Contents
General
news
WTO negotiation session in Geneva concluded
PMU18 corruption case drags on
Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary
Vietnam Airline to sue bomb hoaxer
South Korean Daewoo affiliate fined for
software piracy
Economy
Two Korean companies plan US$430m investment
27 FDI projects licensed in Hai Phong
Industry
& investment
Furama sings cooperation deal with Macao
DHL licensed to provide automated customs
clearance
Viettel Mobile posts 5m subscribers
Zamil Steel wins contract to build Singapore
aviation exhibition centre
HCM City hit with 100th labour strike
Finance
& banking
New agency to oversee business licensing
hassles
ACB to go public in late 2006
Bidv joins with state asset company to settle
bad debts
Locals switching to foreign banks
1tr dong statutory capital for new
banks
Eastern Asia Bank increases chartered capital
by 125b dong
Hanoi bank deposits reach 220tr dong
ACB posts pre-tax profit of 430b dong in three quarters
Southern Bank raises chartered capital
200m shares to be issued on HCM City STC
HCM City trading floor to become stock
exchange in 2007
Government
& legal
MPI promises single guiding decree to new
investment law
PM to make first visit to Japan
Forbidden foreign investment list to be
issued
New investment decree issued
Four areas targeted for 2007 anti-corruption
programme
500,000 companies targeted by 2010
General news
12/Oct/2006 VNA | MoF
The 14th session of multilateral negotiations on Vietnams accession
to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) concluded on October 10 after two days
working.
Though failing to submit a report on Vietnams accession to the WTO
general council on October 9 for review in its next meeting, the Vietnams WTO
taskforce was optimistic that with encouraging results gained at this
negotiation session, the country will join the Geneva-based body by the end of
this year.
The parties to the negotiations are to deal with remaining issues
from now until November, with another negotiation session taking place on
October 25 to resolve major issues.
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien
Police are now focusing on corruption and bribery from an initial
gambling offence in the case against Project Management Unit 18 (PMU18),
extending the time period for the case to be resolved, a source said.
Three men in custody for attempted bribery have handed in a total of
US$70,250 they claimed was provided by a corrupt Hanoi road-building official
to bribe police into whitewashing crimes for him, the source said.
11/Oct/2006 Reuters
A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for
almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper
reported on Thursday.
The Lao Dong (Labour)
newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that
convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant.
The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had
become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened.
Oanh's husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in
another province, the newspaper said.
Oanh was due to face a firing squad this year after losing her
appeal against the death sentence she received last year for possession of a
billion dong (US$63,000) worth of
heroin.
Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable
by death or life imprisonment.
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien | Nguoi Lao Dong
National carrier Vietnam Airlines is calculating losses due to a
false bomb claim on its flight last Saturday and will sue a prankster after
consulting the police who detained him, an official said.
Nguyen Tan Chan, the airlines’ spokesman told Nguoi Lao Dong
newspaper one of the three bomb hoaxers who delayed a flight was still being
detained and would be sued in a civil court if the police do not criminalise
the case.
Chan also said the airlines were consulting police before deciding
whether to sue a similar hoaxer who falsely claimed to have a bomb on another
flight several months ago.
The airline has promised to ban those who make false bomb claims on
its flights and sue them, but has yet to undertake the actions.
There have been three similar bomb hoaxes on flights run by Vietnam
Airlines in the past 6 months, costing the airlines hundreds of millions of dong ( dong 100 million=US$6,250) each time
South
Korean Daewoo affiliate fined for software piracy
11/Oct/2006 The Associated Press
Authorities in Vietnam have fined an
affiliate of South Korea's Daewoo Corp for using pirated software, the first
time a corporate user of illegal software has been targeted in the Southeast
Asian country, officials said Wednesday October 11.
Police and inspectors from the
Ministry of Culture and Information raided the Hanoi-based Daewoo Hanel
Electronic Corp., last week and discovered all the software installed in their
computers was pirated, said Vu Xuan Thanh, the ministry's chief inspector.
The illegal software included copies
of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and Auto CAD, Thanh said.
