Vietnam in the News

US Navy warship docks in former foe Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:14:00 -0700

By MARGIE MASON (AP)

HANOI, Vietnam — A warship from the United States docked Tuesday in central Vietnam where the former foes planned to conduct navy training, in a sign of growing military ties amid new warnings from China for the U.S. to stay out of its backyard.

The USS John S. McCain's port call comes as the U.S. and Vietnam celebrate 15 years of normalized diplomatic relations following a bloody war that remains an open wound for many veterans. The two governments, while ideologically different, have embraced on a number of issues, including a recent stance against China's territorial claims over the South China Sea.

China on Tuesday told the U.S. and South Korean navies to keep out of the Yellow Sea, where it claims exclusivity.

The allies have planned another round of joint military war games following last month's drills in the Sea of Japan, which China also criticized.

The brief Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Beijing had repeatedly "expressed our clear and firm position" on any maneuvers in the Yellow Sea, a move that would have theoretically put Beijing within range of the ship's F-18 warplanes.

"We urge the relevant parties to take China's position and concern seriously," the statement said.

On Sunday, the U.S. Navy hosted a delegation of Vietnamese military and government officials on the USS George Washington, a hulking nuclear-powered aircraft supercarrier cruising in waters off Vietnam's central coast. Chinese military ships were seen shadowing the carrier in the distance.

"These waters belong to nobody, yet belong to everybody," Capt. David Lausman, commanding officer of the George Washington, said Sunday aboard the mammoth carrier that can carry up to 70 aircraft, more than 5,000 sailors and aviators and about 4 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms) of bombs. "China has a right to operate here, as do we and as do every other country of the world."

The U.S. has ratcheted up its military presence in the region in recent weeks, conducting large-scale joint military exercises with ally South Korea last month as a show of solidarity following the sinking of a South Korean navy warship in March that killed 46 sailors. North Korea was blamed for torpedoing the Cheonan, but has denied any involvement and has repeatedly threatened war if punished.

On Monday, the North fired off a barrage of about 110 artillery rounds into the ocean near its disputed western sea border with South Korea. The display caused no damage, but prompted terse warnings of retaliation from South Korea. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley joked that Pyongyang likely caused "a lot of dead fish," and said it wasn't clear what the reclusive government was trying to achieve with its "ongoing chest-thumping."

China criticized the drills and later held its own exercises in the South China Sea, which it claims entirely along with the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands over which it exercises complete sovereignty.

Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also have staked claims on all or some of the territory, which straddles vital shipping lanes, important fishing grounds and is believed rich in oil and natural gas reserves.

Last month during an Asian security meeting in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton angered China by asserting that it was in the U.S. national interest for the Communist giant to resolve the territorial claims with its neighbors.

Vietnam has been particularly vocal about the South China Sea. The communist country has grown increasingly closer to the United States, from trade and commerce to negotiating a controversial deal to share civilian nuclear fuel and technology that could allow Vietnam to enrich uranium on its own soil.

The USS John S. McCain's weeklong visit will involve search and rescue trainings along with cultural exchanges between the two navies. The guided-missile destroyer docked in central Danang, once the site of a bustling U.S. military base during the Vietnam War, which ended April 30, 1975, when northern communist forces seized control of the U.S.-backed capital of South Vietnam, reuniting the country.

Some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war.

Relations have thrived since the former foes shook hands in 1995. The U.S. is Vietnam's top export market and Americans are the country's No. 1 foreign investor. Two-way trade reached $15.4 billion in 2009.

Military ties have also grown since the first U.S. warship ship visited Ho Chi Minh City in 2003, including high-level defense talks and training.

Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report from Beijing.

Vietnam, US display military ties amid China tension

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 9 Aug 2010 20:47:00 -0700

DANANG, Vietnam — Vietnam and the United States will stage a fresh demonstration this week of their military ties at a time of escalating tensions with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The US destroyer USS John S. McCain, making a call at the central port city of Danang, departs Tuesday for a four-day exchange programme with the Vietnamese navy, featuring mostly sporting and musical events.

On Sunday, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which recently took part in joint military exercises with South Korea which were denounced by Beijing, hosted a delegation of Vietnamese military in the waters of the South China Sea off Danang.

The visit by the US Navy vessels, part of official celebrations marking the 15th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the former enemies, has taken on greater significance due to recent regional friction.

"Tensions in relations between China and the US are much more tense than a year ago and this has spilled over to the South China Sea," said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

"The US is demonstrating a military presence and Vietnam is letting this occasion speak for itself," he said.

Hanoi normally treads carefully in its relations with its Chinese ideological ally, but the regional ambitions of its large neighbour have stoked a degree of apprehension in Vietnam.

Relations between Hanoi and Washington have come a long way since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two 20 years later.

The United States has become an important partner of Vietnam, and not only in the commercial sphere.

Lately Hanoi has become particularly "uneasy about Chinese territorial ambitions", a Vietnamese defence ministry source said.

"The presence of American ships in Vietnamese ports has a great strategic significance for Vietnam," which "shows a regional balance in defence matters", he said.

"I think that the United States could play a much more important role in the region," he added.

The South China Sea has long been the subject of territorial disputes, particularly over the Paracel and Spratley archipelagos.

Since 1974, Beijing has been in de facto occupation of the Paracels, which are also claimed by Hanoi. China also claims sovereignty over the Spratleys, as does Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga last week denounced China for sending ships to carry out seismic studies in the Paracels zone, which "violated Vietnam's indisputable sovereignty".

Top US commanders have made it clear they are keeping a close eye on Beijing's military build-up, in particular its naval presence in the South China Sea.

China last month held a large naval and air exercise in the South China Sea, a week after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said resolution of the territorial disputes was "pivotal" to regional stability.

Speaking at Asian security talks in Hanoi, Clinton indicated that Washington was prepared to facilitate multilateral discussions on the island chains and said the US had a "national interest" in seeing international law respected in the area.

Beijing swiftly denounced any such attempts to "internationalise" the disputes, saying such moves could worsen the situation.

And visits by US naval ships to Vietnam risk further irritating China.

"The Vietnamese are ever sensitive to how China will react," said Thayer. "The visit of US warships to Danang indicates that Vietnam is willing to risk Chinese verbal displeasure."

Vietnam July car sales drop 13 pct yr/yr - industry

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 9 Aug 2010 20:46:00 -0700

Aug 10 (Reuters) - Car sales in Vietnam dropped in July for the first time in four months, falling 13 percent from last July to 9,439 vehicles, but Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) retained its top position, an industry association said.

Toyota sold 2,452 cars last month, a 12 percent dip from July 2009, the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association said in its monthly report.

Car sales last dropped in March when they fell 16 percent to around 9,300 units following a slump in holiday-shortened February.

The association gave no reasons for the fall in July, but it said sales of sport utility vehicles, multi-purpose vehicles and crossovers had the largest annual fall of 20 percent.

Overall, Vietnam's car industry sold 59,717 vehicles between Janaury and July, an increase of 2 percent from the same period last year, the association said.

The sales data from 16 manufacturers operating in Vietnam also included passenger cars.

Car imports, which have been limited by the government as part of measures to reduce the country's trade deficit, rose 19.5 percent in the first seven months of 2010 from a year earlier to $1.57 billion, government statistics show.

