Toshiba opens industrial motors plant in Dong Nai

A worker lubricates a motor at the new factory of Toshiba Industrial Products Asia Co., Ltd. in Dong Nai Province - Photo: Quoc Hung

HCMC - Toshiba Industrial Products Asia Co., Ltd. on Wednesday officially opened a new plant in the southern province of Dong Nai, manufacturing high-efficiency industrial motors for export.

The tripartite joint venture grouping Toshiba Corp. (60%), Toshiba Industrial Products Manufacturing Corp. (30%), and Toshiba Industrial Products Sales Corp. (10%), will turn out motors of 100 horsepower or less at Amata Industrial Park in Bien Hoa City of the province.

Initial products will be exported to the U.S., which has made legislation for high-efficiency motors, and to China, the rest of Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and Japan, according to the company.

A growing global awareness of the need for enhanced environmental protection has spurred demand for high-efficiency motors that consume less power and emit less CO2. Governments around the world are also responding to this trend.

Key features of Toshiba high-efficiency motors include low noise, high reliability, and achieving 30% reduction of energy loss, according to the company.

“The high-efficiency industrial motors made by Toshiba Industrial Products Asia Co., Ltd are used in many countries, including the U.S. as a solution for environmental protection and energy saving,” said Norio Sasaki, president and CEO of Toshiba Corporation.

This is the fourth manufacturing base of Toshiba worldwide, after the ones in Japan, the U.S., and China.

Toshiba Industrial Products Asia Co. has spent US$29 million for the first phase among the total investment capital of US$100 million. The joint venture will disburse more to reach some US$40 million next year.

Its construction began in April 2009 on an eight hectares. In 2015, the plant will ship up to 1.2 million motors a year to the global market, and is expected to provide employment for 500 people.

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Vinachem cuts deal to supply chemicals to Unilever

HCMC - Vietnam National Chemical Group, or Vinachem, on Tuesday clinched a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Unilever Vietnam to supply the latter with chemicals and to jointly develop petrochemical projects.

Unilever Vietnam and Vinachem will work on construction of new base chemicals plants and development of the petrochemical industry.

As a result, key raw materials will be produced and sourced within Vietnam to help the country reduce reliance on imports, increase exports, and enhance cost competitiveness of both parties.

This agreement signed in Hanoi is expected to generate annual total sales of US$200-250 million a year for locally-supplied and exported materials.

Unilever said in a statement obtained by the Daily on Wednesday that it now bought a number of key materials from Vinachem and its affiliates. But, the company still has to annually import over US$100 million worth of important materials for its production in this country.

To cut reliance on imports, Unilever will cooperate with Vinachem and its affiliates to develop and turn out materials including lab, sodium sulphate, soda ash light, sorbitol and zeolite. They shall establish manufacturing and supplying plants subject to competitive terms and actual demand in the future.

Besides the need for procuring key materials to replace imports, Unilever will explore opportunities for Vinachem to export these materials to other Unilever Group’s companies in ASEAN, Asia and to Unilever globally. The export will depend on competitive terms, actual demand and quality requirements of those companies.

Unilever and Vinachem will consider their cooperation expansion to cover other key materials based on the successful sourcing/supplying of the aforesaid initial materials when opportunities arise.

The partnership marked development in the original MOU and the long-term strategic cooperation agreement that the two parties signed in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

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Scientist warns of rapid land sinking in city

HCMC – Rapid urbanization and excessive exploitation of underground water have led to an alarming land-surface subsidence in many districts around HCMC, a local scientist raised a warning on Wednesday.

Professor Le Van Trung, director of the Geomatics Center of the Vietnam National University of HCMC, told a seminar here that the pace of land sinking has recently accelerated due to rapid urbanization and unchecked exploitation of underground water.

Areas vulnerable to land-surface subsidence include Thu Duc and Binh Chanh districts, as well as districts 6, 7, and 8 with an average sinking rate of over 10 millimeters a year, he said.

Trung gave this warning after he had spent 18 months to conduct a VND10-billion project using Dynamic Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, or Insar technology, to detect and measure the ground surface deformation around the city.

“Some streets such as Kha Van Can in Thu Duc District, Vinh Loc B in Binh Chanh District, Ton That Thuyen and Ly Chieu Hoang in District 6 and other areas south of the city have subsided by 0.3 meter since 2000,” he said.

