VN Buss. News (Apr. 16, 1997)

[Vu Thanh Ca <vuca@envi.env.civil.saitama-u.ac.jp>]

Apr 16: Int'l Measurement Equipment Exhibit in Vietnam 
Apr 16: Vietnam's Hai Phong and Dong Nai Raise Export Revenues 
Apr 16: Japan Helps Vietnam Establish A Postal-Savings System
Apr 16: Taiwan's Miac Sets Up Computer Co. in Vietnam 
Apr 16: Vietnam To Build Three Railways In Southern Area
Apr 16: Vietnam beyond the backpack 
Apr 16: Vietnam-Japan Trade Ties Develop Steadily 
Apr 16: British-Singapore Mission Heads to Vietnam Jun 30 - Jul 4 
Apr 16: From floods to inflows of foreign investment 
Apr 16: Shiseido Co. Sees Vietnam As Promising Cosmetic Mkt
Apr 16: U.S., Vietnam/Copyright Pact: Establishes Legal Framework

Int'l Measurement Equipment Exhibit in Vietnam 

Hanoi (VNA) - An international exhibition on measurement equipment
will be held at the Hanoi Culture and friendship palace from April
24-27.

At the exhibition, the first of its kind in Vietnam, hundreds of
enterprises from Australia, Japan, Singapore, the United States and
European countries, including world leading groups and companies, will
display their up-to-date products and their use in scientific research
and application in technology and production.
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam's Hai Phong and Dong Nai Raise Export Revenues 

Hanoi (VNA) - Enterprises in the northern port city of Hai Phong
achieved an export turnover of $US41 million in the first three months
of this year, an increase of 19 percent compared with the same period
last year.

Of the figure, $US31.5 million were earned by locally-run enterprises.

Products for export which posted a higher growth rate include rubber
items (120 tonnes), footballs and volleyballs (128,000 balls),
footwear (2.32 million pair), base-paper (2,321 tonnes) and sucking
pig (358 tonnes) while seafood alone grossed $US952,000.

Export revenues of the southern province of Dong Nai reached $US65.7
million, an increase of 14.1 per cent over the same period last year,
in the first quarter of 1997.

Central and local enterprises accounted for $US24 million, while
foreign-invested JV enterprises accounted for nearly $US40 million.

Key export products are garments, agricultural products, fish, farm
engines, coffee, cashews, refined wood products and pottery, but 2,400
tonnes of rubber latex remained unsold.

Dong Nai imported $US55.4 million worth of goods in the first quarter.
                 ___________________________________


Japan Helps Vietnam Establish A Postal-Savings System 

TOKYO (AP-Dow Jones)--Just when critics of Japan's postal-savings
system are calling for its privatization, Japan appears to be
exporting the concept to Asia.

Japan's Post and Telecommunications Ministry is helping Vietnam, for
example, which is in the early stages of considering a similar service
to use post offices nationwide for collecting small deposits, says
Masahiro Nishimori, a postal-ministry director who visited Vietnam
earlier this year, reports Thursday's Asian Wall Street Journal.

Japan's postal-savings system is arguably the world's biggest
financial institution, boasting more than 220 trillion yen in assets
brought in through Japan's post offices. Japanese banks now complain
that it unfairly siphons off business they should be getting. But
during Japan's rebuilding years following World War II, the post
office played a crucial role in funneling savings into the country's
economy.

In Vietnam, likewise, a postal-savings system could help finance
economic-development programs, Nishimori says. The approach could be
just what Vietnam needs, says Junichi Yamada, a senior economist at
the Japanese government-sponsored Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.

The nation has a low savings rate, he says, in part because the
Vietnamese have tended to keep their nest eggs at home in gold, or
U.S. dollars where they can't aid the country's economic development.

But Yamada stresses that Vietnam should set up a postal-savings system
as just 'a transitional step' to boost the savings rate, not as a
permanent entity that might undermine the broader financial industry
later on.

In Vietnam, Ngo Phuong Chi, an officer in charge of Japanese finance
in the external finance department of the Ministry of Finance,
confirmed that the post-office savings system is under consideration.
However, he believes such a plan could take more than a year to be
implemented if it gains final approval to proceed because ' Vietnam's
financial institutions are undergoing reform' and wouldn't yet be able
to support such a project.