Vietnamese brides flock to South Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 9 Aug 2010 15:43:00 -0700

The Independent

After 30 minutes of discussion it was settled. Le would become his bride. She and three other young Vietnamese women had been presented to two South Korean men by illegal marriage brokers in Ho Chi Minh City.

The men made their choices and three days later Le, then 25, was married. After completing the paperwork, she left behind her poor life on a farm in southern Vietnam to live in South Korea.

Tens of thousands of other Vietnamese women have made the same journey.

"I left because of my family's economic difficulties," Le said.

Her parents earned less than two million dong (108 dollars) a month, and the husband gave the family five times that ahead of the marriage.

Then the money stopped, because Le's South Korean dream was cut short.

"I wasn't beaten but I was locked up all day long," said Le, who only gave her first name.

She spoke at an official Women's Union centre which counsels prospective brides of foreigners and helps those who return after encountering difficulty.

Le said her husband "was shouting all the time." She fled, was arrested, and sent back to Vietnam where she returned to her home in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long.

Le was one of about 40,000 Vietnamese women who married South Koreans between 2004 and 2009, according to researchers.

Increasing numbers of Southeast Asian men, particularly in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are marrying foreigners because fewer women in their homelands are willing to wed and take on a traditional role, a study by Daniele Belanger, of Canada's University of Western Ontario, said in late July.

Official figures in South Korea show there were 7,249 marriages between South Koreans and Vietnamese women last year.

South Korean television shows are popular in Vietnam, exposing the would-be brides to Korean culture - and dreams of a better life.

Many of them are impoverished and poorly-educated residents of the rural Mekong Delta, where they are sought by illegal marriage brokers based in nearby Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon.

Tran Giang Linh, a Vietnamese researcher, studied families in the Delta province of Can Tho and found some brides were able to send home more than 3,000 dollars in one year - roughly three times Vietnam's per capita income.

But activists say some foreign brides, coaxed by false promises or deceptive advertising, end up living with spouses who have few assets, are ill, alcoholic or just difficult.

Seoul said it would set up a task force to reform the international matchmaking business following the death in July of Vietnamese bride Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc, 20. She was allegedly beaten and stabbed to death by her 47-year-old husband eight days after she arrived in the southern port city of Busan.

The man told police he heard a "ghost's voice" urging him to kill his bride when they quarrelled. He had been treated 57 times for schizophrenia since July 2005, South Korean police said.

Ngoc and her husband met through a marriage agency, Vietnamese media reported.

Following her death, a Vietnamese government spokeswoman said clamping down on illegal marriage brokers would be difficult because "it is not easy to identify which marriage is unlawfully brokered".

An increasing number of marriages are arranged through networks of relatives, although Belanger said family members often have links to the brokers.

Matchmaking agencies in receiving and sending countries still play a major role but "family networks are taking on a greater importance," she said.

Taiwan used to be the destination of choice for Vietnamese women seeking foreign husbands. Some 100,000 Vietnamese wives have been registered there since the early 1990s, according to data gathered on the island.

The flow shifted to South Korea over the past several years, partly because Taiwan tightened its documentation process, said Hong-zen Wang, director of the Graduate Institute of Sociology at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University.

"Now South Korea is the principle destination," he said.

Last year Taiwan also banned commercial international matchmaking services after a series of high-profile criminal cases, including one in which a man was jailed for enslaving and torturing his Vietnamese wife.

Although the problems which foreign brides can encounter abroad should not be minimised, arranged marriages do not systematically lead to abuse, Belanger said.

And the potential for a better life and the ability to send money home to the family draws five or six women a month to the Women's Union advisory centre in Vinh Long.

For Le, who has remarried to a Vietnamese man, the centre is still a source of support three years after her failed marriage to the Korean.

"It helps me to return to a normal life," she said.

Former enemies US, Vietnam now military mates

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sun, 8 Aug 2010 22:24:00 -0700

By MARGIE MASON (AP)

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON — Cold War enemies the United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a U.S. nuclear supercarrier cruised in waters off the Southeast Asian nation's coast — sending a message that China is not the region's only big player.

The visit comes 35 years after the Vietnam War as Washington and Hanoi are cozying up in a number of areas, from negotiating a controversial deal to share civilian nuclear fuel and technology to agreeing that China needs to work with its neighbors to resolve territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The USS George Washington's stop is officially billed as a commemoration of last month's 15th anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between the former foes. But the timing also reflects Washington's heightened interest in maintaining security and stability in the Asia-Pacific amid tensions following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors. North Korea has been blamed for the attack, but has vehemently denied any involvement.

Last month during an Asian security meeting in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also angered China by unexpectedly calling on the Communist powerhouse to resolve territorial claims with neighboring Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea.

"The strategic implications and importance of the waters of the South China Sea and the freedom of navigation is vital to both Vietnam and the United States," Capt. Ross Myers, commander of the George Washington's air wing, said aboard the ship Sunday as fighter jets thundered off the flight deck above.

"I'm certain that the Chinese government and the Chinese people are trying to protect their interests," he added when asked about China's increased aggressiveness within the area. "It is more important for Vietnam (and) its partners to establish that they have an equal right to economic prosperity and peace within the region as well."

Chinese navy ships were seen shadowing the USS George Washington at a distance over the past several days as the supercarrier made its way throught the South China Sea along Vietnam's eastern coast, U.S. Navy officials said Sunday.

China claims the entire sea and the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands over which it exercises complete sovereignty. But Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also have staked claims on all or some of the territory, which straddles vital shipping lanes, important fishing grounds and is believed rich in oil and natural gas reserves. Clinton announced that the U.S. has a national interest in seeing the claims resolved.

"The problem is that China has now committed herself, publicly, to sovereignty of the South China Sea and to push that back, if only to the status of a claim that is not enforced, is going to be very difficult," said Arthur Waldron, an international relations specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. "So we are playing catch up, reminding the Chinese that we have not collapsed into post-great powerdom yet, and that we have other friends in the region."

Vietnam has long been vocal about the issue, protesting China's plans to bring tourists to the islands and most recently seismic studies conducted near the Paracels. Last month China also held naval drills in the South China Sea.

"Vietnam does not support containing China, but like most other ASEAN members would like to see each major power offset the other," Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra, said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. "Quite simply, these are not too subtle signals that Vietnam wants the United States to stay engaged in the region to balance China."

The formidable USS George Washington is a permanent presence in the Pacific, based in Japan. As one of the world's biggest warships, it is a floating city that can carry up to 70 aircraft, more than 5,000 sailors and aviators and about 4 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms) of bombs. It lurked Sunday about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off the central coast of Danang, Vietnam's jumping-off point for the disputed islands.

A group of high-ranking Vietnamese military officials was flown onto the carrier Sunday along with other Vietnamese government officials and the U.S. ambassador to the country.

The supercarrier came to Vietnam following four days of high-profile military exercises last month with South Korea aimed at showing solidarity following the sinking of the 1,200-ton Cheonan navy ship. The drills enraged Pyongyang and drew repeated criticism from its Chinese ally.

