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Sunday, February 5, 2012
Jan. 11 – The highest bonus given during Tet Festival comes from a foreign hotel industry company in Ho Chi Minh City amounting to US$21,000, according to the city’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
The department based the information on an official list of compiled from reports submitted by almost 1,000 companies. The department refused to give the name of the hotel. The lowest Tet bonus in Vietnam’s financial capital amounts to US$56 given by a local company says Thanh Nien News. Continue reading
Dec. 1 – Companies say they are expecting to give out higher bonuses for 2010 Tet Holidays compared to the previous year due to improving business says Vietnam Net.
The director of the Wage Department under Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), Tong Thi Minh, said that there was no official information about businesses’ Tet bonus levels but she expects the 2010 Tet bonuses to be higher than the previous year. Continue reading
By Joyce Roque
HANOI, Nov. 17 –Vietnam Briefing spoke with Robert Hughes, a principal at Tonkin Capital and a consultant for T&C Holding JSC. Hughes has been in Asia for 18 years taking top corporate posts in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the place he now calls home. He is also the former managing director of VietJetAir, the country’s first fully private airlines.
The T&C Holding JSC is a Vietnam-based conglomerate company with businesses in infrastructure project engineering and construction, logistics, warehousing and distribution of consumer products and investment market research and consulting. Hughes spoke to Vietnam Briefing about the ongoing challenges of doing business in the country based on his own experiences as a consultant for T&C Holdings JSC. Continue reading
By Joyce Roque
HANOI, Nov. 6 – The first thing you will remember on your drive out of Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport might also be the last thing you see as you leave the city – the motorcycles. The undulating wave of motorcycles that zip and turn to no apparent whim but its own. It is a scary experience at first but after a few hesitant tries and close calls of being inches away from a whizzing motorcycle, you will learn that the best way to work around it is to allow the motorcycles to react to you and not the other way around.
Despite Hanoi’s surrounding chaos, the city is thick with bohemian charm and atmosphere with its sprawling French-colonial architecture and vibrant art scene. The buildings are masked with whitewashed facades tinged with age and wooden shutters that let you imagine the days when colonialism was still considered romantic. Continue reading
Jul. 27 – Vietnam has confirmed that it will invest a total of US$200 million for Cambodia’s airline and banking industry.
The national carrier, Cambodia Angkor Air, will be a joint venture between Vietnam and Cambodia. Vietnam has agreed to provide US$100 million that will be invested within 30 years.
“Vietnamese side has invested US$100 million capital in Cambodia Angkor air,” Sok An, deputy prime minister and minister in charge of the Council of Ministers, was quoted by Xinhua during the agreement’s signing ceremony overseen by Prime Minister Hun Senand visiting Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong.
Jul. 24 – South Korea’s top retailer, Lotte, has confirmed that it will be expanding to the Vietnamese market when it opens its first branch in 2013.
The Lotte trade center will be located in Hanoi in partnership with the Coralis SA Company and spanning 65 floors. The building itself will cost an estimated US$280 million.
The Vietnamese branch will be its fourth one overseas after expanding in Russia and China. Lotte representative, Park Geum-soo, was quoted as saying by the Vietnam News Agency that the company will expedite penetration into emerging markets like Vietnam, Russia and India.
Jul. 22 – Vietnam’s Ministry of Transport has banned the Japanese firms, Taisei and Kajima, from construction projects in the country for a year because of the collapsed Can Tho Bridge that killed and injured many.
The head of the quality control department at the Ministry of Transport, Tran Quoc Viet, told Thanh Nien News by telephone that: “This is punishment to the Japanese companies for their involvement in the construction of the Can Tho Bridge that collapsed.”
The bridge was located 131 kilometers of Ho Chi Minh City and build over a river between Can Tho City and Vinh Long province. It collapsed in September 2007 and left more than 117 people seriously injured.
Jun. 18 – Vietnam is set to build a 128.5 kilometer railway linking Ho Chi Minh City to the border with Cambodia at a cost of US$438 million.
Construction will begin next year. The railway will form part of the Trans-Asia Railway linking Singapore and Kunming, China, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement.
The railway will be in part funded by development assistance from China and other international donors. A Chinese consulting consortium is working at a feasibility study on the project that should be submitted to the Vietnam Railway Department by the end of this month.
Jun. 11 – Direct overland shipments between Vietnam and Thailand are now possible through a regional customs transit system that eliminates the need for re-loading in Lao PDR.
The direct route along the East-West Economic Corridor begins from Danang, Vietnam, passing through Savannakhet, Lao PDR then on to Thailand. This is the first time that commercial trucks from Thailand and Vietnam can enter each others’ territory directly to deliver and pick up trade goods.
The regional customs transit system allows for single-window and single-stop border inspections that will cut overland transport time and increase trade and tourism.
“Ten years after Laos, Thailand and Vietnam first agreed to ease cross-border traffic rules, the promise of that agreement is truly being realized,” said Arjun Thapan, Director General of Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Southeast Asia Department in a statement.
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