VN news / business news (July 22)

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

Initiator of 'Doi Moi' points to negative consequences 
Vietnam expands its placement of overseas workers 
Taiwanese relieved of gold by Vietnamese customs 
Call for Vietnam deputies to tackle rural problems 
Police arrest 17 in Vietnam for trafficking women to Cambodia
Namibian foreign minister in Vietnam 
Vietnam heralds the triumph of its electoral system 
Spratly voters brave rain and rough sea in Vietnam elections
Weary Muoi ready to lay down burden 
ABB Boveri licenced to build transformers in Vietnam 
Louis Vuitton opens first Vietnam outlet in Hanoi 
Vietnam Airlines 1H Passenger Figures Up 7.8% On Yr
U.S. Delegation On Standards To Visit Vietnam July 28-31 
Vietnam Waives Tax On Some Foreign Imports Of Building Goods

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Initiator of 'Doi Moi' points to negative consequences 

HANOI, July 22 (Kyodo) _ The founder of the renovation policy in Vietnam
has called for attention from local and central authorities to the widening
gap between the rich and the poor in the Mekong delta, an organ daily
of the Vietnamese Communist Party reported Tuesday.

"The gap between the rich and poor has recurred in quite a few places
in the Mekong delta," Nguyen Van Linh, former general secretary of the
ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, said in an article published by the
Nhan Dan (People) daily after his recent fact-finding tour of the country's
largest rice-producing area in the south.

The policy, called "Doi Moi" in Vietnamese, was initiated by Linh in
1986, liberalizing the workforce in the country and improving the life
of the people, especially of the farmers who make up 80% of the population.

A considerable achievement of the Doi Moi in Vietnam's agriculture is
that the country, which used to suffer from chronical food shortage,
has become the third-largest rice exporter in the world, exporting more
than 3 million tons last year.

But Linh told the paper, "The number of peasants who have little land
or none at all to cultivate is increasing because of various reasons."

"The situation of health care and education is also very bad. Illiteracy
is worsening," the Nhan Dan quoted Linh, who quit as vietnam's leader
in 1991 and has since been working as an adviser to the party, as saying.

Linh attributed the situation to the fact that rice, the only source
of income to rice-growing peasants, cannot fetch enough money because
state-run companies refuse to buy rice from peasants at a government-fixed
prices while private traders offer too low a price, the paper said.

"Another noteworthy fact is that the state only collects tax from them
in cash, not rice, and this intensifies the pressure on peasants because
they have no other choice than to sell rice to private traders at a low
price," Linh told the paper.

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Vietnam expands its placement of overseas workers 

Hanoi (dpa) - Vietnam has sent 5,100 workers overseas during the first
half of the year - twice the number sent abroad last year - but a lack
of technaical and language skills is hampering a faster expansion of
this new foreign currency income stream, said an official report Tuesday.

More than half the workers are employed in South Korea, the largest hirer
of Vietnamese since the country started moving into the overseas labour
market outside the former Soviet Bloc.

New markets include the Japanese fishing sector, which this year has
signed on more than 700 Vietnamese and in Kuwait there are now roughly
300 Vietnamese doing construction, which is viewed as a experiment for
other Middle Eastern countries, according to a report in the state-run
Vietnam News.

Vietnamese are also working in Libya and Laos but the export labour industry
suffers from a lack of capital to research new markets and further promote
existing ones, the report added.

Two-thirds of the workers sent abroad have received unspecified technical
jobs while the balance are manual laborers.

But the lack of language and other skills is inhibiting the expansion
of this sector, said the report.

"These disadvantages limited the number of labourers to be sent abroad
annually and the industries they work with are restricted as well,"
said the report.

The government plans to issue new policies and to "intensify regulations"
to rememdy the situation, the report added.

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Taiwanese relieved of gold by Vietnamese customs 

Hanoi (dpa) - A 30-year old Taiwanese businessman had six kilogrammes
of gold confiscated by Vietnamese customs after he tried to leave the
country without declaring the precious metal, officials said Tuesday.

The man, identified by officials as Huang Ting Kuo, was detained for
several days after his arrest earlier this month but later released.

The six gold bars - described in local press accounts as Swiss gold -
were valued at roughly 75,000 dollars, based on local prices.

The Taiwanese man was arrested July 11 as he tried to leave Tan Son Nhat
Airpot in southern Ho Chi Minh City, said a customs official there.

"He was well-dressed and good-looking, but he would not tell us anything
about why he was trying to take the gold out of the country," said a
customs official by telephone.