The company, a joint venture between
South Korea's Daewoo Corp., and Hanel, a local company, was ordered to pay a
fine of 15 million dong (US$940), he
said.
Top
Economy
Two Korean companies plan
US$430m investment
13/Oct/2006 Dau Tu page 1
The foreign investment department
under the Ministry of Planning and Investment has reported receiving
applications for investment licenses from two Korean investors with a total
investment capital of US$430 million.
27 FDI projects licensed in
Hai Phong
13/Oct/2006 Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam
page 2
The planning department of Hai Phong
city reported that it has issued business licenses to 27 foreign-invested
projects with the total investment capital of US$121 million since the
beginning of the year.
Top
Industry
& investment
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien | Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam | Tuoi Tre
Vietnam’s central Furama Da Nang Resort & Spa signed memorandums
of understanding (MoU) with Macao-based businesses from China on tourism and
air service cooperation.
The signing ceremony took place Wednesday October 11 during the
visit of the delegation of officials and businesspeople of China’s Macao
Special Administrative Region to Da Nang city.
13/Oct/2006 Saigon Times Daily
DHL yesterday received a certificate from the HCM City Customs
Department entitling it to automated customs clearance after six-months of
trial and thus facilitating fast delivery in Vietnam.
Viettel
Mobile posts 5m subscribers
12/Oct/2006 VNA
Viettel Mobile, Vietnam's fastest
growing mobile phone service provider, announced its five millionth subscriber
on October 12.
Zamil Steel wins contract
to build Singapore aviation exhibition centre
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien | Thoi Bao Kinh
Te Vietnam
Zamil Steel Vietnam has won a
prestigious contract to manufacture a large-scale pre-engineered steel building
Asia’s largest Aviation Exhibition Centre in Singapore.
HCM City hit with 100th
labour strike
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien
A walkout yesterday afternoon at the
Korean Seahan Co in District 9 marked the 100th labour strike in Vietnam’s
southern metro HCM City over the last 10 months, the local Labour Union
reported.
The number of labour strikes in HCM
City is the highest ever, a full 1.5 times higher than that of the whole year
2005 with several months left to go this year, said the city’s Labour Union
Wednesday October 11.
Top
Finance
& banking
New agency to oversee
business licensing hassles
11/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien
A new agency set up to oversee
implementation of Vietnam’s Investment Law and Enterprise Law met for the first
time Wednesday October 11 when it took stock of the plethora of licenses
enterprises have to obtain.
The agency has two more deputy heads
deputy minister of Justice Hoang The Lien, and Dinh Van An, head of the Central
Institute for Economic Management Research.
ACB to go public in late
2006
13/Oct/2006 VnExpress | Thoi Bao Kinh
Te Vietnam
The Asia Commercial Bank is bound to
list shares on the formal stock market by the end of this year at the latest,
said a source from ACB.
Currently, the bank is urgently
finalising the necessary procedures to go public as scheduled.
Bidv joins with state asset
company to settle bad debts
12/Oct/2006 Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam |
VietNamNet
The bank for Investment and
Development of Vietnam (Bidv) signed a deal on October 11 with Debts and Assets
Trading Company (DATC), now run by the Ministry of Finance, on trading debts
and secured assets in Hanoi.
On the day of signing, Bidv firstly
sold to DATC two debts of P’rao Agriculture and Forestry Product Export Co
based in Quang Nam central province and Construction Materials Production and
Trading Co based in Can Tho southern City with the total value of over 31
billion dong.
Locals switching to foreign
banks
12/Oct/2006 Saigon Tiep Thi page 68
Nowadays, depositing savings and
borrowing loans is not just for domestic banks, people can make transactions
with many foreign banks.
1tr dong statutory
capital for new banks
13/Oct/2006 Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam
The State Bank of Vietnam has just
completed a new draft decree on organisation, governance and the operation of
commercial banks. The decree stated that the minimum statutory capital of a
newly established bank has now been reduced to one trillion dong instead
of the five trillion dong as stated in the former draft decree.