A Chinese newspaper ran a front-page story last week strongly hinting that China also is not happy about reports that Vietnam and the U.S. are negotiating a civilian nuclear fuel and technology deal that could allow Vietnam to enrich uranium on its own soil.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said China had not been consulted about the talks, but he would not discuss the specifics of the enrichment provision. Congressional aides have said the agreement will likely not contain a no-enrichment pledge, which the U.S. promotes as the "gold standard" for civilian nuclear cooperation accords to ensure materials are not being used to build a nuclear weapon.

Vietnam has denied having any plans to enrich uranium on its own soil.

The aircraft carrier's visit is particularly symbolic as it cruises off the coast of central Danang, once the site of a bustling U.S. military base during the Vietnam War, which ended April 30, 1975, when northern communist forces seized control of the U.S.-backed capital of South Vietnam, reuniting the country.

Some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war.

Military ties have also grown since the first U.S. warship ship visited Ho Chi Minh City in 2003, including high-level defense talks and training.

The USS John McCain destroyer will pay a port call to Vietnam later this week. The two navies are expected to have cultural exchanges along with training exercises, such as search and rescue operations.

US-Vietnam nuke deal likely to allow enrichment

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sun, 8 Aug 2010 21:15:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Congressional aides say the Obama administration has told lawmakers that a nuclear cooperation deal with Vietnam is unlikely to include a promise from Hanoi not to enrich uranium.

The United States calls the no-enrichment pledge the "gold standard" for civilian nuclear cooperation accords. It is modeled on a U.S. deal last year with the United Arab Emirates.

In that deal, the UAE pledged, in return for U.S. nuclear equipment and reactors, not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel for plutonium. Either of those procedures could be used for nuclear bombs.

Vietnam May Spur Privatization After $4.5 Billion Shipyard Debt

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sun, 8 Aug 2010 21:12:00 -0700

Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam may accelerate plans to privatize and break up state-owned companies after the nation’s largest shipbuilder almost collapsed under 86 trillion dong ($4.5 billion) of debts.

“Vietnam’s policy is to speed up the process of equitization,” the state’s name for privatizations, said Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the Government Office, which oversees implementation of state plans. “The Vinashin case won’t slow the equitization program,” he said by phone on Aug. 6. The ex- chairman of Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, known as Vinashin, was arrested last week amid a probe into losses.

Hastening the privatization push may boost management standards at local companies and help the South Asian nation pare a budget deficit that contributed to it being downgraded by Fitch Ratings last month. The government delayed plans to sell stakes in Bank for Investment & Development, Vietnam Airlines and other state-owned companies in the last two years as global stock markets plunged during the worldwide recession.

“Vinashin is a good example of why the equitization process needs to progress more quickly,” said Matt Hildebrandt, a Singapore-based economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. It will “ensure that credible leaders run and grow Vietnam’s most important companies.”

Vinashin Investigation

Pham Thanh Binh, Vinashin’s ex-chairman, was accused of “intentional violations of state regulations on economic management that have resulted in serious consequences,” according to a statement posted on the government’s website on Aug. 4. He was suspended from Vinashin last month before being detained by an investigation agency under the Ministry of Public Security.

Binh, 57, had run Vinashin since the company’s formation in 1996, holding posts including general director, chairman and secretary of the group’s party unit, according to Thanh Nien newspaper. The government set up Vinashin by combining shipyards and related companies held by the Ministry of Transport, according to the shipbuilder’s website.

Fitch cut Vietnam’s long-term foreign and local-currency ratings by one level to B+ on July 29. That’s four steps below investment grade. The nation’s budget deficit will likely stay at 7.6 percent of gross domestic product this year, the ratings company said.

Smaller Privatizations

Vietnam has focused privatizations this year on smaller companies or units of larger groups. Last week, it raised 129.2 billion dong selling shares in BIDV Insurance Co., an arm of BIDV, the nation’s second-biggest lender by assets. Mekong Housing Bank, a state-owned commercial lender, said last week that it plans to finish its privatization this year.

The government intended to conduct an initial public offering of BIDV as early as 2007. The sale was delayed because of concerns about an oversupply of new shares and then because of the global financial crisis. Vietnam Airlines’ offering was planned for 2008. No date has been set yet for either sale.

Bao Viet Holdings, Vietnam’s biggest insurer, raised 4.3 trillion dong in an initial public offering in 2007 before listing shares on the exchange in 2009. Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam and Vietnam Bank for Industry & Trade, the nation’s third-biggest and fourth-biggest bank by assets, also listed shares last year.

The benchmark Vietnam Stock Index, or VN Index, has dropped 4.5 percent this year, compared with a gain of 19 percent for the benchmark index in Thailand and of 21 percent in Indonesia. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which tracks 756 companies worldwide, has climbed 2.4 percent.

EVN, PetroVietnam

The government should prioritize selling stakes in some of the largest companies still fully under state control including the nation’s biggest power company, Electricity of Vietnam, or EVN, and oil producer Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, said Matthias Duehn, Ho Chi Minh City-based executive director of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, a business group.

“EVN is probably the most urgent one to address because Vietnam is experiencing serious energy problems in the medium- and long-term,” he said. “It is proven by many cases, most recently Vinashin, that state-owned enterprises are often lagging behind in efficiency, funds allocation and corporate governance.”

Vietnam plans to restructure Vinashin, which has already fired about 5,000 workers to cut costs and “was facing the risk of bankruptcy” in June, according to an Aug. 4 government statement. The company should focus on shipbuilding and maintenance, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said last week. The shipyard had invested in projects including shipping, industrial zones and cement-making.

The government will likely save the shipbuilder as it employs skilled workers and generates export earnings, said Lawrence Wolfe, director of business development at DongA Securities Co. in Ho Chi Minh City.

“It’s a company and a group that the government would like to save,” he said. “It would also be an example of the need for equitization.”

--Editors: Neil Denslow, Aaron Sheldrick

Vietnam’s GDP Growth Accelerates to 5.8% on Stimulus

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:28:00 -0700

Bloomberg

By Jason Folkmanis

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s economic growth accelerated this quarter, buoyed by domestic demand and government stimulus spending that has revived bank lending.

Gross domestic product expanded 5.8 percent from a year earlier after gaining 4.5 percent in the previous three months, according to the General Statistics Office in Hanoi. For the first three quarters, the economy grew 4.6 percent, compared with a revised 6.3 percent for the same period in 2008.

“Vietnam is certainly moving out of the slowdown,” said Ashok Sud, the Hanoi-based Vietnam chief executive for Standard Chartered Plc. “But getting back to the 7 or 8 percent growth that we were seeing before may take another couple of years.”

The government is focusing more on boosting economic growth this year than on easing inflation, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet said last week. The country has among “the most attractive” growth prospects in Asia over the “long run,” said Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, in an interview last week.

“Vietnam’s steady recovery remains on track,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said in a research note today. “Industrial production, particularly from the state sector, continues to propel growth, while the retail sales momentum looks reasonably healthy.”

Retail sales have maintained growth rates of about 20 percent through the economic slowdown, according to research from Ho Chi Minh City-based fund manager Dragon Capital.

‘Reviving Well’

“Core GDP support continues to be generated mainly by domestic demand,” wrote Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong-based economist at Credit Suisse Group AG, in a note last week. “Consumption held up well during the downturn and even big-ticket purchases seem to be reviving well.”