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Call for Vietnam deputies to tackle rural problems 

Hanoi, July 22 (AFP) - Vietnam's former Communist Party Secretary Nguyen
Van Linh urged officials to tackle urgent rural problems outlined in
a newspaper commentary Tuesday.

Linh, who was replaced by current party chief Do Muoi in 1991 called
on new national assembly members to address "urgent issues" ranging from
alcoholism to landlessness among farmers.

"I suggest National Assembly deputies elected in this legislature bring
up the issue and work out concrete and practical solutions," Linh said.

Linh's comments, which were carried in a signed commentary on the front
page of the official Communist Party organ Nhan Dan newspaper, came two
days after national elections were held on Sunday. Results are expected
within a week.

The former party leader urged measures to stem rising income disparities
in the southern Mekong delta between "small landlords and wretched peasants."

He blamed the widening rich-poor divide on inequitable credit allocation,
low rice prices, and a distribution system which favours private traders
at the expense of farmers.

He said that many farmers could barely make ends meet, and were forced
to sell or mortgage their land and belongings to finance unexpected expenses
such as medical bills.

While Vietnam's official annual per capita income is about 280 dollars,
incomes in rural areas, which account for 80 percent of the population,
average between 80 and 90 dollars.

This month the English-language daily Vietnam News reported that as much
as 10 percent of farmers in some Mekong provinces had given up their
land to become labourers.

Vietnam virtually abandoned collectivized agriculture in the late 1970s,
but the notion that each family should have a plot of land still pervades
official socialist thinking.

Linh also decried social service provision. "Healthcare and education
are very bad and child illiteracy, drop outs and adult illiteracy are
all on the rise," he said.

The drop in educational standards was accompanied by a rise in social
evils, he said.

"Presently there are no forms of entertainment in rural areas and that
gives rise to gambling, drinking and playing lotteries."

"Even a large number of women drink alcohol as well as men," he added.

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Police arrest 17 in Vietnam for trafficking women to Cambodia

Hanoi, July 22 (AFP) - Seventeen people have been arrested in Ho Chi
Minh City for organising a network trafficking women to Cambodia as prostitutes,
police said Tuesday.

Confirming local reports of their arrest on July 18, police said the
network had been recruiting women from the city since 1996, but declined
to give details of the number involved.

Several thousand Vietnamese women have been sold into prostitution in
recent years, particularly in China, Cambodia and Macau according to
local reports and women's groups.

More than 100 people in Vietnam have been tried for trafficking women,
but so far the maximum sentence has been no more than ten years.

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Namibian foreign minister in Vietnam 

Hanoi, July 21 (AFP) - Namibian Foreign Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab is
in Vietnam on a four-day official visit, a Vietnamese foreign ministry
official said on Monday.

Gurirab arrived in Hanoi on Saturday and held talks with his Vietnames
counterpart Nguyen Manh Cam.

It is the first official visit by a Namibian representative since the
two countries established diplomatic relations in 1990.

The two sides do not expect to sign any accords during Gurirab's visit,
which ends on Tuesday.

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Vietnam heralds the triumph of its electoral system 

Hanoi, July 21 (AFP) - Vietnamese newspapers, radio and television on
Monday trumpeted the triumph of Vietnam's electoral system with nearly
100 percent voter turnout in National Assembly elections at the weekend.

The front pages of all major dailies featured banner headlines in patriotic
red ink heralding the Sunday voting exercise, described by Communist
Party General Secretary Do Muoi as "the great festival of the people."

More than 40 million people, some of whom braved heavy rains and flooding,
went to the polls to choose 450 National Assembly deputies from a field
of 663 candidates for five-year terms.

"Tell the world about Vietnamese democracy," the 80-year-old Muoi told
local and foreign reporters on voting day.

The Quan Doi Nhan Dan army newspaper featured photos of senior leaders,
miners with headlights, women in minority dress and soldiers, dutifully
casting their ballots under the watchful gaze of a bust of revolutionary
leader Ho Chi Minh.

Full results of the elections are not expected for about a week, but
figures are expected to begin trickling out on Wednesday.

The elections are not expected to yield any surprises and few voters
expect the new faces on the "highest body of the land" will usher in
any substantial changes not sanctioned by the Communist Party.

Moreover all 663 candidates, including 11 "independents" -- those with
no affiliation to any official organization -- were carefully vetted
in advance by the parties umbrella group, the Fatherland Front.

None of Vietnam's three most powerful men, Do Muoi, President Le Duc
Anh and Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet sought reelection, but they still
retain their positions on the all-powerful Communist Party politburo.