Vietnam apparently isn't the only Asian nation interested in learning
from Japan's example. The Japanese government agency recently held its
fifth annual international postal-savings workshop for two weeks.
Attending the seminars in Japan were delegates from 19 countries,
including Vietnam, China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Sri
Lanka.
                 ___________________________________


Taiwan's Miac Sets Up Computer Co. in Vietnam 

Hanoi (VNA) - The Mitac System Vietnam Co Ltd, owned wholly by
Taiwan's Mitac Inc, has just been set up in Hanoi.

This is the fifth computer company with 100 per cent of foreign
investment capital licensed so far in Vietnam, following IBM, Oracle,
Hewlett Packard and CPD.

The business has a total investment capital of US$2 million, including
US$1 million of legal capital. Its operations include developing
software, providing after sale and computer network services and other
services relating to information technology.

Mitac has come to Vietnam for several years and most recently it won a
bidding together with Compaq to provide informatic equipment of the
Ministry of Education and training in 1995 and 1996.

At present, Mitac holds some 0.5 per cent of the computer market in
Vietnam. However, it hopes to expand its foothold thanks to its strong
point in products for industry and military operation.
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam To Build Three Railways In Southern Area

Hanoi (VNA) -- Feasibility study for construction of three railways in
the South is being conducted with assistance from the Japanese
International Cooperation Agency for submission to the government in
September, a senior official of the Ministry of Transport and
Communications said.

The ministry will give first priority to the project to build a nearly
113 km railway linking Di An railway station (Ho chi Minh City) and
Loc Ninh province to the southwestern region.

The second project will build a 80 km railroad which will connect Bien
Hoa in Dong Nai province with the seaside resort city of Vung Tau. The
third comprises the construction of an eight km flyover from Binh
Trieu to Hoa Hung terminals in Ho Chi Minh City, upgrading Binh Trieu
and An Binh stations to serve bigger cargo and passenger trains, and
construction of a 28 km line from An Binh to Trang Bom, and a 450 m
rail-bridge spanning across Dong Nai river.

The three projects cost an estimated VND 2,900 billion (US$270
million), coming mainly from foreign loans, according to the ministry.
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam beyond the backpack 

By Tanya Hines
The Independent - London

"Good business today?", I asked my Vietnamese friend who runs his own
restaurant in Nha Trang, a beach resort a few hours drive from Ho Chi
Minh City. "No, just a pair of backpackers," he said with disdain.
"They order two bowls of noodle soup and drink one bottle of Saigon
beer (the cheapest beer) between them; they spend about a dollar each.
That's not going to give me enough to live on."

Try as they might, the Vietnamese just can't fathom backpackers. Why
would someone who's obviously rich - and in a poor country where 20 US
dollars a month is the average wage, every Westerner is rich - be so
tight- fisted when it comes to ordering food and drink, and dress in
such scruffy clothes?

Travellers are a funny lot. Note the use of the word "travellers". The
neighbours going on their bargain package deal to Crete are tourists.
We're travellers, we say, experiencing, not spoiling, a foreign
culture. It's a big difference, we say. Yet when it comes down to it,
many of us follow the herd.

Take the tendency that when we're far away from home, we suddenly feel
the urge to dress in clothes we wouldn't normally be seen dead in. Go
anywhere on the backpacking trail in Asia, and you'll feel like an
outcast if you're not parading in a T-shirt and baggy patterned pants,
with a friendship bracelet on your ankle and a bum-bag round your
waist.

Then there's what we choose to do with our time, having travelled to
the other side of the world. Instead of using local transport, most of
us catch tourist minibuses from A to B. When we get there, we hang out
in backpackers' bars and restaurants, drinking beer and fruit shakes,
eating pancakes and stir-fried noodles, not even attempting to mix
with the locals.

Mostly the Vietnamese just laugh and take our dollars, but sometimes
they are offended by the way backpackers dress. Charlotte, 26, from
Melbourne, southern Australia, is teaching English in Ho Chi Minh
City. She's been living in Pham Ngu Lao, the bustling backpackers'
district, for the past two years.

"What gets me is the skimpy vest tops and mini-skirts some of them
wear: they flaunt their midriffs like they're out for a night clubbing
in lbiza. It's just not suitable here, in a country where women still
keep on their clothes to go swimming."

The real Vietnam has to be seen to be believed. But experiencing
Vietnam isn't just about getting off the beaten track, although that's
surprisingly easy - it's about doing what the young Vietnamese do.
It's about di choi, which means cruising around after dark on a Honda
Dream, posing in your coolest gear - fake Armanis, DM shoes, and
rip-off designer label T-shirts a must.

