VN news (July 28)

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

Australia Plans Security Talks With China, Vietnam, Thailand
Vietnam calls for more "equitable" relations with the United
Thailand, Vietnam near boundary treaty 
Father of Vietnam's reforms slams U.S. capitalists 
Vietnamese researcher hooked to help others kick heroin habit
Vietnam Vietcombank Paying Off Letters Of Credit - Report 
Asian Cash Rice Steady; Fears Of Flooding In Vietnam 
Foreign joint ventures lead industrial and export growth in Vietnam
U.K. Standard Chartered Hoping For HCMC Full License 
Cushman & Wakefield invades Vietnam 
Myanmar Leader Meets with Vietnamese Trade Minister 
Authorities Call for Freezing Hotel Construction in Hanoi 
Foreign Banks Capturing Vietnam's Credit Market 

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Australia Plans Security Talks With China, Vietnam, Thailand

KUALA LUMPUR (AP)--Australia is expanding its security contacts with
Asian nations in what Foreign Minister Alexander Downer described Monday
as a major breakthrough.

Downer said Australia will begin regular bilateral security dialogues
with the Philippines, Thailand, China and Vietnam. The talks will involve
high-level officials from the foreign and defense ministries, he said.

"These talks add further depth and substance to Australia's regional
engagement," he said. "This is a major breakthrough in Australia's regional
security network."

Downer, who is in Kuala Lumpur for meetings with the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, said the consultations should help 'enhance confidence'
among countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Last year Australia began regular security talks with South Korea and
Japan, Downer said.

He said Australia plans to continue its current level of development
assistance to Cambodia despite a coup there, but expects coup leader
Hun Sen to respect the 1991 Paris Peace Accords that established the
country's current government, protect human rights, and hold free elections
as scheduled next year.

"If the situation in Cambodia should deteriorate, then we'll have to
have another look at our development assistance," he said.

Downer said he was "very concerned" about reports from Papua New Guinea
that rebellious soldiers had seized the commander of the country's defense
force and demanded amnesty for their role in a March mutiny.

He said he hoped the incident was not a sign of new instability in the
country, and said it was vital that the military remain under government
control.

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Vietnam calls for more "equitable" relations with the United
States 

Hanoi, July 28 (AFP) - Former Vietnam Communist Party chief Nguyen Van
Linh on Monday urged his country to seek more "equitable relations" with
the United States in economic and war-related spheres.

Linh chided the United States for spending millions of dollars on the
recovery of remains of soldiers 'missing in action' (MIAs) since the
Vietnam war while having failed to give a clear response to Vietnamese
requests for aid to victims of Agent Orange.

In a commentary which appeared in the Saigon Giaphong newspaper over
the weekend Linh accused the United States of bullying Vietnam before
and after the lifting of an economic embargo in 1994.

He argued that since then US businesses have brought with them meagre
amounts of capital and technology while flooding Vietnam with US consumer
goods.

Linh's article was entitled "International relations should be more equitable,"
but only the United States was singled out.

"While many capitalist countries have established good commercial relations
with Vietnam ... since the lifting of the embargo the United States has
posed many problems to pressure Vietnam in order to serve its self interest,"
he said.

Linh was retired as party chief, Vietnam's most powerful position, in
1991 when he was replaced by Do Muoi.

His reemergence from relative obscurity has caused some observers to
wonder what is going on behind the scenes within the Communist Party.

Last week all major dailies carried his commentary on urgent issues ranging
from alcoholism to landlessness among farmers.

In his latest article he reminded readers of US atrocities during the
war and said the United States reneged on its commitment of more than
three billion dollars in aid following the end of the war in 1975.

The idea, which was suggested in private by US President Richard Nixon
before the end of the war was never officially promised.

Secret negotiations on normalization, which foundered on the question
of the three billion dollars continued during the administration of President
Jimmy Carter until December 1978 when Washington and Bejing officially
normalized ties, effectively freezing Vietnam out.

