nepal Tourism Board, reflecting a similar trend, said the tourists arrivals from China, South Korea and Thailand have been increasing in the past few years.

The number of Chinese arrivals in Nepal has increased by 185.97 percent in from 2006 to 2009. Around 19,000 Chinese tourists visited Nepal in 2009.

In the same period, tourist arrivals from South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia have soared by 68.40 percent, 164.26 percent, 83.48 percent and 46.32 percent, respectively.

Travel trade analysts attribute the increment in East Asian arrivals to their rising income levels, desire to visit the birthplace of the Buddha and better air connectivity.

Currently, four Chinese airlines operate flights to Nepal with China Eastern Airlines being the latest entrant last year.

The growth in inbound from East Asia has prompted the concerned stakeholders to pay special attention to the region.

Nepal is expecting 100,000 tourists from China during Nepal Tourism Year 2011 while it has targeted a 20 percent increment in tourist arrivals from other Asian countries.

More than 50,000 Cambodian laborers working abroad -

Cambodia has reported that it had sent more than 50,000 Cambodians to work abroad, all of them in Asian countries.

The report filed by Ministry of Labor, a copy of which seen Monday, showed that by the end of March as many as 51,647 Cambodians were working in Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.

Among them, 27,152 were working in Malaysia and followed by 16, 197 in Thailand, 8,201 in South Korea and 97 in Japan.

According to the report, majority of the Cambodian laborers are women and are working in factories, housemaids or in restaurants.

Some local non-governmental organizations have expressed their enthusiasm to the employment opportunities for Cambodian people and suggested the government to work harder to push more employment in the country and as well in foreign countries.

Cambodia has permitted more than two dozens of private companies and several non-governmental organizations to help facilitate Cambodian laborers to work abroad.

4 years Universal Studios to open in Seoul

In four years the world's largest Universal Studios is set to open outside of Seoul at a cost of $2.7 billion. With much public fanfare, Disney recently received approval to break ground on a $3.6 billion outpost in Shanghai. Meanwhile Hong Kong's two amusement parks are spending over $1 billion to expand and modernize their facilities.

Attendance may be stagnating in some parts of the world, but a growing middle class with disposable incomes to match is making the Asia-Pacific region a prime target for investors and theme park owners.

"It's an up-and-coming market, and growing quite fast," said Christian Aaen, Hong Kong-based regional director for AECOM Economics, a consulting firm that specializes in the entertainment and leisure industries. MGM Studios and Paramount, too, are scouting around Asia for future projects. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted the region's market will be worth nearly $8.5 billion by 2012, up from $6.4 billion in 2007.

In Pictures: Asia's Top Amusement Parks

Forbes determined Asia's top theme parks based on attendance figures, which AECOM Economics collects every year.

While data show that local interest in these kinds of leisure activities has been steadily increasing since the 1990s, it was only recently that Asia scored the kind of economic growth needed to justify the existence of such grand--and expensive--designs.

"China will lead the way," said Kelven Tan, Southeast Asia's representative for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, an industry group. "The critical mass really came about with the resurgence of China. You need a good source of people; you also need labor and you need cheap land."

That's what the folks behind the just-completed Universal Studios in Singapore are betting. Developers aim to tap the wallets of Singapore's 4.6 million residents, 9.7 million tourists a year and its proximity to populous areas of Indonesia and southern Malaysia. When it opens this spring, it will be the island nation's first bona fide amusement park.

The site on Sentosa Island includes rides and shows based on television programs and movies like Battlestar Galactica, Shrek and Jurassic Park. As part of a ploy to get visitors to extend their stays, the park is part of an entertainment complex that includes casinos, resorts and shopping malls.

Overall spending on entertainment and media in Asia Pacific is set to increase 4.5% each year, jumping to $413 billion in 2013 from $331 billion in 2008, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, with places like South Korea, Australia and China posting the biggest increases.

Outside of foreign brands like Legoland, which plans to open a park in Johor, Malaysia, for 2013, home-grown companies like Genting in Malaysia and OTC Enterprise Corp. in China are aggressively looking to take advantage of the burgeoning market in their backyards.

In some ways, theme parks the world over are all alike. But while many covet bigger and faster rides, Asian amusement-seekers in particular take a shine to elaborate live entertainment. Shows often take a cultural bent, Aaen says, and can feature hundreds of actors and dancers on stage with animals, myriad special effects and high-tech scenery.

In a trendy twist, the performances can even include pop stars. In recent months Malaysia's biggest park, Sunway Lagoon, has highlighted performances by Ne-Yo, the Black Eyed Peas and American Idol runner-up David Archuleta.

Japan's Tokyo Disneyland leads the rest of the region, attracting as many as 26 million visitors a year. But emerging markets like Vietnam and India will start to mature over the next five years, Aaen said, nipping at the heels of their more advanced neighbors.

Skeptics, however, remain. Hong Kong Disneyland is in the midst of a $465 million expansion project. But underwhelming attendance figures, disappointing hotel occupancy rates and a reported $170 million loss in 2009 have left some wondering about the degree to which demand can keep pace with the blind enthusiasm of developers.

In Pictures: Asia's Top Amusement Parks

The city's tourism commission blamed Hong Kong Disney's ( DIS - news - people ) lackluster showing on swine flu and the global financial crisis, holding that it has cycled through just four seasons and is still "in its early years of development."

Undeterred, the city's No. 1 amusement destination, Ocean Park, is sinking $750 million into a massive, multi-year overhaul. Located on the south side of Hong Kong Island, it boasts four giant pandas, an aquarium, a roller coaster with a top speed of 48 miles an hour and an array of special haunted houses during Halloween. The park is especially popular with visitors from mainland China. The city is planning to extend a subway line there in the coming years.

"With the growing incomes in Asia, and the leisure time, this is the perfect product," Aaen said. "People are looking for these kinds of experiences."

Hewlett-Packard extends music service to Southeast Asia

SINGAPORE - Hewlett-Packard (HP) is entering Southeast Asia's music download market through an expanded partnership with Universal Music.

The free service, which will be available in 18 countries across South and Southeast Asia from 28 November, gives HP customers access to Universal’s music library. The service allows 1,120 songs to be downloaded during a 12-month period, 120 of which can be downloaded for indefinite ownership. The rest will be available with a validity of one year.

The service will specifically be available in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.

According to the company, this is the first music-service partnership between Universal Music and HP in Southeast Asia. “Consumers are increasingly streaming and storing their favourite music files on their PC,” said Dennis Mark, VP of marketing for HP Personal Systems Group for Asia-Pacific and Japan. “Our partnership with Universal Music will amplify consumers’ entertainment gratification and make their notebook a one-stop shop for all their multimedia needs.”

HP’s expansion into the sector mirrors similar services launched in the region to attract young consumers. This year, Nokia rolled out its Comes With Music platform in the region. Motorola’s MotoMusic, which enjoyed success in China after its 2006 debut but was slower to gain ground elsewhere in the region, also launched in Singapore last year. That service closed down in June.

HP initially launched this service in other Asia-Pacific markets last month.