VN news (June 5)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

Dutch woman killed in Ho Chi Minh city
Vietnam party members barred from private business
Vietnam army daily calls for green military
US, Vietnamese Vets Share MIA Info
Party Chief Do Muoi receives D.Peterson
First five months' state-owned industrial production grows by 11.1%
Vietnam rubber firm seeks help over china dispute
Vietnam may be future king of robusta coffee

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Dutch woman killed in Ho Chi Minh City

HANOI, June 5 (Reuter) - A Dutch businesswoman died after being stabbed by
bag-snatch thieves in southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, local officials
and diplomats said on Thursday. 

A diplomat at the Netherlands consulate in Ho Chi Minh City said the woman
was attacked while walking through the city centre Ben Thanh market with a
male colleague on Wednesday. 

Police and medical sources said she resisted the attack and was stabbed
twice, in the chest and back. She died before reaching hospital. Her
colleague suffered a 15-cm (six-inch) knife wound but was not critically
injured. 

The woman's identity was being withheld on Thursday while relatives were
informed of the death, the diplomat said. 

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, has a long history of violence.
Bag-snatches, muggings and pickpocketing involving foreigners have become
an increasingly common hazard since the country's doors were opened to the
outside world in the late 1980s. 

But crimes involving death or serious violence against tourists and
overseas business people are rare. 

The bustling Ben Thanh market, in Saigon's downtown District One, is a
city landmark and popular tourist attraction. 

Police said on Thursday that a suspected assailant had been arrested. An
official with the city's foreign relations department said the man had
been using narcotics at the time of the attack. 

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Vietnam party members barred from private business

HANOI, June 5 (Reuter) - Members of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party are
to be barred from private enterprise to prevent them from putting personal
interests before those of the people, a senior party official said in an
interview published on Thursday. 

Ho Chi Minh City party chief Truong Tan Sang's comments to the Saigon
Times Weekly follow a series of scandals which have exposed widespread
influence-peddling and corruption in business circles. 

The party agreed at a landmark congress one year ago that its members, who
number slightly more than two million, and their families should not be
involved in so-called "capitalist economic activities". 

But Sang, who is also a member of the powerful Politburo, indicated that
the rule was not being strictly followed. 

"I...note that there are abnormal phenomena of some party members who are
making a fortune today, especially those who are currently in the position
of authority," he said. 

He said guidelines would be issued so that private entrepreneurs who are
party members could sell shares in their companies to the state or their
employees. 

"Party members, those who lead the Vietnamese country, should not be
employers," Sang said, "They represent the benefits of the whole nation,
the working class and the masses. 

They themselves are not sanctioned to create unacceptable gaps between
them and the masses." A spate of high-profile fraud and corruption cases
in recent months has highlighted links between private enterprise, which
has grown from almost nothing during a decade of reform along market
lines, and the country's ranks of officialdom. 

The party believes that the state sector -- and specifically what it
refers to as "state capitalist economic activities" -- should continue to
play a leading role in the economy. 

Analysts say that stems from its determination to maintain a firm grip on
the economy in an increasingly freewheeling and individualistic society. 
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Vietnam Army Daily calls for green military

HANOI, June 5 (Reuter) - Vietnam's army newspaper said on Thursday that
its military hardware was suffering under the country's harsh tropical
environment, but called also for a more 'green-friendly' armed forces. 

The Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) newspaper reported a survey that
found that in one rusting army unit, only 50 percent of the weapons and
facilities were still usable after two years. 

It also called for soldiers to be educated on the need to respect the
environment, and said a protection force should be established to gauge
and limit the impact on the environment of military activities. 

Vietnam's armed forces number an estimated 572,000 people plus a strategic
reserve force of three to four million. 
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US, Vietnamese Vets Share MIA Info

HANOI (AP) -- American and Vietnamese war veterans swapped notes on old
battlefields and grave sites that may help determine the fate of some
servicemen from both sides who still are listed as missing in action. 

A delegation from Vietnam Veterans of America gave 10 documents detailing
grave sites and battlefield locations in southern Vietnam to their
Vietnamese counterparts on Tuesday, Ho Xuan Dich, the Hanoi-based
representative of the Vietnam Veterans Association, said Wednesday. 

The graves could contain the remains of communist soldiers from what then
was North Vietnam or U.S.-backed troops from South Vietnam, Dich said. 

The Vietnam Veterans Association, in return, provided the U.S. delegation
with two documents showing locations and times of battles involving U.S.
forces. One indicated a location where three American servicemen are
believed to be buried, Dich said. 

U.S. and Vietnamese veterans have exchanged information on several
occasions in the past. 

``We have told the American veterans that the information they provided
last time had produced results,'' Dich said in a telephone interview from
his office. ``We promised them we will continue to do our best to
cooperate.''

Vietnam recently discovered a series of mass graves in the south of the
country where both communist and South Vietnamese foot soldiers were
buried. 

About 1,600 U.S. servicemen still are listed as missing in Vietnam. More
than 300,000 are missing in action from the Vietnamese side. It wasn't
clear how many Americans may be found based on the new information, but
Dich said it could lead to perhaps 93 missing Vietnamese soldiers. 

According to Vietnam Veterans of America, 6,000 missing soldiers on the
Vietnamese side have been found thanks to information provided by U.S.
veterans. U.S. military and civilian experts, meanwhile, are still working
in Vietnam to determine what happened to those still unaccounted for. 
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Party Chief Do Muoi receives D.Peterson

(SGT-Hanoi) General Secretary of VN Communist Party Do Muoi received the
U.S. ambassador to VN Doughlas Peterson yesterday afternoon. 

