Queensland rep comes to boost trade with Vietnam

A gathering of Australian entrepreneurs and Vietnamese partners in HCMC. More networking events have been organized in HCMC for Australian companies to meet with their Vietnamese counterparts over opportunities to boost exports to this market - Photo: Mong Binh

HCMC - Australia’s Queensland government will dispatch a new representative to work in Vietnam in a move to speed up relations, especially in the fields of trade and education, the state’s Trade Minister Stephen Robertson said.

“Queensland’s new representative will be based in Austrade’s office in HCMC,… assisting Queensland’s export performance in Vietnam,” Robertson said in a statement released last week.

The Australian consulate general in HCMC told the Daily via email that the new trade representative should be installed this October at the latest as advised by the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) office in Vietnam.

Robertson said Vietnam had offered new opportunities for Queensland businesses looking to expand their base to South East Asia since the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 2007. Vietnam’s commitment to market reform also makes it an attractive destination for foreign investment, he noted.

“Vietnam is now considered a leading growth economy in the ASEAN region, with opportunities in a range of sectors including infrastructure development, both public and private,” Robertson said.

“By providing market advice and on the ground support with logistics, Queensland companies will be well placed to take advantage of these growth economies,” he added.

Figures showed Australia’s merchandise trade with Vietnam in 2009 was nearly A$4.5 billion, with imports from Vietnam exceeding A$3.1 billion worth of crude oil, furniture, mattresses and cushions, fruit and nuts, and footwear. Australian exports to Vietnam included wheat, copper, and aluminum among others.

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Mekong province promotes foreign investment

Long An province in the key southern economic zone presented a list of
its advantages and made offers to Japanese businesses at a meeting with
the Outward mission on August 23.

Pham Van Ranh,
Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said like other
parts of the country, Long An has emerged as a destination for foreign
investors, citing advantages of political stability, steady economic
growth and an industrious workforce.

“The province has a good land reserve for industrial and urban development and infrastructure construction,” Ranh said.

Long An authorities confirmed that labour strikes in foreign
companies did not make any impact on the province. They also presented a
new model for small investors who may rent a lot of just 100 sq. m. of
land in the Long Hau industrial zone. Japanese investors were also
assured of administrative reforms with very simple paper work.

Licences will be issued in 24 hours after all forms are filled, authorities emphasised.

The Mekong Delta province has so far granted licences for 328 foreign
investment projects capitalised at almost 3.18 billion USD, including
the 11 projects by Japanese investors with a combined investment of 188
million USD. One of the 11 Japanese-invested projects was licensed in
2010 with a capital of 100 million USD.

The
Japanese business mission, led by Sato Shi Abe, Director of the ASEAN
investment sharing sector under the Japan centre, was shown around
several industrial zones. The guests also visited the Vina Eco Board
Limited Liability Company under the Sumitomo Group and the Kaiyo Seafood
Processing Company./.

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Timber suppliers learn about legal issues

A workshop was launched in Hanoi on August 23 to help Vietnamese
timber suppliers update with revisions of the Lacey Act of the US ,
which is currently Vietnam’s largest furniture trader.

“Supplementary
articles of the Lacey Act, dated May 2008, provide challenges and also
opportunities for Vietnam to better improve its management of forest,
timber import and processing,” Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Director General
Vietnam Directorate of Forestry said in his opening speech of the
Legality Training Workshop.

By bettering its management, Vietnam
aims to sustain and expand its share of the US furniture market,
Tuan noted, emphasising that, “ Vietnam considers the US furniture
market a high priority”.

In 2009, Vietnam earned 1.2 billion USD from the US furniture market, or 44 percent of its timber export value.

As
new product declarations under the Lacey Act are enforced from
September, a growing number of US-based forest products importers will
seek assurance from their suppliers that products they source have been
legally produced.

This means they must be able to demonstrate
that the timber has been harvested, possessed, transported, sold and
exported without breaking any relevant laws in the country where the
tree was grown, even if it was processed in another country.

Combating
timber trafficking was also a highlight of the workshop, which brought
together representatives from Government, the forestry sector and
suppliers of forest products.

“Cooperating on tackling illegal
logging will help Vietnamese producers, because as demand increases,
Vietnam can gain market access by increasing its supply of legal
timber products,” said Francis Donovan, Mission Director of USAID
Vietnam, which is among the organisers of the event.

He
underscored his country’s commitment to working with Vietnamese
producers in the supply of legal and sustainable products that meet
international market standards.

Tuan affirmed that Vietnam
has cooperated with many countries around the world and made
governmental-level commitments to intensify its forest management to
prevent illegal logging.

He cited the country’s participation in
the ASEAN action plan to adapt to the EU Action Plan for Forest Law
Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT).

“Illegal logging and
timber trade not only undermine conservation, they also lead to reduced
profitability of legal trade, loss of foreign revenue and currency
exchange, uncollected forest-related taxes and depleted forest resources
and services,” said Chen Hin Keong, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring
Network (TRAFFIC) Global Forest Trade Programme Head.

Vietnam
has increased its forest coverage from 34.3 percent in 2000 to 39.6
percent in 2009. It is among the world’s top five in terms of increased
forest coverage and top ten in terms of furniture exports.

As an
exporter of up to 90 percent of its wooden furniture, the country is set
to rake in 3 billion USD from furniture this year.

The workshop
was co-organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
and the WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) with support from
the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Two similar
workshops will be held, in Quy Nhon, the central province of Binh
Dinh, on August 25, and in Ho Chi Minh City on August 27./.

