Landlords fight for new tenants

HCM CITY — Landlords in HCM City will vie with each other during the third quarter in offering better leasing deals including rent and amenities, according to the latest market review published by real estate firm CBRE.

The firm received 28 per cent more enquiries in the third quarter than the second, but more than 43 per cent of these were for spaces 150 sq.m and smaller, the review says.

The company estimates that around 1.2 million square meters of office space will be put in use over the next three years in the city.

Project owners will face a challenge from long-term tenants of large areas who plan to re-rent a part of their space at prices between 15-35 per cent lower than the standard ones, CBRS associate director of research and consulting Rudolf Hever, said at a press conference on Monday.

He also said (2,000-5,000sq.m) grade C buildings in prime locations would continue to be popular because their value and long-term lease would help tenants have greater control over their investment.

There were no new grade A office buildings on offer during the third quarter, but rents for the segement reduced lightly to a monthly average of US$36.7 per sq.m, which Hever said was due to higher demand for grade B and C spaces.

One grade B building and eight new grade C buildings came on line in the third quarter, providing a total of 63,180sq.m. — VNS

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Sacomreal to list 100 million shares in Vietnam, chairman says

Saigon Thuong Tin Real Estate Joint- Stock Co., a unit of the fourth-biggest bank on Vietnam’s main stock market, plans to list 100 million shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange next month, the unit’s chairman said.

The shares will start trading on Nov. 9, Dang Hong Anh said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Vietnam’s stock market debuts, 75 percent of which rose in the first eight months of the year, have all dropped bar one since September, amid concerns that high interest rates will crimp lending and the currency will fall further. The benchmark VN Index dropped 6.9 percent this year and closed at 458.66 today.

Sacomreal, as the Ho Chi Minh City-based property developer is known, plans to go ahead with the listing as “we still believe in our future because we target a 30 percent increase in profit a year from 2011 to 2015,” company General Manager Thai Van Chuyen said Thursday.

Sacomreal, whose businesses include real-estate, property consulting and office rental, has since 2008 started construction on projects including Sacomreal Hoa Binh Residential Building, Office Building General Limex and Tan Thanh Urban Area in Ho Chi Minh City, it said in a statement on its website.

The company had a pretax profit of VND668 billion ($33.4 million) in the first nine months of the year, exceeding the target of VND650 billion for the whole of 2010, Chuyen said.

Demand for office space in Ho Chi Minh City continues to grow, though rents are expected to come down, especially in buildings with lower occupancy, according to the third-quarter report from CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

The unit of Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint-Stock Bank is trading from 30,000 dong to 40,000 dong per share in the so- called over-the-counter market, Chuyen said. Companies don’t have to set initial prices for the first trading day on the country’s second-biggest bourse.

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Vietnam to host international rice congress

History’s largest international gathering of rice experts will meet in Vietnam next month to explore strategies that will help farmers feed the world’s growing population.

The third International Rice Congress will bring together international leaders in rice science, rice policy makers, rice traders, and others across the industry’s private and public sectors.

The event is being jointly organized by Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the International Rice Research Institute and Bangkok-based Asia Congress Events Co.

Due to mounting pressure on global food production, exaggerated by poverty and climate change, the need to find ways to ensure an affordable and abundant rice population is becoming critical.

Delegates will discuss the latest rice research, future technologies, trade issues, and policies that will define the future role of rice in supporting poor rice-dependent communities.

More than half of the world’s population, or more than three billion people, depend on rice as their main food source, including around 640 million Asians living in extreme poverty.

“Rice producers will play a more and more crucial role in preventing future food shortages,” said Dr. To Phuc Tuong, chairman of the congress.

Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice exporter after Thailand and the fifth-largest producer of rice, exported 5.4 million tons of rice, worth US$2.3 billion, in the first seven months of 2010, up around 8.51 percent in quantity and 12.9 percent in terms of value.

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Vietnam to host international rice congress

History’s largest international gathering of rice experts will meet in Vietnam next month to explore strategies that will help farmers feed the world’s growing population.

The third International Rice Congress will bring together international leaders in rice science, rice policy makers, rice traders, and others across the industry’s private and public sectors.

The event is being jointly organized by Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the International Rice Research Institute and Bangkok-based Asia Congress Events Co.

Due to mounting pressure on global food production, exaggerated by poverty and climate change, the need to find ways to ensure an affordable and abundant rice population is becoming critical.

Delegates will discuss the latest rice research, future technologies, trade issues, and policies that will define the future role of rice in supporting poor rice-dependent communities.

More than half of the world’s population, or more than three billion people, depend on rice as their main food source, including around 640 million Asians living in extreme poverty.

“Rice producers will play a more and more crucial role in preventing future food shortages,” said Dr. To Phuc Tuong, chairman of the congress.

Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice exporter after Thailand and the fifth-largest producer of rice, exported 5.4 million tons of rice, worth US$2.3 billion, in the first seven months of 2010, up around 8.51 percent in quantity and 12.9 percent in terms of value.

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Business briefs

* Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Group, known as Vinacomin, hired Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Credit Agricole CIB and Citigroup Inc. to help advise it on a possible dollar bond sale, according to two people familiar with the matter. Vinacomin has been seeking approval from the government to sell US$500 million of bonds overseas this year.

* Overseas remittances to Ho Chi Minh City from January to September reached $3.04 billion, up 17.94 percent from the same period last year and nearing $3.15 billion for the whole of 2009, Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the central bank branch in the city, was quoted by Dau Tu (Investment) newspaper as saying. The value for the whole of 2010 is forecast to rise 20 percent, he said.

* Power prices in Vietnam will be adjusted four times a year in accordance with changes in input prices and the exchange rate starting from March 1 next year, the Vietnam Economic Times reported, citing an Industry and Trade Ministry document on implementing a market-oriented mechanism for power prices.