The professor said the easily-seen consequence of land sinking was an increase in  flooding sites around the city and that “79 out of 116 flooding sites in the city are the direct consequence of quick sinking of the land surface.”

“We all know that under the impacts of climate change, sea level is forecast to rise by 0.7 meter by 2100, while the land surface in HCMC has been subsiding by at least 10 millimeters a year. Consequently, 60% of the total area of the city could expectedly be submerged under the seawater by that time if we don’t take quick measures to cope with the matter,” he warned.

While housing development as a factor shows no signs of deceleration, enterprises at most industrial parks are drilling deeper to pump underground water for their production, which will aggravate land sinking, experts said at the event.

Trung said that to ensure a safe level of land subsidence by under 5 millimeters a year, the city needed to cooperate with other nearby provinces including Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An to effectively contain the exploitation of underground water.

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VietnamPlas, Linkage exhibitions open in city

Visitors view a machine at the show - Photo: Ngoc Chau

HCMC - The 10th Vietnam International Plastics, Packaging, Printing and Food-tech Industry Exhibition, or VietnamPlas 2010, opened on Wednesday at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in HCMC’s District 7.

The exhibition is attended by some 225 professional exhibitors from host Vietnam, China, Germany, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Vietnam among others.

On show are advanced, high-tech machinery and equipment such as plastic injection molding machines, plastic woven bag machines, turn-key equipment of mold and die manufacturing plant, and other equipment related to packaging, printing, and food processing.

Meanwhile, Linkage Vietnam is concurrently held with VietnamPlas 2010 with the participation of 130 exhibitors from 12 countries and territories.

Linkage Vietnam focuses on metalworking, industrial automation, energy and electricity, and environmental protection.

The organizers of the two events under one roof are Vietnam’s Vinexad, Vietnam Plastics Association, Vietnam Rubber Association, Taiwan’s Chan Chao International Co., Ltd, and two Hong Kong partners.

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Power outages to continue to grip Vietnam

HANOI, HCMC – Vietnam’s severe power shortages have shown signs of worsening as hydropower plants now responsible for around 35% of total electricity output are still in distress in the current rainy season, according to the country’s leading power firm.

Electricity of Vietnam chairman Dao Van Hung said power outages might worsen from 2012 onwards because droughts had caused 17 key hydroelectric reservoirs around the country to dry up.

Speaking to the Daily on Wednesday, Hung said protracted droughts had left a huge impact on the hydropower plants that have a combined capacity of 6,500 MW. All the power stations developed and run by EVN in the country have a total capacity of some 19,000 MW.

Late last year, EVN already warned of more severe power shortages from 2012 onwards, Hung said.

The reservoir of Hoa Binh, the country’s largest hydropower station in the northern region, has receded to danger levels as floodwater inflows have been insignificant since May this year.

The current shortage of some 23 billion cubic meters of water at this reservoir means a reduction of power generation by 1.4 billion kilowatt hours from last year, according to EVN.

This is not EVN’s fault over the power undersupply, Hung said, blaming weather and problems with mobilizing enough resources for gas-fueled and thermo-power stations.

Meanwhile, new power projects have almost come to a standstill due mainly to the chronic financing crunch while investors have shown no interest in such projects given unattractive power tariffs. EVN has therefore called for an increase in power prices to encourage investors to get involved.

“In the past three years, EVN has not been able to start work on any new power stations. We have found it impossible to raise enough investment capital as a result of the economic crisis. Earlier, we planned to build six new plants worth some VND140 trillion,” he said.

EVN is still struggling to seek some US$33 billion to develop new power sources in line with the sixth National Master Plan for Power Development already approved by the Government, he said, adding that was the consequence of low power selling prices.

In a document issued by the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam and obtained on Wednesday by the Daily, Vietnam’s power prices are much lower than in many other regional countries. The average price of power in Vietnam is about 5.5 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour.

The authority also said the low prices had rendered EVN helpless to buy power from non-EVN-member stations.

To cope with the issue, EVN is working with the Ministry of Industry and Trade over possibilities of hiking power prices from 2011.     

Hung attributed the power shortages to the rampant development of cement and steel plants which consume a great deal of electricity. EVN will ask the Ministry of Industry and Trade to direct cement and steel producers to rearrange their production schedules so as to avoid operating at peak hours.