This quarter’s growth was largely spurred by services, which account for 38 percent of the economy and which expanded 5.9 percent in the first nine months from a year earlier.

Transportation, storage and telecommunications grew 8.4 percent during the first three quarters, while financial services expanded 8.1 percent during the period.

“In a developing market, the financial sector normally grows at about twice the rate of GDP,” said Sud of Standard Chartered. “In the case of Vietnam this year, we also had the stimulus package’s interest-rate subsidy program, which helped drive bank lending.”

Stimulus Package

Measures put in place to counter the slowdown included a fiscal stimulus package valued at 8.6 percent of GDP that featured tax exemptions, reductions and deferments for businesses, increased bond sales, and an interest-rate subsidy program, central bank Governor Nguyen Van Giau said in an August letter to the Asian Development Bank.

The interest-rate subsidy scheme as well as a government infrastructure program have been the “key drivers” behind Vietnam’s economic growth this year, wrote Robert Prior- Wandesforde, a Singapore-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc.

Industry and construction, which accounts for 40 percent of the Vietnamese economy, grew 4.5 percent in the first three quarters, with the sub-category measuring construction alone expanding 9.7 percent.

Vietnamese building has “recommenced” and a heavy supply of office space will probably enter the market within two years, Dragon Capital said this month.

“The economic recovery is spreading out from construction to include the manufacturing sector,” wrote Prior-Wandesforde of HSBC.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries, which made up 22 percent of the economy during the first three quarters, grew 1.6 percent. Seafood production was hampered by “many difficulties,” the General Statistics Office said in a report today, with industry exports sliding 10 percent by value during the first three quarters.

Six jailed for Vietnam baby fraud

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:27:00 -0700

BBC News

Six Vietnamese have been sentenced to jail for arranging more than 300 fraudulent adoptions, an official said.

The six were jailed for two to four-and-a-half years for "abuse of power", court official Nguyen Tien Hung said.

Among those convicted were two heads of provincial welfare centres, doctors, nurses and local officials.

They were found to have filed false papers to allow babies from poor families to be adopted, many by parents in France, Italy and the US.

Ten other people received suspended sentences of 15 to 18 months.

They came from the province of Nam Dinh, south of Hanoi.

The falsified papers said the babies had been abandoned, making them eligible for adoption by foreign parents, the prosecutors said.

The group was operating from 2005 to July 2008, when the two key suspects were arrested.

The case came to light last year after the US embassy in Hanoi accused Vietnam of failing to police its adoption system, allowing corruption, fraud and baby-selling to flourish.

The US report led Vietnam to end a bilateral adoption agreement.

Congress of Vietnamese Fatherland Front opens

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:37:00 -0700

HANOI, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- The seventh national congress of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front (VFF) opened here on Monday, mapping out development strategy and major tasks of the organization for the next five years.

The VFF is a united front organization of Vietnamese people from all walks of life. The national congress is convened every five years.

With the theme of enhancing the role of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, strengthening democracy, promoting social development and building national unity bloc for a prosperous country and a just, democratic and civilized society, the three-day conference has participation of around 1,300 delegates.

Huynh Dam, President of the VFF Central Committee delivered a speech at the conference. He said the VFF will strive to further enhance its role in Vietnam's renovation cause in the next five years.

The VFF will try to involve more people from various ethnical groups and social sectors to take part in the country's industrialization, modernization and international integration in all possible ways, said Dam.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nong Duc Manh spoke highly of the VFF at the conference. He said that the VFF has contributed greatly to the country's economic and social development, national security and national unity.

Officials from China, Laos, Cambodia and Cuba were invited to attend the opening ceremony of the conference.

Zhang Rongming, vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee delivered a speech at the opening ceremony.

Zhang said that bilateral relations between China and Vietnam have developed in an all-round way in recent years, with friendly exchanges and mutual-beneficial cooperation in all sectors.

Zhang said that the CPPCC would like to continue to work together with the VFF to promote China-Vietnam friendship and cooperation.

Xinhua News Agency

Vietnam's war to save Mekong from sea

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:01:00 -0700

By Seth Mydans Cai Rang, Vietnam

FOR centuries, as monsoon rains, typhoons and wars have swept over them to disappear in the sunshine, the farmers and fishermen of the Mekong Delta have drawn life from the water and fertile fields where the great river ends its 2,700-mile journey to the sea.

But everything here, both the timeless and the new, is at risk now from a threat that could bring deeper and longer-lasting disruptions than the generations of warfare that ended more than 30 years ago.

In a worse-case projection, a Vietnamese government report released last month says that more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country's rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by 3ft in the decades to come.

In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded, said Tran Thuc, who leads Vietnam's National Institute for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences and is the chief author of the report.

Storm surges could periodically raise that level, he said, and experts say an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.

The risks of climate change for Vietnam go far beyond the Mekong Delta.

Climate experts consider this nation of an estimated 87m people to be in the top five most threatened by rising sea levels linked to climate change.

If the sea level rises by 3ft, 11 per cent of Vietnam's population could be displaced, according to a 2007 World Bank working paper. If it rises by 15ft, 35 per cent of the population and 16 per cent of the country's land area could be affected, the document said.

The potential disruptions and the tremendous cost of trying to reduce their impact could slow Vietnam's drive to emerge from its postwar poverty and impede its ambitions to become one of the region's economic leaders.

Once again, this nation, which has spent much of its history struggling to free itself from foreign domination, finds itself threatened by an overpowering outside force.

"Climate change isn't caused by a developing country like Vietnam, but it is suffering the consequences," said Koos Neefjes, a policy adviser on climate change with the United Nations Development Programme in Hanoi.

In addition to rising seas in the Mekong Delta, climatologists predict more frequent, severe and southerly typhoons, heavier floods and stronger storm surges that could ultimately drive hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Climate refugees could swell the population of Ho Chi Minh City, on low-lying land just north of the delta, as war refugees did when it was known as Saigon.

But the city itself is also at risk, says the government study, prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Up to a quarter of the city's area would be threatened by rising floodwaters if the sea level were to rise by 3ft.

"Ho Chi Minh City could have a double impact if sea levels rise and living conditions in the delta are not sustainable," Thuc, the lead author of the government report, said.

His report assesses only the climatological risks, he added, and a great deal more work needs to be done to try to determine their social and economic impacts and the probable effect on future population displacement.

Because of the uncertainties of climate change and the variables of mitigation measures, it is impossible to rank nations precisely on a scale of risk, Neefjes said.

"Among all of the indicators used in this paper, Vietnam ranks among the top five most impacted countries," the paper says. It did not include some small island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu that are also threatened with severe inundation.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change listed the Mekong Delta, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta in Egypt as the world's three "hot spots" for potential migration because of their combination of sea-level rise and existing population.

As a region, Southeast Asia is disproportionately vulnerable, with only 3.3 per cent of the world's land mass but more than 11 per cent of its coastline, the Asian Development Bank said in a report it released earlier this year.

But Vietnam has at least recognised the problem and has begun to address it, Neefjes said. "Faster than any developing country, it has actually developed a sensible national programme to start responding," he said.

Those plans include an attempt to integrate environmental concerns into the development plans of ministries and enterprises, modifications that could conflict with their ambitions for growth, he said.

