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VN Bus. News (Apr. 22, 1997)
April 22: Coca-Cola promotion scheme falls flat in Vietnam
April 22: Vietnam To Invest $1.1 Bln In Fertilizer To 2000 - Report
April 22: Vietnam Foreign Visitors +1.3% In 1Q '97 Vs Yr Ago: Report
April 22: Bonds, lottery, taxes to fund Vietnam expressway
April 22: Statoil hopes to finalise Vietnamese gas project within five months
April 22: Vietnam state telecom company to raise 10.8 million dollars
April 22: Trade law headache for puzzled Vietnamese deputies
April 22: Vietnam and Norway sign bilateral trade accord
Coca-Cola promotion scheme falls flat in Vietnam
Hanoi (Reuter) - U.S. beverage giant Coca-Cola said on Tuesday that
the authorities in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City had denied the company
permission to run a promotion campaign which offers mountain bikes as
prizes.
Coca-Cola Holdings (Asia) Ltd's Vietnam office said in a statement
that the promotion was rejected in the southern city because, in the
opinion of the local Service of Trade, the chances of winning were too
low.
The Service of Trade was quoted in the Tuoi Tre newspaper as saying
the promotion was turned down because it was similar to another
prohibited scheme for ``A-One'' instant noodles.
``We realised the promotion...is similar to A-One's, which was
considered a way of cheating consumers and created and unhealthy
phenomenon among children that makes them rush to buy goods,'' deputy
director Nguyen Cuong was quoted as saying.
Coca-Cola pointed out that permission for the promotion had been
granted without any hitches in the north of the country.
The company declined to comment on Tuoi Tre's report, which said there
was a frenzy of Coca-Cola purchases by children desperate to win a
prize.
Coca-Cola reintroduced its drinks to Vietnam less than 24 hours after
a U.S. trade embargo was lifted in 1994.
___________________________________
Vietnam To Invest $1.1 Bln In Fertilizer To 2000 - Report
Hanoi (DJ) -- The state-owned Vietnam National Chemicals Corp. plans
to invest $1.1 billion from now to 2000 to upgrade and enlarge the
country's fertilizer production capacity, according to an official
media report Tuesday.
The corporation's goal is to produce 1.3 million metric tons of
nitrogenous fertilizer and 2.1 million tons of phosphorous fertilizer
by 2000, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said.
Vietnam consumed about 4.2 million tons of fertilizer in 1996 and
demand is expected to exceed 8.0 million tons by 2000.
Currently, the domestic fertilizer industry can meet only 8% of annual
demand for nitrogenous fertilizer, 40% for NPK fertilizer and 65% for
phosphorous fertilizer, VNA said.
Separately, the newspaper Tai Chinh va Thi Truong (Finance & Markets)
reported Vietnam has imported 340,000 tons of urea fertilizer so far
in 1997.
In 1996, the nation imported about 1.5 million tons of urea
fertilizer.
___________________________________
Vietnam Foreign Visitors +1.3% In 1Q '97 Vs Yr Ago: Report
Hanoi (DJ) -- Vietnam received approximately 432,000 foreign visitors
in the first quarter of 1997, up 1.3% from the year-ago quarter,
according to an official media report Tuesday.
Compared with the first quarter of 1996, arrivals by air rose 5.7% and
arrivals by land jumped 18%. Arrivals by ship, however, dropped 40%,
the newspaper Doanh Nghiep (Business) said, citing officials at the
Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
About 40% of the arrivals in the quarter came as tourists, and 24%
came to visit relatives, the newspaper said. About 19% of visitors
came for business, and 17% came for other purposes.
Approximately 1.6 million foreigners visited Vietnam in 1996.
___________________________________
Bonds, lottery, taxes to fund Vietnam expressway
Hanoi (Reuter) - Vietnam will issue bonds, tap proceeds from a
national lottery and impose new taxes to raise $4.5 billion for a new
north-south expressway over the next two decades, a Ministry of
Finance official said on Tuesday.
Tran Van Ta, director of the ministry's policies department, told the
Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam journal that all citizens would be called
upon to make a ``patriotic contribution'' to the controversial
project, which has been championed by Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet.
``Such a big project needs very careful calculation,'' Ta said. ``The
government is asking for thrift.''
He said 2.3-2.5 trillion dong ($197 million-$214 million) would have
to be raised every year between 1998 and 2020 to pay for construction
of the 1,800-km (1,100 mile) expressway.
About 40 percent of that would come from domestic bond issues, roughly
a third would be raised through national lottery proceeds, while the
rest would come from new taxes on fuel, vehicles and corporate profits
and business registration fees.
Deputies of the National Assembly -- in a rare moment of dissent --
earlier this month questioned the economic viability of the project
and called for a thorough examination of its costs.
Kiet's plan calls for vast labour teams comprised of youth volunteers
and national service conscripts to carve out a route through jungle
and mountain terrain.
Government officials have spoken of millions of workers being involved
on a route which will traverse parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail -- a
wartime network of paths and roads used to supply ordnance and men
from North Vietnam to the South.
A group of youth volunteers is set to walk down the route next month
in a blaze of state publicity marking the late president Ho Chi Minh's
birthday.
Kiet said last week the National Assembly was right to question the
project, but noted that the requirements and availability of resources
had already been carefully considered.
The official Communist Party daily also snapped at the U.S. radio
station Voice of America on Monday for questioning the wisdom of the
project, saying it was an internal affair.
Vietnam's creaking transport infrastructure, a legacy of decades of
war and poverty, is a major concern for both Hanoi and for potential
investors.
The existing north-south road, the French-built National Highway One,
is in most parts a potholed and narrow track running down the central
coast which is often severed by heavy rains.