Steel producers nationwide now consume 1,900 MW and cement producers some 1,500 MW at the moment, according to the EVN chairman.

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Exhibitors hopeful of deals at healthcare show

Entrepreneurs in a talk at the Pharmed & Healthcare Vietnam 2010 - Photo: Dao Loan

HCMC – Nearly 230 local and foreign pharmaceutical and healthcare firms are pinning high hopes on a healthcare exhibition that kicked off in HCMC on Wednesday.

While many local firms are introducing new medicines and materials at the four-day Pharmed and Healthcare Vietnam 2010, foreign participants seek deals to sell machinery, equipment and new technologies for drug production and clinics.

The fifth annual exhibition at Tan Binh Exhibition and Convention Center in Tan Binh District features some 370 booths of local and foreign firms, including those from the Netherlands, Russia, England, France, Germany and Canada.

Representatives of some local firms told the Daily that their companies want to promote new medicines and find foreign partners to export products while foreign enterprises are looking for local clients and distributors.

“We are promoting a new cough medicine made from herbal materials and want to find foreign partners here. We’ve met some potential partners this morning,” said Nguyen Thi My Hanh, deputy sales director of OPC Pharmaceutical Joint-Stock Company.

She said OPC has exported medicine to Laos, Cambodia, and Eastern Europe, and has just had a partner from Nigeria. However, the company wants to increase the export proportion in its total revenue.

Pham Duc Thinh, chief representative of Vietnam-Korea Medical Corporation, said the company wanted to boost sales of equipment and to seek partners from local hospitals.

“We’ve found some clients in last year’s exhibition. We hope to find some new clients here,” he said.

Petra Kopecka, head of international relations of BTL, a manufacturer of physical therapy and cardiology products, said the local market was growing and “that’s why the company has just opened an office in the country along with joining the exhibition to promote products and seek local distributors.”

“I’m very much positive about business in Vietnam,” she said.

Deputy Minister of Health Cao Minh Quang said, “Both local and foreign firms are having a big chance to develop business in the country.”

The ministry is carrying out a plan to build more hospitals in districts and provinces across the country, he said, so “there are huge investment opportunities for entrepreneurs because the sector has the high demand for infrastructure, health equipment and technology transfer,” he said at the opening ceremony.

The event is organized by the Vietnam Pharmaceutical Companies Association, Advertisement and Fair Exhibitions Co., Health Communication and Education Center, and Vietnam Medical Products Import-Export JSC.

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Inflation pressure to increase in 4th quarter: expert

HCMC – Given the higher consumer price index in Hanoi and HCMC in September, experts have expressed concern that the whole country would see a high CPI this month, which may prompt the inflation pressure to rear its head again in the fourth quarter.

HCMC posts an estimated September CPI growth of 0.97% month-on-month after declining in two previous months while Hanoi’s CPI growth this month is expected at 0.96%.

Vu Dinh Anh, deputy head of the Market and Price Research Institute under the Finance Ministry, explained that September CPI was high due to promotions of home appliances and the beginning of the school year.

He, however, added CPI of Hanoi and HCMC this year did not affect much on the country’s inflation like in previous years, which may be due to the method of price calculation by the General Statistics Office. Anh therefore expected that September CPI of the country would be around 0.5%.

Anh also said that there would be many factors exerting pressure on inflation in the last quarter, including high global prices, and the country’s fiscal and monetary policies.

Recently, the global gold price has hit a record high, and technically that is a signal of high inflation. Global prices of some commodities such as rice and coffee have accelerated, proving the assumption above, the expert said.

From now to the end of the year, the demand for imports will increase strongly and in fact, banks have revised up their deposit rates in the U.S. dollar, meaning the demand for dollars has been increasing, he said.

In terms of macro-economic factors, the fourth quarter usually sees big State spending while credit tends to grow strongly in the last months of the year, which will also put inflation under pressure, Anh said.

Given the credit growth of about 3% in August, Anh said the possibility of credit growth exceeding 25% this year was high. He said the 25% growth target for outstanding loans was the ceiling level set to curb inflation, not the floor to push the economic growth as many people had thought.

“In my opinion, we do not need to strongly push credit growth as the country’s gross domestic products can still increase by 6.5% given the current credit growth,” he added.

The expert said he expected the Government could control the inflation at the single-digit rate this year.

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