* Vietnam increased its rice export forecast for this year to 6.1 million tons, higher than a previous estimate of 5.9 million tons, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Shipments from the world’s second-biggest producer may be more than 1 million tons in the fourth quarter, according to the document, which was posted on the ministry’s website.

* Vietnam National Petroleum Corp., known as Petrolimex, will buy 140,000 cubic meters of gasoline and diesel from Dung Quat Oil Refinery this month, said Nguyen Hoai Giang, general director of Binh Son Refinery & PetroChemical Co., which runs the refinery. Previously a Dung Quat official said domestic petrol distributors may not be able to use up the refinery’s inventory by the end of this year and it may face an inventory of more than 720,000 tons of products.

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Recent price increases raise inflation jitters

Prices of consumer goods saw the most rapid hike in four monthsp this September, raising fears about spiking inflation late this year.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked ministries and relevant authorities to “intensify” measures to stabilize commodity prices and help the country maintain its economic and inflation targets.

He ordered the Ministry of Industry and Trade to study production and distribution systems to ensure a balance between the supply and demand of essential commodities and services through the end of the year. The country will also make efforts to keep prices of electricity and coal stable.

In Hanoi, prices on some 300 items, including confectionery products, milk and sugar, rose by 3 to 10 percent in September, according to the Hanoi Supermarket Association.

The association’s chairman Vu Vinh Phu said the prices of essential food items have increased two or three times compared to those of two to three years ago. In the same period, local incomes have risen by just 25 percent.

Phu said the prices of consumer goods will see stronger increases from now until Tet in January 2011 due to holiday demand. “Prices of hundreds of consumer products increase every day,” he said.

Consumer prices climbed 8.92 percent in September from a year earlier, compared with an 8.18 percent advance in August, according to a report issued by the General Statistics Office. Prices rose 1.31 percent in September over the previous month.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Van, head of the office’s general department, said factors such as the increase in the price of gasoline and school fees, which contributed to rising inflation last month, will continue to affect the consumer prices in the months ahead.

The devaluation of the Vietnamese dong will further drive the price of imported products higher, raising business input costs as well as consumer prices, she said.

“Most imported products have seen a price hike since the dollar increase,” said Vu Thi Hau, deputy director of Nhat Nam Company, which owns the supermarket chain, Fivimart. “But food prices experience bigger year-end increases than other products.”

Vu Dinh Anh, deputy director of the Institute of Market and Price Research, said the demand for imported products is expected to increase from now until the end of this year, while the dollar exchange rate is also expected to rise at both commercial banks and black market exchange locations.

This will only add to the inflationary pressures on the country’s economy.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the Government Office, said Vietnam will continue to tighten control over consumer prices through the end of the year as the country strives to keep inflation at 8 percent. He said it is necessary to keep an eye on milk and medicine prices in particular.

In a recent report, the Asian Development Bank predicted that Vietnam’s inflation would reach 8.5 percent this year and 7.5 percent next year.

These forecasts are down slightly from April’s outlook, owing to improvements in macroeconomic conditions and moderate growth in credit, the bank found. However, large swings in inflation, together with expectations of dong devaluation, suggest that even the forecasts are not firmly anchored.

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Recent price increases raise inflation jitters

Prices of consumer goods saw the most rapid hike in four monthsp this September, raising fears about spiking inflation late this year.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked ministries and relevant authorities to “intensify” measures to stabilize commodity prices and help the country maintain its economic and inflation targets.

He ordered the Ministry of Industry and Trade to study production and distribution systems to ensure a balance between the supply and demand of essential commodities and services through the end of the year. The country will also make efforts to keep prices of electricity and coal stable.

In Hanoi, prices on some 300 items, including confectionery products, milk and sugar, rose by 3 to 10 percent in September, according to the Hanoi Supermarket Association.

The association’s chairman Vu Vinh Phu said the prices of essential food items have increased two or three times compared to those of two to three years ago. In the same period, local incomes have risen by just 25 percent.

Phu said the prices of consumer goods will see stronger increases from now until Tet in January 2011 due to holiday demand. “Prices of hundreds of consumer products increase every day,” he said.

Consumer prices climbed 8.92 percent in September from a year earlier, compared with an 8.18 percent advance in August, according to a report issued by the General Statistics Office. Prices rose 1.31 percent in September over the previous month.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Van, head of the office’s general department, said factors such as the increase in the price of gasoline and school fees, which contributed to rising inflation last month, will continue to affect the consumer prices in the months ahead.

The devaluation of the Vietnamese dong will further drive the price of imported products higher, raising business input costs as well as consumer prices, she said.

“Most imported products have seen a price hike since the dollar increase,” said Vu Thi Hau, deputy director of Nhat Nam Company, which owns the supermarket chain, Fivimart. “But food prices experience bigger year-end increases than other products.”

Vu Dinh Anh, deputy director of the Institute of Market and Price Research, said the demand for imported products is expected to increase from now until the end of this year, while the dollar exchange rate is also expected to rise at both commercial banks and black market exchange locations.

This will only add to the inflationary pressures on the country’s economy.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the Government Office, said Vietnam will continue to tighten control over consumer prices through the end of the year as the country strives to keep inflation at 8 percent. He said it is necessary to keep an eye on milk and medicine prices in particular.

In a recent report, the Asian Development Bank predicted that Vietnam’s inflation would reach 8.5 percent this year and 7.5 percent next year.

These forecasts are down slightly from April’s outlook, owing to improvements in macroeconomic conditions and moderate growth in credit, the bank found. However, large swings in inflation, together with expectations of dong devaluation, suggest that even the forecasts are not firmly anchored.

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