Successors to Anh and Kiet will be chosen by the new assembly in September
and Muoi said Sunday he was ready to step down from his appointed post
as party chief.

Many cities claimed better than 99 percent voter turnout, a success the
local press attributed to propaganda and organizational efforts of election
officials.

Ho Chi Minh City reported 99.61 percent voter attendance, and Hanoi 99.14
percent, while northern Thai Binh Province claimed 99.97 percent of voters
turned up according to official figures released Monday.

Despite the massive turnout, most voters were apathetic about the results.

"I voted, but I don't really care about the results. It isn't going to
make any difference" a recent Hanoi college graduate told AFP.

Loudspeakers began blaring early Sunday morning reminding citizens of
"their duty and their right" to go to the polls.

To ensure a massive turnout electoral officials began making housecalls
by mid-afternoon Sunday to those who had failed show up at voting stations.

Voting in Vietnam is not compulsory.

The fruits of those efforts were no better demonstrated than in Truong
Sa, a military outpost in the Spratly Islands, where 100 percent of voters
had "fulfilled their duty" four hours after polls opened.

The official Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan said "tens of dozens
of soldiers," many of whom were aboard ships, voted despite rough seas
and rain.

The paper did not say exactly how many people on Truong Sa cast ballots
and the authorities usually keep secret the number of Vietnamese on the
islands, which are at the centre of a regional territorial dispute.

Vietnam, Brunei, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines lay claim
to all or part of the Spratly chain.

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Spratly voters brave rain and rough sea in Vietnam elections

Hanoi, July 21 (AFP) - Tens of dozens of soldiers and sailors stationed
in a Vietnam-occupied island of the disputed Spratly chain in the South
China Sea, braved rough seas and rain to vote in the country's national
assembly elections, reports said Monday.

The official Vietnam News English daily said 100 percent of eligible
voters on Truong Sa Island in the Spratlys cast ballots on Sunday with
voting completed a few hours after polls began.

Officials from the National Election committee refused to say how many
voters were registered, claiming the information was confidential.

The official communist daily Nhan Dan said the barren island was festooned
with bright red banners, Vietnamese flags and slogans, and tens of dozens
of soldiers were seen "diligently discussing the potential candidates."

One ballot box was set up outdoors in front of the stone marker claiming
Vietnamese sovereignty over the Spratlys.

China, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines also lay claim to
all or part of the Spratly chain, believed to lie atop a rich bed of
mineral and oil reserves.

One voter said the new legislature should "have a policy to enable the
Spratly Island district to develop," the Nhan Dan reported.

Sunday's elections were the fifth since 1972 in the Spratlys, which are
incorporated into Khanh Hoa province on the southeast coast of Vietnam
463 kilometres away (290 miles).

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Weary Muoi ready to lay down burden 

South China Morning Post
By GREG TORODE in Hanoi
Feeling the years: Do Muoi talks to reporters after casting his ballot
in Hanoi.

The nation's top leader yesterday hinted he is keen to retire, saying
he is tired and wants to rest.

Do Muoi, the 80-year-old General Secretary of the Communist Party, said
he had asked to rest but the "party and the people" had not yet approved
his departure.

"I feel a bit weak now and I want to rest. My strength becomes weaker
and weaker as I get older," Mr Muoi said after voting in yesterday's
National Assembly elections.

"The question is whether my mind is still good enough. If my mind cannot
turn over and is not working then it will hold up the work of the party
and the Government," he added, tapping his mane of thick grey hair.

Mr Muoi's comments follow mounting speculation that previously deferred
changes among the country's ruling troika are imminent. Replacements
for President Le Duc Anh, 77, and Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, 74, are
expected to be announced when a new National Assembly convenes in September.

Their departure is expected to spark moves within the party's Central
Committee to find a leader for the top spot to balance and re-energise
reforms, political sources say.

The trio unexpectedly extended their five-year terms at last year's party
congress when no closed-door agreement was found over replacements.

All eyes are currently on the military's top political commissar, 
Lieutenant-General Le Kha Phieu, for the leading post.

Mr Phieu, currently No 5 in the Politburo, is little known outside the
party but has a formidable reputation as a disciplinarian and for his
firm commitment to secure Communist Party rule.

Mr Muoi's leadership has been marked by widespread social and economic
reform and Vietnam's move back into the regional and international fold
after decades of isolation.

Many foreign analysts believe the next stage of reforms will be more
difficult, particularly moves to liberalise trade and a monolithic state
enterprise sector.