Experts said Vietnam's primary approach – the hugely expensive construction and reinforcement of thousands of miles of dikes – would bring its own set of problems.

In the delta, they said, the barriers will probably inhibit the self-cleansing mechanism of rivers and trap millions of cubic yards of industrial waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of industrial rubbish, and millions of tons of pesticides and fertiliser that are used in fish farms and shrimp farms.

"If one-third of the delta's area is flooded by seawater, losses would be huge," Vo Hung Dung, director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Can Tho city branch, said last month in the newspaper Tuoi Tre. "But if the entire delta is polluted by waste water, the losses could be many times higher."

Here on the tiny Hau River,

Nguyen Thanh Chanh, 29, who fishes with his wife in a small boat, said that he had never heard any talk of climate change.

Life is already hard, and the rivers already flood during the monsoon season from June to November.

"Those who farm go to the fields, and those who fish go to the rivers," said Huynh Thuy, 47, a farmer.

"They don't worry much about the future."

Vietnam Leave Out Le Cong Vinh For Vital Syria Qualifiers

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:26:00 -0700

The regional champions have made a controversial decision...

Vietnam will be without star striker Le Cong Vinh for their two 2011 Asian Cup qualifiers against Syria in November.

Coach Henrique Calisto has decided to allow the hitman, who scored the winning goal in Vietnam's 2008 ASEAN Cup triumph, to stay in Portgual in an attempt to break into the starting eleven for club side Leixoes.

The regional champions have two vital matches in the space of four days against Syria.

“All the 23 players called this time were chosen by coach Henrique Calisto. We (Vietnam Football Federation) don’t have any suggestions,” Nguyen Trong Giap, deputy manager of the national team, told Thanh Nien.

Before the two clashes, the national team will start training next week for the HCMC Cup which will take place from October 20-24.

The first match against Syria takes place in Hanoi on November 14.

Vietnam Finds Itself Vulnerable if Sea Rises

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:24:00 -0700

The New York Times

CAI RANG, Vietnam — For centuries, as monsoon rains, typhoons and wars have swept over them and disappeared into the sunshine, the farmers and fishermen of the Mekong Delta have drawn life from the water and fertile fields where the great river ends its 2,700-mile journey to the sea.

The rhythms of life continue from season to season though, like much of the country, the delta is moving quickly into the future, and industry has begun to pollute the air and water.

But everything here, both the timeless and the new, is at risk now from a threat that could bring deeper and longer-lasting disruptions than the generations of warfare that ended more than 30 years ago.

In a worse-case projection, a Vietnamese government report released last month says that more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country’s rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by three feet in the decades to come.

In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded, said Tran Thuc, who leads Vietnam’s National Institute for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences and is the chief author of the report.

Storm surges could periodically raise that level, he said, and experts say an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.

The risks of climate change for Vietnam go far beyond the Mekong Delta, up into the Central Highlands, where rising temperatures could put the coffee crop at risk, and to the Red River Delta in the north, where large areas could be inundated near the capital, Hanoi.

Climate experts consider this nation of an estimated 87 million people to be among the half-dozen most threatened by the weather disruptions and rising sea levels linked to climate change that are predicted in the course of this century.

If the sea level rises by three feet, 11 percent of Vietnam’s population could be displaced, according to a 2007 World Bank working paper.

If it rises by 15 feet, 35 percent of the population and 16 percent of the country’s land area could be affected, the document said.

The government report emphasizes that the predictions represent the threat, based on current models, if no measures are taken in the coming decades, like building dikes.

But the potential disruptions and the tremendous cost of trying to reduce their impact could slow Vietnam’s drive to emerge from its postwar poverty and impede its ambitions to become one of the region’s economic leaders.

Once again, this nation, which has spent much of its history struggling to free itself from foreign domination, finds itself threatened by an overpowering outside force.

“Climate change isn’t caused by a developing country like Vietnam, but it is suffering the consequences,” said Koos Neefjes, a policy adviser on climate change with the United Nations Development Program in Hanoi.

In addition to rising seas in the Mekong Delta, climatologists predict more frequent, severe and southerly typhoons, heavier floods and stronger storm surges that could ultimately drive hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

Climate refugees could swell the population of Ho Chi Minh City, on low-lying land just north of the delta, as war refugees did when it was known as Saigon.

But the city itself is also at risk, says the government study, prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Up to one-fourth of the city’s area would be threatened by rising floodwaters if the sea level rose by three feet.

“Ho Chi Minh City could have a double impact if sea levels rise and living conditions in the delta are not sustainable,” Mr. Thuc, the lead author of the government report, said in an interview.

His report assesses only the climatological risks, he said, and a great deal more work needs to be done to try to determine their social and economic impacts and the probable effect on population displacement.

Because of the uncertainties of climate change and the variables of mitigation measures, it is impossible to rank nations precisely on a scale of risk, Mr. Neefjes said.

However, the 2007 World Bank working paper studied 84 coastal developing countries and found Vietnam to be the most threatened in terms of percentage of population affected, and second only to the Bahamas in terms of percentage of land area affected, if no mitigating measures are taken.

“Among all of the indicators used in this paper, Vietnam ranks among the top five most impacted countries,” the paper says. It did not include some small island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu that are also threatened with severe inundation.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change listed the Mekong Delta, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta in Egypt as the world’s three “hot spots” for potential migration because of their combination of sea-level rise and existing population.

As a region, Southeast Asia is disproportionately vulnerable, with only 3.3 percent of the world’s land mass but more than 11 percent of its coastline, the Asian Development Bank said in a report it released this year.

But Vietnam has at least recognized the problem and begun to address it, Mr. Neefjes said. “Faster than any developing country, it has actually developed a sensible national program to start responding,” he said.

Those plans include an attempt to integrate environmental concerns into the development plans of ministries and enterprises, modifications that could conflict with their ambitions for growth, he said.

Experts said Vietnam’s primary approach — the hugely expensive construction and reinforcement of thousands of miles of dikes — would bring its own set of problems.

In the delta, they said, the barriers will probably inhibit the self-cleansing mechanism of rivers and trap millions of cubic yards of industrial waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of industrial rubbish, and millions of tons of pesticides and fertilizer that are used in fish farms and shrimp farms.

“If one-third of the delta’s area is flooded by seawater, losses would be huge,” Vo Hung Dung, director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Can Tho city branch, said last month in the newspaper Tuoi Tre. “But if the entire delta is polluted by wastewater, the losses could be many times higher.”

Here on the tiny Hau River, which winds through shaded groves of palm, bamboo and mangrove just south of Can Tho in the heart of the delta, there seems to be little awareness of these concerns.

Nguyen Thanh Chanh, 29, who fishes with his wife in a small boat, said that he sometimes listened to the radio and sometimes drank with friends at the end of the day, but that he had never heard any talk of climate change.

Life is already hard, and the rivers already flood during the monsoon season from June to November, from the swollen currents of the Mekong, from heavy rains and from tidal flooding.

An estimated 85 percent of the people in the delta are supported by agriculture.

“Those who farm go to the fields, and those who fish go to the rivers,” said Huynh Thuy, 47, a farmer. “They don’t worry much about the future.”