He accused unnamed US interests of repeatedly denouncing efforts and
cooperation by Vietnam in the search for MIAs.

"They never cease to deplore that Vietnam is not doing everything possible
for the seach of US MIAs. And they even warn that this question could
affect the cooperation between the two countries," he said.

The United States has officially said it is entirely satistified with
Vietnam's cooperation with the recovery of some 1,584 MIAs in Vietnam.

Hanoi and Washington did not normalize diplomatic relations until August
1995 and exchanged ambassadors for the first time in May this year.

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Thailand, Vietnam near boundary treaty 

BANGKOK, July 28 (UPI) _ Thailand and Vietnam are reported to be close
to signing a landmark sea boundary treaty to end years of wrangling about
overlapping claims to oil, mineral and fishing resources.

The Nation newspaper says the two sides have agreed on most of the details
of the treaty during lengthy negotiations in Ho Chi Minh City in southern
Vietnam and on the Thai resort island of Koh Samui.

Thailand and Vietnam have been at odds over overlapping sea boundaries
since 1970 when Hanoi declared a 200-mile (320-km) exclusive economic
zone in the South China Sea.

Bangkok followed suit with a similar declaration in 1973, creating a
2,500-square mile (6,400-square km) area of overlapping maritime claims.

The claims created frequent tension between the two Cold War rivals and
hundreds of Thai fishermen have been arrested by Vietnamese authorities
for fishing in waters claimed by Hanoi.

Bilateral relations have been improving in recent years, particularly
since 1995 when Vietnam became a full member of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations.

The new maritime treaty reportedly includes ways to deal with potentially
rich mineral and petroleum finds within the overlapping zones and ways
to peacefully settle disputes.

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Father of Vietnam's reforms slams U.S. capitalists 

Hanoi, July 28 (Reuter) - Vietnam's senior ideologue Nguyen Van Linh,
considered the father of the communist country's economic reforms, has
blasted the United States and called for domestic industry to be protected
from U.S. goods.

A hard-hitting commentary, published prominently in official media in
the south over the weekend and seen by Reuters in Hanoi on Monday, recalled
the suffering inflicted on Vietnam by the United States during the Vietnam
War. The commentary said Washington was still punishing Hanoi 22 years
after that conflict ended.

"They promised to pay us $3 billion... But more than 20 years have passed
and the U.S. has not given a single penny," he said.

"Moreover, they have presented Vietnam with demands such as paying back
both the principle and interest on hundreds of millions of dollars the
Saigon regime borrowed from them to fight our people."

Linh, 82, added that U.S. investors had made little effort to bring either
capital or technology to Vietnam, and were destroying local industry
by undercutting prices and using expensive advertising campaigns.

"Some (of their goods) are illegally imported goods and have lower prices
so they are more competitive than ours," he said. "U.S. companies also
pay a lot of money for advertising on TV. Vietnamese firms cannot pay
as much to advertise products, thus becoming less competitive."

Nguyen Van Linh served as Communist Party chief from 1986 to 1991 and
is credited as being a leading figure behind the reforms which have seen
Vietnam adopt a market economy and emerge from international isolation.

Since retiring he has maintained a low political profile, serving as
an adviser to the Communist Party and occasionally surfacing to comment
on Vietnam's development. But his latest commentary was one of the most
critical of the open-door and reform process so far.

He said Vietnam should not seek support from foreign businesses, but
rely instead on improving domestic industry to compete with the world.

"The problem is we should not beg for help from foreign capitalists,
but to improve the management and policy making so as to serve the interests
of the national economy and... create conditions to compete with developed
capitalist countries."

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Vietnamese researcher hooked to help others kick heroin habit

By Frederik Balfour

Hanoi, July 27 (AFP) - Tran Khuong Dan has gone to extreme lengths --
including getting himself addicted to heroin -- in order to research
a new substance he says can help others kick the drug habit.

Called Heatos, Dan's formula smells like turpentine mixed with molasses.
But according to Dan and hundreds of other former drug addicts, the herbal
concoction can help the most hardened user come clean.