Any new team faces the challenge of keeping reforms moving while juggling
one-party domination amid widespread social change and growing differences
between the urban rich and rural poor.

Mr Muoi is one of the last leaders to date back to the earliest days
of the Vietnamese revolution and as leader has trodden a fine line between
the Government of reformer Mr Kiet and General Anh.

The son of a house painter, he has spent a lifetime in the Communist
Party, becoming a reformist prime minister in 1986 and then party boss
five years later.

In the 1930s, a teenage Mr Muoi organised strikes against French colonial
rulers who later beat and starved him in the jail later known as the
"Hanoi Hilton".

Yesterday, dressed in a white revolutionary tunic of raw silk, Mr Muoi
said it was up to the "party and the people" to decide his replacement.

"I will continue my work until I am asked to rest," he said.

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ABB Boveri licenced to build transformers in Vietnam 

Hanoi, July 22 (AFP) - Swedish power giant ABB Asea Brown Boveri has
received a licence to invest in a 9.7 million dollar joint venture in
southern Vietnam, a company official said on Tuesday.

A representative from the ABB Hanoi office told AFP the group had teamed
up with a local company controlled by the Ministry of Industry in Dong
Nai province to produce transformers and electrical switching equipment.

ABB has a 65 percent stake and local company Electrical Equipment Co.
holds 35 percent in a the project licenced for 35 years.

It is ABB's second manufacturing project in Vietnam, where the group
has also sold more than 100 million dollars of power generation equipment.

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Louis Vuitton opens first Vietnam outlet in Hanoi 

Hanoi, July 22 (AFP) - French luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton has opened
its first shop in Vietnam a company representative said on Tuesday.

Tammy Kan, Hongkong-based retail operations manager for Louis Vuitton
Asia who was in Hanoi to open the shop in the Hotel Sofitel Metropole
told AFP the shop hopes to eventually cater to affluent Vietmanese.

But that will take some time in a country where the official per capita
income is 280 dollars. Prices at the Hanoi shop range from 130 dollars
for a key holder to a 3,000 dollars for a suitcase.

Richard Kaldor, general manager of the Sofitel which is operating the
retail outlet under licence for Louis Vuitton expects to depend mainly
on tourist trade.

"We aren't out to crack the domestic market. Realistically there will
be very little business from locals," he said.

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Vietnam Airlines 1H Passenger Figures Up 7.8% On Yr -Report 

Hanoi (AP-Dow Jones)-- Vietnam Airlines transported 1.36 million passengers
in the first half of 1997, up 7.8% from a year earlier, but below its
target, the Vietnam Economic Times reported Tuesday.

The state-owned paper said 533,000 passengers went to international
destinations.

Almost 22,000 tons of cargo were transported, of which 10,000 tons went
overseas.

The passenger figures were equal to 45% of the state-owned company's
full-year target, while the cargo shipments met 47.8% of their target,
the paper said.

However, it quoted an airline official as saying Vietnam Airlines may
meet its full-year target as there are a number of major events planned
for the second half of the year, including the upcoming Francophone Summit
to be held in Hanoi.

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U.S. Delegation On Standards To Visit Vietnam July 28-31 

Hanoi, July 22 (Dow Jones) -- A U.S. delegation on Standards will be
in Vietnam on July 28-31 to advise the Vietnamese Directorate for Standards
and Quality on international standards and to give presentations on 
standards-related topics, the United States Information Service said Tuesday.

The delegation is expected to give the Vietnamese guidance on international
quality standards for textiles and processed foods which could help bolster
Vietnam's exports.

The Vietnamese government has said increasing exports is a priority.
In 1996 Vietnam's trade deficit was $4.0 billion.

The USIS said the visit marks a 'significant step in the strengthening
of U.S.-Vietnam economic relations.' and could pave the way to lowering
non-tariff trade barriers.

The U.S. delegation will consist of representatives from the U.S. National
Institute of Standards and Technology and the American National Standards
Institute.

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Vietnam Waives Tax On Some Foreign Imports Of Building Goods

Hanoi, July 22 (Dow Jones) -- Foreign investors in Vietnam may import
some building materials without paying import tax if the materials are
to be used in the building of hotels, offices, rental apartments and
hospitals, Vietnamese newspapers reported Tuesday.

The tax break applies only to the first shipment being imported and only
to foreign investment projects licensed before Nov. 23, 1996, the newspaper
reported.

The exemption would not apply to equipment being imported to replace
or upgrade earlier equipment.

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