It's about drinking Vietnamese coffee in huge open-air bars, lit with
hundreds of tiny multi-coloured lights, to the strains of Abba or
Boney M. Vietnamese musical taste is still in the 1970s. It's about
catching a minibus with 20 other people and two chickens crammed into
a space that should fit 10. It's about perching on child-sized plastic
stools - definitely not for Western bottoms - eating pho or noodle
soup for breakfast. But many Westerners miss out.

Ted, a worldly-wise American in his thirties, with an eagle tattoo on
his left arm, draws heavily on his cigarette in Bar 333, Saigon
(district 1 of Ho Chi Minh City) - yet another member of the
expatriate brigade teaching English in Vietnam.

"Most of them haven't got a clue about anything. You'll see what I
mean if you go to the Singh cafe early tomorrow morning: minibus after
minibus waiting for backpackers. They call a register, and herd people
into the buses. Singh cafe tours are for people who come to Vietnam
once and say they've 'done Vietnam'."

I took his advice and got down to the Singh at six the next morning.
Half an hour later the place was a heaving mass of rainbow-coloured
loon pants, backpacks and "I've survived Saigon" T-shirts. Then the
production line of buses started drawing up: Mekong Delta, Cu Chi
Tunnels, Dalat, Nha Trang, Hue, Hoi An, Vung Tau, Hanoi. Two hours
later, the place was a ghost town. At $7 for the trip from Saigon to
Dalat, for example - twice the price you'll pay on a public bus - the
cafe must be raking it in.

I found Charlotte, the English teacher again, having breakfast at
Kim's cafe, another popular travellers' hangout.

"Many backpackers allow just two-and-a-half weeks for the Hanoi-to-Ho
Chi Minh City run. That's no way near enough time. It's about the
worst possible way to see Vietnam. They have a list: Thailand,
Cambodia, Vietnam and China. Once they've ticked one country off on
that list, they go on to the next one. Then they go and lose
themselves in India".
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam-Japan Trade Ties Develop Steadily 

Hanoi (AAP) - Vietnam-Japan trade has seen an average growth of some
20 per cent a year over the past five years and is expected to be
worth US$4 billion in 1997.

Of the figure, Vietnam hopes to export US$2.5 billion to Japan and
import US$1.5 billion as compared to US$2.2 billion and US$1.2 billion
respectively in 1996, or 30 per cent of the total import-export value
of the country last year.

Vietnam's major export items to Japan in 1996 were crude oil (which
earned US$713 million), textiles and garments (US$146 million), coal
(US$55 million), and frozen and processed squid (US$64 million), while
imports included four-wheeled vehicles (costing US$90.7 million),
steel and iron (US$69 million), chemicals (US$41 million), and
construction machinery (US$43 million).

According to Mrs Pham Chi Lan, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber
of commerce and Industry, Vietnam-Japan trade ties have enjoyed a
rapid and steady increase compared to other markets. In Vietnam's
export market strategy to the year 2000, the Japanese market is
earmarked for 18-20 per cent of the country's total trade stressing
items long familiar to Japanese consumers.

Mr Yuji Miura of the Japan External trade organisation (JETRO) said
Vietnam was one of a few Japanese trade partners to record an export
surplus with Japan. He suggested Vietnam learn form the success of
other ASEAN countries on the Japanese market by exporting industrial
goods to Japan, starting with accessories and spare parts for Japanese
companies.
                 ___________________________________


British-Singapore Mission Heads to Vietnam Jun 30 - Jul 4 

SINGAPORE (AAP) - The Singapore-British Business Council (SBBC) is to
organise a joint trade mission to Vietnam from June 30 to July 4.

SBBC co-chairman for Singapore Cheong Quee Wah said the joint mission
would look into three areas in Vietnam -- ports and port development,
infrastructure and building materials.

The SBBC, which held its fifth meeting here Tuesday, announced major
initiatives for business collaboration in electronics, information
technology, healthcare and project collaboration in third countries.

The next meeting of the SBBC will be held in Britain in December this
year.

Cheong told reporters that the SBBC's objective was to act as a
match-maker for the SMEs (small and medium scale enterprises) of
Singapore and Britain.

SBBC co-chairman for Britain Sir Charles Powell said SBBC would look
into sending similar joint trade missions to western China and Central
Asia.
                 ___________________________________


>From floods to inflows of foreign investment 

The head of the Vietnam operations of Peregrine Investments Holdings
has been arrested in southern Ho Chi Minh City on tax evasion charges
- the latest twist in an 11-month investigation into the local company
and its chief.

