Re: Tobacco Donation

[ianb@sun670.telecom.tandem.com (Ian Bui)]

Hello everyone,

Is this good news or bad news, I wonder... And does anybody know 
whether the value of the donated equipments are commensurable to
the tax breaks and other benefits KTGC will receive in return?

Monetary values aside, the "donation" still doesn't sound like a 
very healthy exchange to me. Who'll stand to gain the most? Who
will end up as losers?

Ian

ps. in paragraph 3, note yet another usage of "protocol" :)

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> SEOUL (Yonhap) - Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corp. (KTGC) said today
> that it has donated a cigarette soft packer and a film wrapper to the
> People's Committee of Vietnam's Phuyen Province.
>
> The state-run firm held a donation ceremony Monday morning at New
> World Hotel in Seoul, with KTGC president Kim Young-tae and Phuyen
> Tobacco Co. president Huynh Nhat Tao attending.
>
> In the ceremony, the two sides exchanged a protocol on a one-year
> exemption of consumption tax on "This", KTGC's cigarette brand sold in
> Vietnam, and KTGC's continous supply of cut tobacco, a core material
> for cigarettes.
>
> The two companies also agreed to make a joint entry into the markets
> of Laos and Cambodia.
>
> The Korean cigarette maker sent a technical contingency, along with a
> cigarette-producing facility, to the Vietnamese firm in 1995, followed
> by the settlement of a contract last August to produce KTGC's "This"
> cigarettes locally in Vietnam.