The ambassador sent greetings and regards of President Bill Clinton to
General Secretary Do Muoi. 

Mr. Do Muoi appreciated the U.S. ambassador appointment to VN and
emphasized that VN continues to help the U.S. in MIA accounting and also
hopes the U.S. will help Vietnam in similar way. He expected the bilateral
relations will be developed. 
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First five months' state-owned industrial production grows by 11.1%

(SGT-HCMC) In the first five months of 1997, the State-owned industrial
sector's production increased by 11.1% compared with the same period last
year, according to reports released by the Statistics Bureau. 

Centrally run enterprises' production went up by 10.4% while the
production of enterprises under provincial and municipal levels increased
by 12.6%. 

The value of the first five months' industrial production amounted to
VND49,355 billion, up by 13.7% compared with last year. The value of
foreign-invested enterprises' production amounted to VND12,467 billion, up
by 22.8%, the State-own enterprises VND24,982 billion and the non-State
enterprises VND 11,886 billion, up by 10.6%. 

Major increases are reported in commercial power supply (up by 13.8%
compared with the same period last year), crude oil (+23.4%), cement
(+31.3%), diesel-fueled and electricity-powered engines (+19%), cooking
oil (+27.3%), detergents (+16%) and beer (+11.7%). 

In addition, other industries such as food processing, beverages, leather,
garments, plastics, cosmetics and construction materials have reported
significant growth. Commodities produced by these sectors have been
competitive on the local and overseas markets. 

Major decreases were reported in the production of machine tools (-14.8%),
transformers (-3.4%), electric fans (-24.1%), sodium hydroxide (-16.7%),
tinned milk (-9.6%), knitwear (-6.3%), molasses (-3.8%). 
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Vietnam rubber firm seeks help over China dispute

HANOI, June 5 (Reuter) - Vietnam's General Rubber Corporation (GRC) said
on Thursday it had asked the government to intervene following a decision
by China to halt imports of rubber from its southern neighbour. 

"It's led to a blockage of tens of thousands of tonnes of rubber in the
border area," GRC's Deputy Director General Le Van Binh told Reuters. "We
want the government to intervene." Binh said Chinese officials had imposed
the ban in retaliation for restrictions announced by Vietnam last month on
imports of Chinese bicycles. 

The result was a surge in smuggling of rubber into China, he said. 

Vietnam exported 70,000-80,000 tonnes of rubber to China in 1996 through
its semi-official channels. Estimates for the amount smuggled were not
available. 

Binh said the country had produced about 50,000 tonnes of latex so far
this year. Vietnam's output for 1997 was expected to reach 150,000 tonnes. 
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Vietnam may be future king of robusta coffee
By Maja Wallengren

VIENNA, June 5 (Reuter) - Emerging coffee producer Vietnam is poised to
become the world's biggest robusta producer, coffee traders and industry
officials said. 

Meeting in Vienna for the Second International Coffee and Tea Symposium
conference this week, they agreed the communist country of more than 70
million people was already closing in on Indonesia, currently the world's
biggest robusta grower with an annual production of some 400,000 tonnes. 

"Vietnam will most likely be the biggest producer of robusta coffee in the
world in five years' time," said leading Italian coffee roaster Silvano
Corsini, president of Caffe Corsini. 

"Ten years ago they produced close to nothing and look at them now," he
added. "We processed 100,000 bags (60 kg each) of green coffee last year,
of which 25,000 bags came from Vietnam, and two years ago it was nothing."
Corsini told Reuters he planned to make increased use of Vietnamese coffee
in his company's blends, because of the bean's relatively good quality. 

"It's a good bean for a good price from new plantations of a consistent
medium-level quality. For us, Ivory Coast is the biggest supplyer of
robusta, but Vietnam now almost equals Ivory Coast," he said. 

Claus Nette, general manager of German trader Bernhard Rothfos GMBH, a
fully-owned subsidiary of Germany's Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, said Vietnam
had "very exciting expansion plans" for robusta plantation. 

In the early 1980s Vietnam produced only about 20,000 tonnes of coffee,
but production has in recent years jumped to some 250,000 tonnes. 

One trader said according to recent estimates Vietnam was expected to
produce close to 300,000 tonnes in the 1996/97 (October to September) crop
season. 

Earlier crop estimates for Vietnam have varied at between 270,000 to
280,000 tonnes for the current year. 

"(Vietnam) is a major factor in the robusta market now and it will
continue to stay a major robusta producer with the production costs in
Vietnam being in the lower end of the world," Nette told Reuters. 

Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, through Bernhard Rothfos, traded some 40,000 tonnes
of Vietnamese coffee in 1996, mostly to European markets, he said, adding
that Vietnam was making some progress in improving quality. 

"There have been quite some efforts to improve quality and they are making
good results to improve the image," said Nette. 

Leading Indonesian exporter Prasidha acknowledged the potential threat to
Indonesian robusta growers posed by Vietnam, but added Indonesia was
concentrating at producing a better quality rather than trying to match
Vietnam's growth. 

African robusta grower Uganda, which has forcast its 1996/97 crop to reach
about 260,000 tonnes, has also expressed concern about Vietnam's rapid
crop growth. 

"We are concerned about the pace with which Vietnam has increased
production, but we can't do anything about it," Prasidha President and
Chief Executive Operator Mansjur Tandiono told Reuters. 
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