Dan's search for a natural way to help the body cope with the demons
of withdrawal when deprived of a narcotic was inspired by the experience
of seeing both his father and older brother wasted from the effects of
long-term opium addictions.

He decided to apply the principles of traditional medicine practiced
by his family for generations to develop a substance that could help
the body cope with drug withdrawal.

"I saw too many addicts on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. We have had
drug addicts for hundreds of years but no anti-drug medications," explained
55-year-old Dan at the Technological Institution of Chemical-Ecological
Centre in Hanoi.

After three years of testing various plants and herbs based on the oriental
philosophy of yin and yang, Dan came up with a concoction of 13 substances
now known as Heatos.

And to test it, he used himself as a guinea pig. "I had to addict myself
to heroin and opium. I drew the conclusion that the addiction is half
physical, half psychological," he said.

Dan says that Heatos has about a 60 percent success rate, but in the
absence of any hard research about the long-term efficacy of the medicine,
it is impossible to say whether it is a miracle drug or another snake
oil.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) plans to spend about 400,000
dollars to answer on research that could settle that question, with funds
earmarked for clinical testing of the substance in Vietnam and the United
States.

Earlier this month the UNDP funded a visit by Dan to the US National
Institute of Drug Abuse and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to
map out a research plan.

"We hope that we can find out if this is really a cure, and perhaps in
five or seven years it could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration
in the United States," said UNDP spokeswoman Laura Dillon in Hanoi.

Dan says Heatos helps restore the body's natural balance altered by long-term
drug dependency and enables addicts to go cold turkey without suffering
the usual nightmares.

Just ask Nguyen Bach Tung, a 33-year-old who was injecting himself seven
times a day with heroin before he checked himself into a Heatos clinic
in Hanoi.

It is the third day of a five-day detoxification programme, and Tung
is groggy but amazed that his craving has gone.

"Many times I tried to quit, but I became crazy without drugs. I thought
I would die," explains Tung, the vein of his right arm still swollen
and bruised from repeated injections.

Tung is slumped on a soiled bamboo matt on a steel frame in a room with
five other similar beds. It is located off a communal courtyard where
dogs and chickens fight over scraps of garbage and an old woman washes
dishes on the ground.

Hua Toan, who manages the clinic, shrugs his shoulders at the harsh conditions.

"This centre has no good connections," he says.

But the centre is self sustaining, he says. Each each patient pays about
100 dollars for a treatment, which includes the cost of between 1.5 and
3 litres of Heatos, depending on the severity of addiction.

UNDP funding will also go into the development of Heantos-1 (corr), a
capsule which former addicts take to help them stay off drugs for good.

The project is also designed to help Vietnam apply for an international
patent on Heatos, which Dillon says could earn the country substantial
revenues if the medicine is approved for use in the United States.

In the meantime Dan hopes Heatos will help some of Vietnam's more than
200,000 drug addicts kick the habit, and reverse the trend which has
seen an alarming rise in narcotics addiction countrywide.

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Vietnam Vietcombank Paying Off Letters Of Credit - Report 

Hanoi (AP-Dow Jones)-- Vietnam's Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank)
has established deferred payment plans for all its overdue letters of
credit, the Vietnam News reported Monday.

The paper quoted a bank official saying that creditors have the option
of giving one-year payment extensions with interest rates fixed according
to the Singapore Inter-Bank Offer rate plus 1%, which amounts to 7.5%.

Another bank source told Dow Jones that creditors who are unhappy with
these terms can ask to be repaid immediately. He did not say how many
letters of credit are overdue.

Letters of credit are a major source of controversy in Vietnam as several
banks here have issued them to financially unsound companies that later
defaulted on their obligations.

In an interview with the Vietnam News, Vo Phung Thao, acting director
of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Vietcombank, said that so far this
year the bank has raised a total of 24,500 billion dong in deposits,
up 20% over the first half of 1996.

He said the bank's total payments for imports were up to $1.4 billion,
and payments for exports rose to $1 billion in the first half of 1997.