Eastern Asia Bank increases
chartered capital by 125b dong
11/Oct/2006 VNA
Eastern Asia Commercial Bank has made
a fresh issue of shares, the second this year, to raise 125 billion dong (US$7.8 million).
Hanoi bank deposits reach
220tr dong
13/Oct/2006 Kinh Te Vietnam & The
Gioi page 7
Commercial banks in Hanoi have posted
strong performance growth in all aspects, especially network expansion, raising
deposits and lending so far this year, according to the assessment of the State
Bank of Vietnam’s Hanoi Branch.
By early October, total deposits at
banks in Hanoi had reached 219.913 trillion dong, up 25.5% year-on-year
and total outstanding loans also had increased 22.6% year on year.
ACB posts pre-tax profit of
430b dong in three quarters
12/Oct/2006 VNA
The Asian Commercial Bank (ACB)
attained a pre-tax profit of over 430 billion dong (US$26.8 million) in the first nine months of this year,
reaching 80% of its year's target.
Southern Bank raises
chartered capital
13/Oct/2006 Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam
page 3
Phuong Nam Joint Stock Bank or
Southern Bank yesterday October 12 announced that from October 11, its
chartered capital has increased to 1.290 trillion dong against the
former 580.42 billion dong.
200m shares to be issued on
HCM City STC
12/Oct/2006 Thoi Bao Kinh Te Saigon
page 7
The scope of HCM City Securities
Transaction Centre is expected to expand significantly due to the imminent
listing of at least 200 million shares equalling to two trillion dong
par value of 10 companies that have already submitted their applications for
share listing to the State Securities Committee (SSC).
Some major companies submitted their
applications including PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services JSC (PV
Drilling) with a chartered capital of 680 billion dong, Tan Tao
Industrial Park JSC (500 billion dong), Gas Petrolimex JSC (200 billion dong)
and the Southern Battery Company (102 billion dong).
HCM City trading floor to
become stock exchange in 2007
12/Oct/2006 MoF | VNA
The HCM City Securities Trading Centre
(HSTC) will be upgraded to become the first Stock Exchange in Vietnam in early
2007.
Top
MPI promises single guiding
decree to new investment law
12/Oct/2006 VnExpress
A decree guiding the implementation of
the Law on Investment will be applied directly without issuing further
circulars, according to Pham Manh Dung, head of the legal department under the
Ministry of Planning and Investment.
PM to make first visit to
Japan
12/Oct/2006 MSN Money | AP
Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung will
pay a five-day official visit to Japan next week to boost trade and economic
ties between the two countries, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said Thursday
October 12.
Forbidden foreign
investment list to be issued
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien | Xinhua
The government will soon publicise a
list of fields which either forbid or restrict foreign investment under its WTO
commitments, the Vietnam Economic Times
reported Thursday October 12.
New investment decree
issued
13/Oct/2006 Saigon Times Daily
Decree 108-2006-ND-CP of the
government dated 22 September 2006 is the most important decree to implement
Vietnam’s new investment regime introduced under the 2005 Law on Investment as
of 1 July 2006. The official text of Decree 108 was published in Vietnam’s
Official Gazette earlier this week, so Decree 108 will become effective as of
25 October 2006. Until then, the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s
provisional investment guidelines issued under Official Letter 5494-BKD-DTNN
dated 26 July 2006 remain in force.
Four areas targeted for
2007 anti-corruption programme
12/Oct/2006 Thanh Nien
Closer oversight of four major
corruption-prone areas will top the agenda next year for Vietnam’s
anti-corruption agency which released its action programme.
The Central Steering Committee for
Anti-Corruption will keep a close watch on infrastructure investment and land
administration, collection and spending of public revenues and management of
public property, banking, and trade.
500,000 companies targeted
by 2010
12/Oct/2006 Ha Noi Moi page 2
The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and
Industry of VCCI has launched a programme entitled: "Making suggestions
for the development strategy for 500,000 companies by 2010" in a move to
collect opinions from businesses, researchers and managers across the
country in order to improve the
business climate in Vietnam.
Top
…ends
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