Vietnam Industrial Parks InfoGate ! Industrial Zones ! Export Processing Zones ! Business in brief 22/6

Vietnamese lawmakers have approved a change the Cinema Law to allow foreigners to hold a maximum stake of 51% in film joint ventures, up from 49%, the National Assembly said Friday. "Foreigners will have a maximum stake of 51% in all the joint ventures making and distributing movies in Vietnam," the National Assembly said in a statement. Vietnam pledged to allow the 51% foreign ownership under the commitment that the country made as it joined the World Trade Organization in 2007, the statement noted. The government of Vietnam has the right to examine the content of the movies to be produced or distributed in the country, it added. Currently, Vietnam law only allows foreigners to hold a maximum stake of 49% in shareholder firms and 30% in commercial banks.

The State Bank of Vietnam said Friday it has allowed Lien Viet Commercial Joint Stock Bank to raise its registered capital to VND3.65 trillion ($214.7 million) from VND3.3 trillion. The central bank didn’t provide a timetable for the capital increase, but Lien Viet said earlier this year it will issue 35 million additional shares this year to raise capital. Lien Viet said it expects pretax profit to increase 10% this year from VND444 billion last year.

TienPhongBank will issue more shares to raise its registered capital to VND1.75 trillion ($100 million) from VND1 trillion this year, the State Bank of Vietnam said Monday. TienPhongBank will issue 75 million new shares in two different tranches, the central bank said in a statement. It didn’t provide a timetable for the issuance of the new shares.

The Indian Ministry of Finance has announced anti-dumping taxes to be imposed on recordable compact discs (CD-R) imported from Vietnam, Thailand, Iran, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea (RoK) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Accordingly, a tax rate of US$46.94 per 1000 discs is imposed on the Vietnamese products. The corresponding rates on products imported from Thailand, the RoK, Iran, Malaysia and the UAE are US$17.52, US$53.38, US$51.92, US$45.11 and US$63.84. The anti-dumping taxes were put into effect as of March 13, 2008. The maximum time for imposing anti-dumping taxes is 5 years from the date of validity, following article 9A of the Indian Customs Tariff Act.

The Ho Chi Minh City Business Association on June 19 held its Congress for the 5^th term (2009-2014) and received the Labor Order, third class, from the State. The Association now has 30 chapters with a total membership of 5,000. In recent times, it has upheld its role by coming up with new policies to improve the business environment and protect the legal rights of businesses. The association’s businesses have provided over VND40 billion for charity. In the next five years the association is expected to have 20 new chapters and some 2,000 new members.

A Vietnamese business delegation led by Ambassador Bui Dinh Dinh visited the Russian province of Kursk from June 19-21 to seek business opportunities. During a meeting with the province’s leaders, Ambassador Dinh proposed the local authorities create favorable conditions for the Vietnamese community to do business and enjoy a stable life in the province. On the occasion, he invited the provincial leaders and businesses to visit and study opportunities in Vietnam. The host appreciated the visit by the Vietnamese delegation, considering it a good start for direct cooperation between Vietnamese and Russian localities and businesses. They said Vietnam should increase rice, rubber and seafood exports to Russia in general and to Kursk province in particular. They added that Kursk province exported US$23 million worth of products to Vietnam in 2008 but Vietnamese goods have not reached the province’s potential market.

Hanoi’s consumer price index (CPI) in June increased by 0.91 percent compared with May, and 11.86 percent over the same month last year. According to the Hanoi Statistics Department, most commodity prices were on the increase, with food and beverages going up by 18.52 percent. Only postal and telecommunications services decreased by 2.5 percent. Economists say that Hanoi’s economic growth stood at 2.51 percent in the first half of the year due to the impact of the current global economic crisis. In June, gold prices jumped by 5.78 percent over last month while the price of the US dollar rose by only 0.09 percent.

VND1,500 billion has been poured into 20 projects on trade, tourism, services, agriculture and forestry in the Central Highland province of Dak Lak. Large investments include VND463 billion for a project to extend the Central Highland coffee processing factory, VND366 billion for Central Highland Hospital, VND17 billion for the Rang Dong bus station, VND117 billion for a car park built by Thuan An Co. Ltd., VND50 billion for restaurant and hotel by Thien Ha Co. Ltd., and VND14 billion for a trade and service centre by Vietnam National Coffee Corporation. In addition, many large projects have been put into operation such as a project to extend Saigon-Central Beer Factory with total investment of VND487 billion, a trade and service centre built by Dak Lak Rubber Company at VND80 billion and an international private school by Yen Ngan Co. Ltd., with VND22 billion.

In the first five months of this year, Vietnam attracted US$6.68 billion in FDI from newly-licensed and existing projects, equivalent to one fifth of the figure recorded a year earlier. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, accommodation services (hotels, villas, and up-market apartments) made up nearly 70% of the total FDI and the real estate sector 21.7%. Up to 53.2% of the FDI was poured into the processing and manufacturing industries. Meanwhile, the agriculture, forestry and seafood sector attracted only two percent – which is much lower than the set targets. Under the Prime Minister’s instructions, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has teamed up with other relevant ministries to work out a program to lure FDI into the field of agriculture and rural development in the 2009-2015 period.

Laos and Vietnam should achieve bilateral trade of US$1 billion next year, the visiting Lao Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavad said, calling for cooperation between companies in the two countries. It was worth $450 million last year. He was speaking while visiting Vissan Limited Company on June 17 along with 14 entrepreneurs who have accompanied him on his visit to the city. The food company has signed agreements with some Lao counterparts to develop distribution networks in Laos. Vietnam is set to export high-quality processed foods to neighboring country and import pork and beef. Vissan will also help the Lao companies develop livestock breeding and butchery and build a slaughterhouse and foodstuff processing plant in Laos.

PetroVietnam Central Biofuels Joint Stock Co., or PVB, has started building an $80 million ethanol plant in northern Vietnam, the government said Monday. The plant, located in Phu Tho province, 80 kilometers north of Hanoi, has a capacity of 100,000 cubic meters of ethanol a year, the government said in a statement. Construction of the plant, undertaken by a consortium of Alfa Laval AB, Delta-T Corp. and PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Co., will be completed by the end of 2010. The consortium signed a contract earlier this month with PVB to build the plant at a cost of $60 million. The plant’s output will be used to produce ethanol-blended gasoline for domestic consumption, the statement added.

Vietnam has managed to create jobs for just 650,000 workers in the first six months of this year, a year-on-year decrease of 17%, Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dam Huu Dac said on June 18. Given the impacts of the global economic downturn, the country is facing a wide range of challenges in generating employment while the number of workers losing jobs has increased sharply, he said. By the end of the first quarter, nearly 64,900 workers in 48 provinces and cities nationwide had lost their jobs, the deputy minister noted. The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) said that the country’s unemployment rate is likely to surge in the near future, with 300,000 people losing their jobs this year, while the number of guest workers who have to return from abroad will hit 10,000.