Police swooped on Peregrine Capital Vietnam's headquarters on Monday
and took its Vietnamese-Australian managing director Nguyen Trung Truc
into custody. Peregrine Capital's logistics officer, Pham Thi Loan,
was also arrested.

The official Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said she had been taken into
temporary custody and might also face tax evasion charges.

Peregrine Capital's office and Truc's home were both searched, the
paper added. Officials would not say when or if the case will go to
court, but if convicted Truc could face a hefty prison sentence.

Truc's wife, Malaysian Deidre Low-Aili, who had also been the subject
of investigation, was in Hanoi at the time and caught the first
available flight back to Ho Chi Minh City, a source close to the
couple said. It remains unclear whether she is to face arrest.

Peregrine Capital Vietnam is 60 percent-owned by Hong Kong-based
Peregrine Investments Holdings. Truc, Low-Aili and a Singapore
businessman hold the remaining 40 percent.

"The charges [against Truc] are believed to relate to his personal tax
affairs and those of local companies with which he is associated,"
Peregrine Investments said in a statement on Tuesday which also named
an acting managing director.

It recalled that Ho Chi Minh City authorities earlier this year fined
Peregrine Capital US$59,000 for operating a business from an
unregistered office. The order followed a long investigation into the
operations of Peregrine Capital and a number of small local companies
with which Truc's family members were associated.

The statement quoted Alan Mercer, Peregrine group legal counsel in
Hong Kong, as saying the company had made representations to local
authorities that the fine was "excessive in the extreme" but
considered the matter closed.

"The [latest] charges against Mr Truc were a bolt from the blue. The
exact nature of the charges against Mr Truc are unclear," Mercer said.

"Naturally we are concerned about Mr Truc and his family and are doing
everything we can to assist the Australian consulate in Ho Chi Minh
City in its efforts to secure bail for him.

"Unfortunately, we have not been able to speak to Mr Truc since his
arrest."

Judd Kinne, an American who reportedly arrived in Ho Chi Minh City
from Singapore on Monday, was appointed acting managing director but
refused to comment on the case.

The investigation of Truc and his wife began last May when inspectors
raided his main office, a colonial-style villa in central Ho Chi Minh
City, and removed sheaves of documents. Soon afterward the couple's
passports were confiscated.

In July it was announced that Peregrine Capital Vietnam and affiliated
company Indochina Auto and Tractor would be prosecuted for allegedly
managing a dodge that tax inspectors estimated to be worth more than
US$1 million.

In addition, Truc and Low-Aili stood accused of evading US$350,000 in
taxes owed on the import of 80 cars.

In August, Nguyen Thi Cuc, Truc's sister and officially the director
of car sales company Tien Long - one of nine companies under Truc's
umbrella - was accused of evading tax on the import of cars and taken
into custody, where it is believed she remains. Last month Truc told
Asia Times Cuc still had not been charged and he was hopeful she would
be released soon.

His optimism was based on an unfounded belief that the case was
drawing to a close and that he had escaped a court appearance. In
March, Ho Chi Minh City authorities had announced "administrative"
fines totaling US$116,000 and other penalties against Truc, Peregrine
Capital Vietnam, four overseas companies Truc controlled and nine
nominee domestic Vietnamese companies registered to members of his
Vietnamese family but that he also directly controlled.

These held exclusive dealerships for several top foreign consumer
goods manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes-Benz,
Hewlett-Packard and Kenwood. They were to have their business
registration licences withdrawn.

The source close to Truc said the feeling in March was that the case
was drawing to a close. "We thought it was settled with that [the
fines] situation, but it seems not. They wanted to settle with the
company first and then now with him personally," he said. He added
that most of the nominee companies were still operating, as the
authorities had given a grace period before closure. Foreign observers
said Truc's high profile was part of his downfall. Successful
capitalists who flaunt their wealth are still viewed with suspicion in
communist-led Vietnam where the average annual per capita income still
hovers around the US$250 mark.

Although an Australian passport holder, Truc saw himself as
Vietnamese, and his dream was to build Vietnam's biggest and most
dynamic conglomerate. He dressed immaculately and loved to show off
his collection of vintage Citroen cars.

By March it was obvious the events had taken their toll on the
44-year-old Truc. A shaggy, patchy beard covered his once clean-shaven
features, his hair was graying and the sharp suit had been replaced
with a simple casual shirt and trousers.

"I've been through hell. We hope it is the end ... but nothing is
guaranteed," he said at the time.

