Cotton banknotes to go out of circulation

Cotton banknotes in VND10,000 and VND20,000 denominations will be taken out of circulation as of January 1, 2013. According to an announcement by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the VND10,000 and VND20,000 cotton banotes will no longer be legal tender in Vietnamese territory after that date. Organizations and individuals that possess these notes will be able to exchange them for polymer bills of equal value at SBV branches and representative offices, credit institutions, foreign bank branches, and provincial or municipal National Treasury offices.

Three types of packages enjoy free environment tax

Three types of packages will not be subjected to environmental protection tax, according to Decree 69/2012/NĐ-CP. The newly-approved decree replaces and supplements Item 3, Article 2 of Decree 67/2011/NĐ-CP. Accordingly, packages of imported items belong to the list of environmental protection tax exemption. The second type includes packages which organizations, households and individuals produce or import to pack their products. The last is packages which organizations, households and individuals directly buy from producers or import to cover their products. The new decree will take effect from November 15, 2012.

Maternity allowance exempted from personal income tax

The General Department of Taxation (GDT) issued an officially dispatch on September 24 confirming that the Social Insurance maternity leave allowance will not be counted as taxable personal income. According to the GDT, Item 2b of Article 3 in the Law on Personal Income Tax (LPIT) states that allowances for maternity leave or child adoption are considered part of the income from salaries and wages. However, Item 2.2 in Section II, Part A, of a circular containing instructions on implementing the LPIT, the income employees receive from the Social Insurance fund during their maternity leave or to adopt a child is exempt from personal income tax.

MHI Supplies Thermal Plant in Vietnam

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has received an order for power generation equipment for the 330-megawatt O Mon 1 Thermal Power Plant in Vietnam. The plant is being built by Can Tho Thermal Power Co. a subsidiary of Vietnam Electricity. The order was submitted by the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, a consortium formed by Japan’s Sojitz and Korea’s Daelim Industrial.

O Mon 1 Thermal Power Plant is located along the Mekong River in southern Vietnam, about 20 kilometers upstream from Can Tho City. The equipment will be used as part of an expansion project of an existing plant, MHI said in a statement. MHI will deliver the steam turbine to Sojitz and the boiler to Daelim. The plant will be commissioned in 2015.

First high-speed railway to connect Laos, Vietnam

A high-speed railway connecting Laos and Vietnam, the first of its kind, will soon be put into construction and is expected to be operational in the next five years. The 5 billion USD project will be invested by Malaysia’s Giant Consolidated Limited group.

A signing ceremony for the construction contract was held in the Lao capital city of Vientiane on November 5 in the presence of Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Abdu Razak. The high-speed railway spans 220 km, running from the Lao central province Savannakhet to Lao Bao border gate of neighbouring Vietnam. The railway will be part of the Southeast Asian railway network, which when completed will ensure uninterrupted connectivity between Laos and other regional countries to Kunming city of southern Yunnan province of China.

Worldtech gets ticket to build 300 ml USD solar panel plant

The government has given the green light on a 300 million USD solar panel manufacturing plant in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue. The plant is backed by Vietnam’s WorldTech Transfer Investment in coordination with the United Arab Emirates’s Global Sphere. Phase one of the project, located in the province’s Phong Dien Industrial Park, covers an area of 15ha with a total investment worth 300 million USD. It is stated to be built late December and completed in May 2015.