___________________________________
Statoil hopes to finalise Vietnamese gas project within five
months
HANOI (AFP) - An offshoot of Norway's state-owned Statoil said Tuesday
it hoped to finalise within five months negotiations for a 1.2 billion
dollar natural gas, power and urea manufacturing plant in Vietnam.
Tore Sund, vice president of Statoil-Vietnam, told AFP: "We are in a
good mood now."
"For a country developing a gas industry from zero, it's really quite
good progress. If in the next three to five months we finish
negotiations we will still call it a world class performance," he
said.
Statoil, a Norwegian state-owned oil and gas concern, owns a 15
percent stake in a foreign consortium involed in natural gas
extraction.
The consortium is operated by British Petroleum (BP), which holds a 30
percent stake, while Indian oil company ONGC owns 55 percent.
The foreign companies are still negotiating with state-owned
Petrovietnam, which has an option to acquire an interest in the gas
venture.
The consortium discovered gas in the offshore Nam Con Son basin some
390 kilometres (241 miles) southeast of Ho Chi Minh City and in 1995
confirmed two trillion cubic feet (58 billion cubic metres) of natural
gas reserves.
Key issues still under negotiation include the purchase price of
natural gas still unresolved.
Timely completion of the project is of the essence, energy experts
say.
Energy hungry southern Vietnam could face shortages soon, and energy
bottlenecks could seriously hamper Vietnam's ambitious
industrialisation plans.
However Sund said that considering the size and complexity of the
project, together with Vietnam's inexperience in the energy field,
"progress is really very good."
BP, Statoil and Mobil of the United States are teaming up with
Petrovietnam to build a pipeline, which together with the gas
platform, is estimated to cost around 350 million to build, he said.
Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. (BHP) of Australia is the lead
partner in a proposed build-operate and transfer 600 megawatt power
plant including BP, Statoil, Tomen and Mitsui, both of Japan.
If all goes according to plan, construction of the platform, pipeline,
power plant and urea facility should begin by early next year, with
completion expected in the second half of 1999, Sund said.
___________________________________
Vietnam state telecom company to raise 10.8 million dollars
Hanoi (AFP) - A subsidiary of Vietnam's post and telecommunication
authority plans to increase its value 10-fold by issuing shares in
June, a company official said Tuesday.
The telecom equipment and cable plant (Sacom), a subsidiary of the
state owned Vietnam Post and Telecommunication (VNPT) plans to issue
240,000 shares with face value of 500,000 dong (45 dollars) to raise
10.8 million dollars.
The company is currently valued at just 1.34 million dollars, the
company oficial said. He did not indicate what the group plans to do
with the proceeds.
Some 51 percent of the shares will be sold to the state, 32 percent to
employees of VNPT, 15 percent to Sacom staff and a remaining two
percent will be available to the general public, he said.
Sacom's total sales last year were 6.36 million dollars, he said.
___________________________________
Trade law headache for puzzled Vietnamese deputies
HANOI (AFP) - Puzzled Vietnamese legislators are keen to pass sweeping
new trade legislation but are baffled by the text of the draft law
before them, the Vietnam News reported Tuesday.
"Several deputies are complaining the language used (in the draft law)
is so 'foreign' they cannot competely understand it," the daily said.
The deputies in the current sitting of the National Assembly say they
are flummoxed because the draft law is largely based on word for word
translations of current foreign laws.
The legislation would bring Vietnam into line with international
practice but other deputies have complained the law does not take into
account the rural commercial needs of this country, which is mostly
populated by peasants.
With 352 articles and seven chapters, the mammoth legislation could
cause fresh headaches before it comes to the vote early next week. It
includes a large section on company tax, covers private and state
firms, bankruptcy, civil aviation and agriculture.
___________________________________
Vietnam and Norway sign bilateral trade accord
HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam and Norway on Tuesday signed a trade accord
described by Norway as an interim agreement ahead of Vietnam's
eventual accession to to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The agreement was an interim deal to serve "until the time at which
Vietnam is ready for the WTO," said Kari Nordheim-Larsen, Norway's
minister for Development Cooperation.
Tuesday's accord, which Nordheim-Larsen co-signed with Vietnamese
Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Xuan Gia, establishes mutual
granting of most favoured nation status between Vietnam and Norway.
Nordheim-Larsen said the accord "establishes a framework for
commercial relations and provides procedures for talking about
procedures."
Both sides hope that by streamlining the process of commercial
relations, two-way trade will receive a boost.
In 1996 Norwegian exports to Vietnam were less than 5 million dollars,
while Norway imported roughly 25 million dollars from Vietnam, with
shoes and textiles accounting for the lion's share.
As of March, four Norwegian investments worth a combined 23 million
dollars had been licenced by Vietnam. These projects are in hydro
generation, shipping and oil and gas-related services.
This figure does not include Norwegian oil giant Statoil, which is
jointly developing an offshore gas field with British Petroleum in the
Nam Con Son basin.
The two sides also signed a memorandum of understanding on mixed
credits. The Norwegians have already targetted one project which
involves financing local administrative reforms in the rural province
of Ninh Binh about 80 kilometres (49 miles) south of Hanoi.
"We want to improve efficiency and institute a more democratic process
at the local level," she said.
Nordheim-Larsen, who described herself as a former anti-Vietnam war
activist, arrived in Vietnam on Sunday and will depart for Laos on
Wednesday.
Since her arrival here, Nordheim-Larsen said she was overwhelmed by
the burden of work shouldered by Vietnamese women.
"Women are working very hard in the fields, with children, with
households. But it surprised me that at the political level, decision
making in the administration, I see very few women."