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Asian Cash Rice Steady; Fears Of Flooding In Vietnam 

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Rice offers in the Asian physical export markets
are holding steady late Monday, even as domestic Thai prices for fragrant
rice, parboiled rice and broken rice continue to climb, traders said.

A significant reduction in Thailand's corn production has led to higher
local consumption of broken rice, said a trader in Bangkok.

Local fragrant rice prices are higher because some in the trade are hoarding
the rice to sell later. 'The rains came late so the harvest may start
late, maybe in December,' he said. 'So some people keep the rice on hand
for local demand.'

Offers of Thai 100%B rice are largely steady around $330-$335/ton while
the 100% broken rice is offered unchanged around $210/ton, according
to the Bangkok trader.

In Vietnam, offers are also steady, at $220-$225/ton for the 25% broken
rice and around $255/ton for the 5% broken rice.

Harvest of Vietnam's summer-autumn crop has started, but some in the
trade are now concerned heavy rains may give rise to flooding in the
Mekong river delta.

As reported, the state trading corp. of Pakistan will ship out 8,000
tons of IRRI-6 rice to Mauritius by the end of the month. [60758]

-By Joyce Teo +65-421-4825

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Foreign joint ventures lead industrial and export growth in Vietnam

Hanoi (dpa) - Vietnam has posted solid industrial growth and export sales
in the first half of the year led by joint venture firms while some domestic
firms have languished, according to an official report Monday.

Figures compiled from the General Department of Statistics have put industrial
growth at 13.8 per cent over the first seven months of the year.

Total export value for the same period is recorded at 4.8 billion dollars,
an increase of 25.2 per cent over last year's figures, according to the
official Vietnam News.

Foreign joint ventures posted an industrial growth rate of 23.2 per cent
and an export growth rate of 14 per cent during this period.

Industrial growth was a solid 16 per cent in southern Ho Chi Minh City,
the country's main commercial centre but there was a downturn of 8.9
per cent in Hanoi.

The downturn was attributed to the poor performance of state-owned electronics
firms which now face fierce competition from foreign-invested operations.

The report said five firms owned by Hanoi authorities were operating
at one-fourth their capacity while those owned by central government
ministries were only operating at half of their capacity.

Overall, Vietnam registered a trade deficit of 1.77 billion dollars during
the first seven months but the statistics department said 45.7 percent
of this amount was capital goods needed by foreign firms.

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U.K. Standard Chartered Hoping For HCMC Full License 

Hanoi, July 28 (Dow Jones) -- U.K. bank Standard Chartered PLC (U.STA)
is hoping for a full banking license for its representative office in
Ho Chi Minh City but hasn't yet been invited to apply for one, the group's
executive director said Monday.

Speaking at the a press conference in Hanoi, David Moir said Standard
Chartered has been in Vietnam long enough to meet the government's three-year
requirement but hasn't yet been given the green light to file an application
to the banking authorities.

'These things take time,' Moir said. 'When they invite us, we'd be happy
to apply.'

In Hanoi, Standard Chartered has a full banking license and its activities
swung to a profit in the bank's second year of operations in Vietnam.

A number of foreign banks would like to open full offices in Ho Chi Minh
City but the Vietnamese government restricts the number of licenses it
issues.

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Cushman & Wakefield invades Vietnam 

San Francisco Business Times
07/28/1997
By Kristen Bole

Real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield is hoping to lure American business
back to former enemy territory: Vietnam.

The company has signed on as the North American marketing agent for an
8,000-acre project just south of Ho Chi Minh City that aims to create
a new city for 1 million residents and the financial hub of the future
for Southeast Asia.

The goal, said C&W senior director Mark Terzian Jr., is to help Fortune
500 companies and U.S. developers get in on the ground floor of a region
that investors here have pretty much ignored, despite a market of 74
million people and 9 percent economic growth.