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Big enterprises benefit from tax mechanism

The Big Enterprise Management Department has been set up to help giants
treat and remove obstacles related to taxes and streamline tax payment
procedures.

The new tax mechanism under the
General Taxation Department benefits 405 out of 500,000 enterprises
operational across the country. Of them 80 percent are corporations
either owned by the State or with the State as a major shareholder,
including groups and corporations in key industries such as oil and gas,
electricity, mining, post and telecommunications and banking.

In the first step, the General Taxation Department is to issue
digital identities for the target population to allow tax forms to be
completed online.

Deputy Minister of Finance Do
Hoang Anh Tuan explained that it was a necessary step, as these
enterprises play a very important role in socio-political and economic
development, paying up to 70 percent of gross tax revenues.

Dam Thi Huyen, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, which now runs
hundreds of branches and member companies across the country, lauded the
move as “an important step” to help solve overlapping enterprise
guidelines, management and inspection work.

The
Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said it will submit to
the Government a proposal on a number of special mechanisms and policies
in favour of major enterprises, not limited to taxes and customs
procedures./.

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CPI increases by 0.23 percent in August

The consumer price index increased by 0.23 percent over the last month,
after increasing only 0.06 percent, the lowest rise for the past six
years, according to the General Statistics Office.

The August
increase led to the rise in the first eight months of the year by 5.08
percent over 2009 and an 8.61 percent increase year-on-year.

Ten
out of 11 commodities used to calculate the CPI increased by between 3
percent and 16 percent. Only post and telecom services decreased, by
nearly 0.4 percent.

Experts predicted that low increases would be difficult to be maintained, but the rise would be stable at 0.2-0.3 percent.

The
Government’s adjustment in the exchange rate between VND and USD and
the increase in price of petroleum in the country were reasons for the
rise of the August CPI.

However, experts warned that prices would
increase sharply late in the year due to an increase in demand during
the New Year festival. In addition, the increase in prices in world
markets, high bank interest rates, natural disasters and epidemics would
be challenges to the country’s targets of inflation control.

To
reach the goal of controlling CPI for the whole year at 7-8 percent, the
Government has asked ministries, sectors and localities to continue
measures to curb inflation and hold down price hikes, focusing on
examining prices, bank interest rates and foreign exchanges./.

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Hong Kong fund supports VN healthcare projects

Hong Kong’s Sun Wah Fund (SWF) has pledged to donate one million USD for healthcare, education and art projects in Vietnam.

A signing ceremony for the projects was held in Hanoi on August 23.
Signatories were the SWF, the Ministry of Health and Hanoi University.

Of the sum, 700,000 USD will be allocated for
healthcare projects, especially community healthcare, and the remaining
300,000 USD will be used for education and art projects which aim to
improve foreign language skills for teachers in remote areas, grant
scholarships to Vietnamese students in China, build primary schools in
mountainous areas and hold training courses for disabled children.

Dr Jonathan Choi, General Director of the SWF said this was the second
time that the fund has supported social projects in Vietnam, expressing
his pleasure that the funding brings effective outcomes for society.

Established in 1957, SWF has over 100 member companies
in Hong Kong, Macao, Southeast Asia, Canada, Europe, the US and
Australia, focusing on food, real estate, financial services,
infrastructure, technology and media./.

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Compensation czar takes charge of $20 bln BP fund

Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund, testifies before the House Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on ''The BP Oil Spill And Gulf Coast Tourism'' on Capitol Hill in Washington in this July 27, 2010

Photo: Reuters

A $20 billion compensation fund for economic victims of the BP Gulf oil spill opens for business on Monday amid accusations that the rules established by its administrator are unfair.

Kenneth Feinberg who will run the fund said those who sustained financial loss because of the spill could claim for damages and he promised claimants more generous treatment than they would get if they sued the energy giant for damages.

"The goal here is to try and explain to eligible claimants: 'It is not in your interest to tie up yourself and the courts in years of uncertain protracted litigation when ... there is a more efficient quick alternative'" Feinberg told a news conference on Sunday.

"The goal will be to pay any individual claim within 48 hours of the claim being finalized and seven days for any business claim," he said.

BP set up the fund in June under pressure from the White House to come up with a remedy for the losses sustained in the fishing, tourism and other industries on the Gulf of Mexico coast because of the leak that began in April and was capped in July.

Feinberg was named its administrator because of the reputation for fairness he acquired administering the 9/11 fund and determining executive pay for companies bailed out by the government during the recession.

But the spill fund may provide an even tougher challenge, according to insurance experts who said calculating claims for businesses would be particularly difficult.

For the next six months, anyone claiming an emergency payment can also sue BP at a future date but beyond that period claimants would forfeit the right file against the company, Feinberg said.

The position is controversial. Florida's Attorney General Bill McCollum issued a statement last week saying the ruling favors BP and weakens provisions advocated by state attorney generals along the coast.

'Less generous'

"The current process appears to be even less generous to Floridians than the BP process. Such an outcome is completely unacceptable," McCollum said in a statement.

In his defense, Feinberg said the idea for the cut-off point was his rather than BP's.

"I am beholden to neither the administration nor BP. I am entirely independent," Feinberg said, adding that entry into the compensation process was voluntary.

He said no decision had been taken on whether people who claimed after the six-month window would be able to sue other companies involved with the rig that exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the spill.

So far, BP has paid $375 million in compensation, Feinberg said, though that money was separate from the $20 billion.

Even so, a flood of new claimants were expected to hit the 35 offices set up in the five coastal states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida when they opened for business.

Claimants could also apply by mail and online at www.gulfcoastclaimsfacility.com.

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