Vietnam, other nations look to U.S.-style community colleges

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:22:00 -0700

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

RACH GIA, Vietnam — The words of a song about Kien Giang Community College here say it was created to meet "the pressing expectations of the motherland." But school founder Do Quoc Trung, who co-wrote the song, says he wants his students to know college can enrich them, too.

"For the future development of our communities, let's build our school together," say the lyrics. "For Kien Giang … let's devote and sacrifice our life."

Asian culture has long placed a premium on higher education, but Kien Giang Community College, located in the capital city of Kien Giang Province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, is a relative newcomer.

Founded in 2002, it is one of 15 created since 2000 in Vietnam, and is modeled in part on U.S. community colleges, where the concept was born in 1901, when Joliet (Ill.) Junior College was founded. And just as President Obama is counting on community colleges to prepare the USA's workforce for 21st century jobs, Trung and his counterparts here believe their fledgling schools have potential to play a lead role as Vietnam pursues its goal to join the ranks of industrialized countries by 2020.

Other countries, too, are tapping into U.S. community college expertise as they diversify their higher education systems. In April, China's Ministry of Education sent a delegation to the American Association of Community College convention in Phoenix, and a second group plans to visit in November. The first of several community colleges developed by the Republic of Georgia opened last year, with assistance from community colleges in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. Qatar's government is working with two U.S. community college presidents as it looks into offering associate degrees and a transfer option to four-year universities.

Such schools are not a new phenomenon beyond U.S. borders, says Rosalind Latiner Raby, director of the nonprofit group California Colleges for International Education. But changes in the economy have heightened interest worldwide in harnessing their potential. "What we're now seeing is an explosion that's been decades in the making," she says. "Most countries now either have or are developing plans for a community college-like institution."

Community colleges in Vietnam — or any country — are not carbon copies of the U.S. version. Iran and Mexico, for example, have borrowed heavily from France. Vietnam also has partnered with Canada and the Netherlands. And each system is shaped by its country's governance policies.

What binds such institutions is a common philosophy, Raby and other researchers have concluded: Whereas universities cater to an elite few, community colleges strive to address multiple needs of the public they serve, from nontraditional students to employers to low-income students just out of high school.

"We bring opportunity to the community," Trung says.

They appear to be having an impact. Since Kien Giang Community College was founded, the number of educated workers in the province's labor pool has jumped from 8.5% to 15% last year. Though the community college can't take sole credit for that, enrollments more than doubled, from 3,164 to about 6,500 in that period. It is 6,600 this year.

Like U.S. colleges, academic offerings such as accounting, finance and informational technology are standard fare. Kien Giang also has capitalized on the province's rich natural resources. As resorts attract more foreigners to Phu Quoc Island, a short ferry ride from Rach Gia, the school has been ramping up a tourism program. It launched a seafood technology program two years ago to help local fisheries meet export standards.

"We have a variety of food products but (the processing field is) not very developed," says Kien Giang food technology major Pham Thi Mong, 20 who hopes to go on to earn a bachelor's.

Many students aspire to begin their studies at a university — a bachelor's degree is held in high esteem — yet the odds of doing so are not in their favor. Just 16% of university age students in Vietnam were enrolled in higher education in 2005 (vs. 43% in Thailand that year, 17%-19% in China and Indonesia), says a Harvard report out last year.

Though that percentage is increasing, those precious few slots go only to those scoring highest on a national exam. The Vietnamese government, acknowledging that its higher education system needs an overhaul, encourages more affluent families to send their children abroad, or to one of the private universities sprouting here under agreements with other countries, including Australia, Germany, and the USA.

Affordability is a growing concern, too. Undergraduate tuition at a four-year public university is only slightly higher than it is for an associate's degree, but prices could increase this fall — to about $135 and $110, per academic year, respectively. But for students in Kien Giang Province, where the average household annual income is about $456, costs related to travel, housing and other expenses quickly add up. The nearest major universities is in Can Tho, a three hour drive from Rach Gia. And for some families, that's too far for comfort.

"My parents … do not want me to learn far from home. My home is near my school, it is very convenient for me," says English major Duong Thi My Hang, 21, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree through a satellite program at Kien Giang Community College. Added benefits she says, include the college's computer labs (acquired as part of a partnership with the India-based National Institute of Information Technologies) and its foreign teachers, who come mostly through a U.S. program called Princeton-in-Asia, a nonprofit founded in 1898 that sends college graduates to serve communities throughout Asia.

Still an 'experiment'

Yet for all their promise, the future of community colleges here remains uncertain. The most concrete roadblock: They must be granted permanent status from the government's Ministry of Education and Training. And it still views the schools as experimental.

One problem is that the concept is not fully understood by the public or some key decision-makers, says Mai Van Tinh, the Ministry of Education and Training official in charge of community colleges. Some provinces, for example, have tried to merge community colleges with long-established public professional schools that typically focus on a single discipline, such as teaching or medicine. That model reflects the "sluggish, stagnant and bureaucratic thinking … of the old command centralized planning market," Tinh says. Local leaders "did not understand that the North American model of community college is very dynamic and flexible in a market economy."

Tinh's interviews last year also found some provincial leaders who said they would rather have a four-year university.

In fact, three of Vietnam's 15 community colleges have been upgraded to university status. And Diane Oliver, an education professor at California State University-Fresno and lead author of a chapter on Vietnam in Community College Models: Globalization and Higher Education Reform, published in March and co-edited by Raby, worries that other schools may want to do the same — if only to ensure their continued existence. "Without a permanent regulation they're always in a little bit of jeopardy," she says.

The preference for university status reflects the biggest perceptual challenge for community colleges: lack of prestige — an issue not unfamiliar in the USA.

"Overcoming the stigma that they are perceived as 'lesser' institutions in terms of quality of education is a major hurdle" for Vietnam's community colleges, says Michael Michalak, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. The State Department has helped support a number of initiatives here with U.S. community colleges.

The American Association of Community Colleges is working with its Vietnam counterpart to develop quality-assurance guidelines. And Trung, who hosted three U.S.-Vietnamese conferences during his tenure at Kien Giang, developed an especially close relationship with Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, N.Y., one of four U.S. institutions to help his campus develop its information technology program.

Benefits go both ways. "U.S. companies doing business in Vietnam (need) a skilled workforce to function productively," Michalak says, and U.S. partnerships lend credibility to Vietnam's programs.

Tinh agrees. "I hope that in the near future, together with assistance and cooperation from U.S. community colleges, we will promote the pilot program … to the more permanent status," he says.

And Trung, who has been reassigned to a university starting this fall, hopes he is right.

"The country needs all levels (of training), from vocational to higher education," Trung says. But "the urgent aims of education are to bring training to the community and to provide opportunities for everybody."

Fanged frog, 162 other new species found in Mekong

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:20:00 -0700

BANGKOK — A gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, an environmental group said Friday.

WWF International said that scientists in 2008 discovered 100 plants, 28 fish, 18 reptiles, 14 amphibians, two mammals and one bird species in the region. That works out to be about three species a week and is in addition to the 1,000 new species catalogued there from 1997 to 2007, the group said.

"After millennia in hiding these species are now finally in the spotlight, and there are clearly more waiting to be discovered," said Stuart Chapman, director of the WWF Greater Mekong Program.

Researchers working for WWF warned that the effects of climate change, including an upsurge in droughts and floods, threaten the diverse habitat that supports these species. That is on top of traditional threats such as poaching, pollution and habitat destruction.