At the time Johnson & Johnson said it was looking for a new
distributor and the flash city-center Mercedes-Benz showroom was
closed and all the staff had been laid off.

A former Peregrine Capital employee said: "After Peregrine started to
have problems we did not have many clients and not much [business]
activity."

Mercer said Peregrine was winding down its Vietnam operations as a
result of the saga and would be focusing on its core banking and
investment activities. -- SCMP
                 ___________________________________


Shiseido Co. Sees Vietnam As Promising Cosmetic Mkt

TOKYO (AP-Dow Jones)--The Vietnamese may be more affluent than
official statistics suggest, and that makes Vietnam a more attractive
market, says Yasutaka Mori, director for Asian operations at Japanese
cosmetics maker Shiseido Co. (J.SSD).

Mori describes Vietnam as one of the most promising markets in the
next century not only in Asia but also world-wide, reports Thursday's
Asian Wall Street Journal.

'But you can't see it through official statistics,' Mori says.

According to statistics Shiseido prepared using World Bank data,
per-capita output in Vietnam was only $275 in 1995 about one-tenth of
that in neighboring Thailand. But Mori says he's convinced these
public figures represent only half the actual buying power of the
Vietnamese people.

Moreover, he says, urban dwellers are much more affluent than those in
countryside, some of them making as much as $3,000 a year. 'People
have much more money than we imagine,' he says.

To tap this hidden potential, Shiseido recently announced a plan to
start marketing its cosmetics in Vietnam late this year. Vietnam today
looks a lot like China did several years ago, Mori says, when Shiseido
started business there: Sales of imported Shiseido cosmetics were
priced at the equivalent of a monthly salary of a female office worker
in China, but the products still sold well, he says.

Shiseido plans to open its first store in Ho Chi Minh City in
September and six more over the next 12 months, including stores in
Hanoi. It expects retail sales of 23 million yen in the first year and
240 million yen in 2000, Mori says, when it expects to have 30 sales
outlets in Vietnam.

The cosmetics maker has been beefing up its overseas operations, with
a goal of doing 25% of its overall sales outside Japan by 2000, up
from 9% at present. Shiseido is targeting Asia as for its biggest
chunk of overseas sales, aiming to do 40% of its overseas business in
the region.
                 ___________________________________


U.S., Vietnam/Copyright Pact: Establishes Legal Framework 

Dow Jones News Service

President Bill Clinton moved to begin the process of economic and
political 'normalization' with Vietnam in 1994, when he lifted a
broad-based trade embargo. And in 1995, the president took another
step formard with restoration of diplomatic relations.

Economic relations have still been thin, partly because of sluggish
progress over a bilateral trade agreement, which under U.S. law is
required for Vietnam to gain most favored nation (MFN) trade status
and other benefits, such as Export-Import Bank coverage.

The copyright pact is a big step forward, although really only the
first of a number of significant steps that are required. But the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which spearheaded the
negotiations, noted its importance in the context of normalizing
economic relations and, in more discreet terms, in regard to mounting
evidence of pirating operations in Vietnam.

'Areas of piracy include the transmission of American movies on state
television stations, and the establishment of CD factories in Ho Chi
Minh City,' the trade representative's office stated Wednesday. 'The
bilateral copyright agreement will provide the basis for protecting
U.S. works.'

Under the accord, according to Barshefsky's office, U.S. copyrighted
works are provided national treatment by Vietnam. And it gives U.S.
concerns the right to authorize or prohibit the reproduction of
copyrighted material.

The USTR added that the agreement 'provides for full and effective
enforcement of copyrights within Vietnam, including civil actions,
criminal procedures and penalties, as well as border enforcement.'

The bilateral agreement establishes legal ground rules for protection
of various U.S. copyrights, including computer software, movies and
music. It also means the USTR can temper any citation of Vietnam in
its annual report to Congress on intellectual property right
violations, officials say.

Vietnam's cultural ministry had a leading role in the negotiations. At
the same time, U.S. officials were worried about slow progress ahead
of the latest round of talks, particularly because the ministry also
controls broadcasting of the pirated U.S. movies.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a film, music and
computer industry trade association, welcomed the accord and added
that the signing of a the pact 'could be just the breakthrough that is
needed.'

It estimated losses of more than $50 million annually from pirating of
movies, videos, musical records, computer software and other
copyrighted goods in Vietnam. But more importantly, the association
underscored that Vietnam is expected to be a significantly larger
market for the U.S. in the years to come, making copyright protections
paramount.