President praises An Giang for becoming economic ‘hub'

AN GIANG — President Nguyen Minh Triet yesterday congratulated An Giang Province for becoming a key economic hub in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

"You're now leading the nation and the region in rice growing and fresh fisheries breeding," Triet, a member of the Communist Party of Viet Nam's Politburo, told the ninth An Giang Party Congress yesterday.

Triet said that in the last five years, most targets set at the last Provincial Party Congress had been achieved or surpassed.

However, he noted that economic development was not yet sustainable and called for infrastructure development to be sped up to attract more investors and to raise the province's competitive index.

Regarding the next five-year development plan, President Triet urged the province to pay more attention to agriculture and rural development.

He said the application of science and technology in agricultural production could add value to produce.

A political report delivered by the An Giang Party Committee said in the last five years, on average the province recorded annual gross domestic production (GDP) growth of 10.34 per cent against the target of 12 per cent.

Of this, the service sector increased by 13.46 per cent, industry and construction increased by 13 per cent and agriculture by 3.77 per cent.

Per capita income in the period under review increased by 2.5 times the 2005 figure.

The political report said the most striking success in the last five years was the impressive increase in total social investment in the province – VND 87.4 trillion (More than US$5 billion).

Export turnover in the last five years stood at $3 billion against the target of $2.68 billion, three times higher than the 2001-05 plan.

Reviewing the movement to follow President Ho Chi Minh's moral example, the report said much progress had been recorded by many individual and collective role models, particularly among party members.

The An Giang Congress closes today. — vns

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Stock market has youngest general director

Nguyen Hoang Giang, who now heads VNDirect, is chosen for his team leading skills - Photo: Vnexpress

HCMC – VNDirect Securities Co. has appointed 24-year-old Nguyen Hoang Giang as general director after only three years in the company, making Giang the youngest ever to hold the position in Vietnam’s finance and banking sector.

Giang is a graduate of the U.S.-based University of Nebraska, majoring in economic mathematics and computer science. As one of the university’s four most excellent students, he has received a Phillip Schrager Scholarship and was the youngest lecturer in the mathematics faculty there.

Giang entered the securities industry in early 2008 as a collaborator in VNDirect’s professional solution department. He then became manager and director of the department after just a little over one year.

Giang was appointed as the chief architect for the risk management system and professional solutions department while the enterprise and other securities firms were suffering during the global financial crisis. His contributions brought positive results for VNDirect that reported an after-tax profit of VND212 billion in 2009 and VND195 billion in the January-September period this year.

Giang said it would be a big challenge for a 24-year-old as general director of a securities enterprise capitalized at VND1 trillion. “It is not important to show myself off, but I have to know everyone’s strong points and unite them to achieve the target,” he was quoted by Vnexpress as saying.

VNDirect chairwoman Pham Minh Huong said the board of directors had found that Giang was the best candidate for the position, even though the choice for general director of a securities firm is normally the best business director. “Although Giang is not the best in the business sector, he can cooperate well with colleagues and help them run the enterprise,” Huong said.

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Measures considered to curb trade deficit

Customs officials check imported goods at the customs b ranch in Gia Lam District, on the outskirts of Ha Noi. — VNA/VNS Photo Pham Hau

HCM CITY — Senior economists have argued for reduced investment in State-owned firms and strong development of supporting industries as key measures to help reduce the nation's rising trade deficit.

At a two-day conference in HCM City ending yesterday , Bui Truong Giang and Pham Sy An of theViet Nam Economics Institute highlighted the challenges involved in controlling the trade deficit.

In the first eight months of 2010, Viet Nam's exports were worth US$43.4 billion, while its import turnover was $52 billion, causing the trade deficit to register a year-on-year increase of 34.4 per cent.

"This figure is much higher than recorded in previous years except 2008," said Giang.

This meant that the Government's goal of keeping the trade deficit to less than 20 per cent of the total export value was hard to realise, he said.

Giang also noted that trade deficit was a long-term problem.

He said the deficit had been a regular feature of the economy over the last 10 years, but it had become "more serious" after Viet Nam's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"These changes have created an unstable situation as well as high risks for the economy," he said.

An agreed with Giang, adding that the long-term, an increasing trade deficit could drain the central bank's foreign currency reserves and weaken its ability to intervene in the foreign exchange market.

"The serious trade deficit would also increase the economy's debt accumulation with outside economies and bring the domestic economy closer to a debt crisis," he said.

"Around the world, it has been seen that an economy with fixed forex policies and big trade deficits are more prone to face monetary crises," Giang said.

In the long-term, an increasing trade deficit could destabilise foreign currency markets and compromise the independence of the nation's monetary policy as it would be forced to focus on ways to keep the forex rate within set targets, he said.

The current trade deficit could not be settled immediately, and it needed to be tackled with specific strategies and several focused measures, he added.

Long-term measures

Giang and An suggested some long-term measures which they hoped would help reduce the trade deficit in coming years.

The Government should reduce investments in State-owned enterprises (SOEs), while further accelerating SOE equitisation to ensure that they operate according to market principles. In other words, SOEs must be treated on par with other firms.

The Government should also do away with protection and preferential treatment for SOEs involved in production and trade of essential goods.

These support policies would benefit protected enterprises and essential goods producers but harm enterprises that use their products by increasing production costs, and this would in turn affect the overall competitiveness of domestic products, the economists argued.

The Government should have a clear and comprehensive strategy to effectively develop the supporting industry in order to reduce the import of accessories, they said.

Development of infrastructure and the labour force, further administrative reforms and a flexible foreign exchange rate policy were necessary tasks for reducing the national trade deficit and protecting foreign currency reserves, the economists added. — VNS

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An Giang Plan Protection to list on bourse next year

HCMC – An Giang Plant Protection Joint Stock Company, one of the country’s leading producers of agricultural drugs, is on process to trade shares on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, said the company’s chairman and CEO.

Huynh Van Thon said that the firm was finalizing procedures to trade shares on the southern bourse and expected to officially get listed next February.

The company has chartered capital of VND310 billion, with a 30% stake held by the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC). The company has plans to double its chartered capital this year.

At this time, the company’s share on the OTC market is traded about VND70,000-80,000.

Last year, the firm obtained a pre-tax profit of VND390 billion. It’s annual target set pre-tax profits at VND290 billion for this year, but the company’s CEO said the figure would reach VND320 billion.

At this time, the company is pursuing two projects, one being to purchase rice from farmers and the other aimed at leasing 10,000 hectares of land in Cambodia for biotechnology research. These two projects are part of its long-term strategy of providing a plant protection package solution for farmers from soil, seed, to collecting and processing rice.

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