In fact, while one of Asia's largest development projects, Saigon South
is almost unknown on this continent. That is true even in the Bay Area,
despite $42 million in trade with Vietnam and a host of local design
and environmental firms that have worked on the project. Meanwhile, other
Asian companies have already leased 2 million square feet of industrial
space, the first commercial space to be developed at Saigon South. That
is precisely what led the Taiwan developer Central Trading & Development
Group to hire Cushman & Wakefield.

"We have a challenge," Terzian said. "A lot of people aren't aware of
it and don't understand it."

This is the first time an Asian project such as this has been marketed
in the United States. That marketing, and the project's innovative approach
in a sea of bad developments, is one of several signs of Vietnam's efforts
to join the modern world, with an emphasis on technology and investment
perks, like full foreign ownership in Saigon South.

Moving the city center from its old-style government base to a high-rise
hub is another symbol of that change, according to San Francisco designer
Kathrin Moore, an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

"The country has to provide contemporary living conditions for people
involved in developing Vietnam into a modern society," Moore said. "Saigon
South will be a prerequisite for that."

Moore's design team won two international awards for Saigon South, which
Terzian said aims to be more of a Singapore North than a Shanghai South.

The 8,000-acre, 1 million-resident project includes central highrises,
upscale residential space and access to transportation. Nine years in
the making, the project broke ground in 1992, and has completed its infrastructure,
including roads, a 375 megawatt power plant and an international school.

While threaded with canals, Saigon is fiercely bucking Bangkok's trend,
aiming to create a new model in Southeast Asia that will be livable when
it is finished in five years.

There are still plenty of obstacles to moving into Vietnam, including
some still-sticky legal issues in investments. But Terzian said this
project also has one big advantage: It's actually in progress.

"There are a lot of projects on the books out there," Terzian said. "If
they'll ever be built, who knows? This one is happening."

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Myanmar Leader Meets with Vietnamese Trade Minister 

YANGON (July 28) XINHUA - Chairman of the Myanmar State Law and Order
Restoration Council Senior General Than Shwe met today with visiting
Vietnamese Trade Minister Le Van Triet, state-run Radio Myanmar reported
tonight.

Le, who leads a Vietnamese trade delegation, arrived here last Thursday
at the invitation of his Myanmar counterpart Lieutenant General Tun Kyi.

During the visit, the delegation has held talks with Myanmar officials
from seven ministries, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and local
enterprises.

The two sides discussed the development of bilateral trade and export
of similar products between the two countries and agreed to strengthen
their cooperation in finding markets for the products.

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Authorities Call for Freezing Hotel Construction in Hanoi 

HANOI (July 28) XINHUA - Tourism authorities in Vietnam have recommended
freezing hotel construction projects in Hanoi until 2003, the English-language
newspaper Vietnam News reported today.

Hotel construction in this capital city has far outpaced the needs by
foreign tourists, and the growth of the tourism sector could continue
to be slow in coming years, the authorities said.

Now having 321 hotels with 6,520 rooms, Hanoi is likely to see 10 more
hotels opening in this year.

However, the existing hotels had an occupancy rate of 30-60 percent in
the last six months and the business turnover was down by 20 percent
in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year.

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Foreign Banks Capturing Vietnam's Credit Market 

HANOI (July 28) XINHUA - Foreign banks could capture Vietnam's entire
credit market as they expand their activities rapidly in the country,
said a newspaper report here today.

While foreign banks expanded rapidly in the first half of the year, domestic
banks recorded a proportional loss in their share of the market, the
English-language daily "Vietnam News" reported.

Vietnam's state bank branches have so far increased their capital by
11.8 percent and the country's stock banks by 0.6 percent, the State
Bank of Ho Chi Min city was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, foreign banks' share on the Vietnamese market has risen by
29.6 percent.

State enterprises' loan share has reduced by 40 percent with stock banks,
but rose by 106 percent with foreign banks, because the domestic banks
are extremely cautious in granting loans.

The local banking sector is losing competitiveness as flaws in implementing
state regulations have led to risky arrangements that bring up overdue
credit to over 20 percent of outstanding debt.

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