"Some species will be able to adapt to climate change, many will not, potentially resulting in massive extinctions," Chapman said in a statement. "Rare, endangered and endemic species like those newly discovered are especially vulnerable because climate change will further shrink their already restricted habitats."

Among the stars in the new list is a fanged frog in eastern Thailand. Given the scientific name Limnonectes megastomias, the frog lies in wait along streams for prey including birds and insects. Scientists believe it uses its fangs during combat with other males.

Another unusual discovery was the Cat Ba leopard gecko found on Cat Ba Island in northern Vietnam. Named Goniurosaurus catbaensis, it has large, orange-brown catlike eyes and leopard spots down the length of its yellowish brown body.

Lee Grismer, of La Sierra University in California, said he found a tiger-stripped pit viper in Vietnam described in the report while he was attempting to capture a second gecko species.

"We were engrossed in trying to catch a new species of gecko when my son pointed out that my hand was on a rock mere inches away from the head of a pit viper," Grismer said in a statement. "We caught the snake and the gecko and they both proved to be new species."

That gecko species was not included in the WWF report because it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. All the other species listed by the WWF have been described in journals.

Simon Mahood, a conservation adviser for BirdLife International in Indochina, welcomed WWF's attention to the new species and said more could be discovered if additional money is put into conservation and countries make it easier to do field work.

"We are seeing more reports of new discoveries and populations because this region is relatively poorly known, particularly when it comes to cryptic and less fashionable groups like fish and amphibians," said Mahood, whose group this year announced finding the first nest of white-eared night heron in Vietnam and the discovery of a baldheaded song bird in Laos called the barefaced Bulbul Pycnonotus hualon.

On Friday, it announced that it discovered three more sites where the endangered, grey-crowned crocias or Crocias langbianis can be found in Vietnam. The bird has a white underbelly and brown and slate feathers.

Other new species found are a tube-nosed bat named Murina harpioloides that lives in southeastern Vietnam and a new bird species called the Nonggang babbler that favors walking to flying and is found in the karst rainforest on the Chinese-Vietnamese border, an area of limestone fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

Experts said a range of factors contributed to the upsurge in new species, including better access to regions that have seen decades of war and political unrest and more spending by governments on research to protect and identify plants and animals.

The WWF, which plans to publish yearly tabulations of newly discovered species in the Mekong, called for increased efforts to ensure new species are protected by preserving the large areas of forest and the free-flowing river networks they need to survive.

China Releases Vietnamese Fishermen Seized Near Paracel Islands

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:51:00 -0700

By Beth Thomas

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- China freed Vietnamese fishermen detained near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea after Vietnam requested their release.

Chinese authorities yesterday informed Vietnam’s embassy in Beijing that they had released all the fishermen, who were detained aboard three fishing boats, Le Dung, a spokesman for Vietnam’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said in a statement.

The seamen are expected to arrive home in the next few days, he added.

Thirteen Vietnamese fishermen from the central coastal provinces of Quang Ngai and Khanh Hoa were arrested near the Paracel Islands on Aug. 1 while seeking shelter to avoid a storm, the Quang Ngai government said Aug. 4. Twelve other men working on two boats from Quang Ngai were detained earlier, Hanoi-based Dung said in the statement.

The Vietnamese authorities are working with China to solve “outstanding problems,” Dung said in the statement.

The Paracel and Spratly Islands are claimed in whole or part by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

Vietnam seeks funds for Agent Orange victims

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:50:00 -0700

HANOI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Vietnam launched an "Orange Day" campaign on Monday to raise funds for people it says suffered through the spraying of Agent Orange herbicide by American forces during the war, for long an irritant in relations.

Vietnam and the United States disagree over the impact of the dioxin-laced herbicides, millions of gallons of which was sprayed on Vietnamese jungles by U.S. forces from the early 1960s until the early 1970s in an attempt to deny Communist troops cover.

On Sunday, more than 10,000 people, some in wheelchairs, paraded through downtown Ho Chi Minh City in support of Agent Orange victims and "poor people with disabilities", newspaper Saigon Giai Phong reported.

Vietnam's English state-TV channel VTV4 planned to broadcast Agent Orange-related programmes all day, and the campaign's organisers hoped to raise $3.4 million for shelters, scholarships and vocational training through a range of activities.

The launch date, Aug. 10, marked the day Agent Orange was first used 48 years ago, state media reported.

Hanoi says the defoliants, nicknamed "Agent Orange" from the orange stripe on the barrels in which they were stored, have caused 400,000 deaths and millions of cases of cancer and other ailments. It says 4.8 million people were exposed.

The United States is involved in a project to assess and help clean up dioxin "hot spots" in the central city of Danang and is helping fund services to the disabled community in that area.

Many U.S. veterans exposed to the defoliant have complained for years about a variety of health problems.

Last month, a U.S. Institute of Medicine panel said a study had found that Agent Orange may raise the risk of heart disease and Parkinson's disease, but it said the evidence was far from definitive.[ID:nN24481722]

The findings added to the list of conditions that could be linked to the defoliants, including leukaemia, prostate cancer, type II diabetes and birth defects in the children of veterans.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the dismissal of lawsuits by Vietnamese nationals and U.S. veterans against Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N), Monsanto Co (MON.N) and other chemical makers over the use of Agent Orange.

In 1984, seven chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, agreed to a $180 million settlement with veterans.

Vietnam capital closes schools to stop H1N1 spread

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 22:35:00 -0700

HANOI, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Authorities in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, have effectively closed the schools in the city to try to prevent the spread of H1N1 flu, which has infected more than 1,000 people in Vietnam and killed one so far.

A circular by the Hanoi education department said that, effective Friday, schools must "immediately stop every activity that involves gathering students".

The new school year is scheduled to begin as planned on Aug. 17, it said, but some schools had started early and summer classes were in session at many others.

Three schools in Hanoi had reported students infected with the H1N1 virus, the news Web site VNexpress.net said. H1N1 cases have been reported in all regions of the country.

In its latest update last week, the World Health Organisation reported 162,230 confirmed cases and 1,154 deaths from the virus. Flu experts said this probably reflected only a fraction of the true count as not every patient can be diagnosed with a lab test.

Vietnamese Trade Deficit Narrows Through July; Inflation Eases

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:45:00 -0700

By Jason Folkmanis

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

The trade gap shrank 78 percent in the seven months through July to $3.4 billion from $15.2 billion in the same period a year earlier, the General Statistics Office said in Hanoi today. Inflation eased this month to a five-year low of 3.3 percent.

Any re-widening of the trade deficit as the economy gathers steam would be a concern for the exchange rate of the dong, which is currently “fragile but stabile,” according to HSBC Holdings Plc. The prospect of a wider gap may be quickening the depreciation of the currency, Dragon Capital said this month.

“Figures like this shouldn’t serve as a catalyst to trigger a run on the currency,” said Matt Robinson, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com in Sydney. “We’re not at that threshold point. But the underlying issue and the specter of a run is a clear and present danger that Vietnam faces.”

The dong declined to a record low of 17,862 against the U.S. currency this week, using the so-called official rate. Steelmakers this month asked the government for help in getting hold of the dollars they need to pay for imports, according to the Vietnam Steel Association.

“You have to pay more than the official rate to get dollars,” said Alan Young, chief operating officer of Vietnam Industrial Investments Ltd., citing a figure of about 18,300 dong per dollar. “When we know we’ve got a shipment coming in we’ve got to start accumulating dollars on a daily basis a week in advance.”

‘The Problem’

The full-year trade deficit is unlikely to exceed $8 billion, Ho Chi Minh City-based fund manager Dragon said this month. Last year’s record trade gap was an estimated $17.5 billion. Through July, exports weakened 13 percent to $32.35 billion while imports slumped 32 percent to $35.73 billion.

“The problem is that a lot of the imports in Vietnam are not for consumption, they’re adding to its productive capacity,” said Robinson. “So whenever imports are that weak it points to weak future exports.”

The decline in exports this year has been due to lower prices, as volumes have increased, Vinacapital Investment Management Ltd. said last week. Reduced foreign investment as international companies cut back amid a global recession may also be hurting overseas sales.

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

Vietnam’s trade deficit in recent years as a percentage of the economy “far exceeds” those of other Southeast Asian nations before the region’s 1997 financial crisis, suggesting the gap is a potential threat, according to a study for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum released this month.

Concern over Vietnam’s economic indicators increased last year as the trade deficit surged and inflation soared to 28.3 percent, the highest since at least 1992. This month’s slowdown in inflation was the 11th consecutive decline.

“Inflation will probably bottom in August at roughly 2 percent, as the fuel-price hike of last year drops out of the annual comparison,” wrote Prakriti Sofat, an economist at HSBC in Singapore, in a note today. “The State Bank of Vietnam is now getting concerned about rapid credit growth.”By Jason Folkmanis

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s trade deficit narrowed, providing potential support for a currency hurt by concerns that stockpiling of dollars is making it difficult to pay for imports.

‘The Problem’

Balance of Payments

“Domestic enterprises have seen their exports remain steady,” Vinacapital said in a research note. “Foreign- invested enterprises have seen exports drop.”

A “steep” decline in imports is easing pressure on the country’s balance of payments, Moody’s Investors Service said last week.

Heavy rain hits north Vietnam, Hanoi traffic halted

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:09:00 -0700

HANOI, July 20 (Reuters) - Heavy rain from a weakened tropical storm has hit northern Vietnam, causing flooding that brought traffic to a halt in the capital Hanoi and prompted the government to warn of landslides in mountainous areas.

Tropical storm Molave made landfall on Saturday along the southern coast of China, where it weakened before dumping torrential rain across Vietnam's northern mountainous provinces from late Sunday, the national weather centre said.

Provincial authorities should inspect residential areas facing a high risk of landslides and flash floods so they can be active in preventive measures, the government said in a report.

Floods and landslides early this month have killed 34 people and damaged hundreds of homes in seven northern provinces, an area also affected by Sunday's rain.

Up to 120 mm (4.7 inches) of rain also fell in the rush hour on Monday in Hanoi, knocking down trees and submerging streets, witnesses said. Traffic was chaotic at intersections, with flood waters hip-high in some areas, they said.

Flooding has become more frequent in Hanoi as the road and the drainage systems struggle to accommodate a rising population.

VietinBank shares slump on debut, still above IPO

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:29:00 -0700

* VietinBank shares fall maximum allowed on debut

* Still above December's IPO price but may fall further (Updates with market close, analyst's comment)

By Ho Binh Minh

HANOI, July 16 (Reuters) - Shares in VietinBank CTG.HM, Vietnam's fourth-largest lender by assets, fell the maximum allowed 20 percent from the starting level set by the bank on their stock market debut on Thursday.

However, the shares in the Hanoi-based bank were still double the average price of 20,265 dong at in its initial public offering (IPO) last December, and above the most recent prices on the unofficial and unregulated grey market.

The shares opened at 44,000 dong on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and closed down 19.8 percent at 40,100 dong after touching the floor of 40,000 dong. That compares with the starting price of 50,000 dong set by the bank.

Dealers said the bank had set the opening price too high.

"The drop is fortunate for the market, because even at 40,000 dong per share the stock is overpriced," a trader at Baoviet Securities in Hanoi said.

The overall market was firm, with the benchmark VN Index .VNI closing 1.5 percent up at 433.47 points. It has risen 37.3 percent this year.

"The index should have risen more but VietinBank shares put a brake on it," said Tran Ngoc Tu, an independent market analyst.

"VietinBank shares will fall further, back to the IPO level if there is no good news," Tu said. "The bank's competitiveness is weak. It still relies on the state."

The state owned a dominant 89.23 percent stake as of July 3, its prospectus said. It listed 121.21 million shares on Thursday, 10.77 percent of its total.

The bank has said it would cut state ownership to 70 percent next year and sell 10 percent to strategic foreign investors.

It raised $64 million by selling a 4 percent stake in the IPO on Dec. 26. [ID:nHAN412752]

Companies in Vietnam often have their IPOs some time before they make their stock market debut.

They are then allowed to set the price at which the shares are first listed, and the stock is allowed to move 20 percent up or down that day, wider than the normal daily trading band of 5 percent.

38,000-39,000 dong on the grey market in May and early June before the bank applied for a listing licence.

Shares in VietinBank, or the Vietnam Bank for Industry and Trade, have joined those of major financial companies such as Vietnam's top insurer Bao Viet Holdings BVH.HM and leading partly private lender Vietcombank VCB.HM on the market.

Vietcombank also set its starting price at 50,000 dong for its June 30 debut but its shares proved more popular and jumped by the maximum 20 percent on the day. They have since fallen back and ended at 49,800 dong on Thursday. ($1=17,804 dong) (Editing by Alan Raybould and Lincoln Feast)

Want to predict the weather? Watch the dragonflies

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:28:00 -0700

HANOI, July 16 (Reuters Life!) - Can dragonflies warn of impending rain? Can you predict the weather by looking at the colour of a cloud or by observing animals? For generations of Vietnamese farmers and fishermen, the answer is yes.

Although the weather in Vietnam is forecast using hi-tech satellite imaging, many communities still predict floods, storms and drought the traditional way -- by tracking nature.

For example, in a drought prone area of the coastal Ninh Thuan province, farmers believe that if the dragonfly flies high it will be sunny and if it flies low there will be rain.

In north-central Thua Thien Hue Province, fishermen are likely to bring their boats back to the shore if, in January or February, they look to the north and see a silver cloud that quickly disappears, as it is a sign of cold weather.

Many of these beliefs, which are kept alive through proverbs, folk songs and legends and which have so far been passed down orally, are now being recorded by a group of aid agencies in the Southeast Asian country as part of a project to see whether they still hold true in times of rapid climate change.

"The communities know a lot about disaster adaptation and the question now, in Vietnam, is to see if this indigenous knowledge is still accurate or not with the climate changing very quickly," Guillaume Chantry, project coordinator of Development Workshop France (DWF), told Reuters.

Climate change is expected to hit low-lying Vietnam hard.

In April, the Asian Development Bank said by the end of this century, Vietnam's rice production could dramatically decline while rising sea levels could submerge tens of thousands of hectares of cropland and uproot thousands of families living in coastal communities.

For the next two months, a group of agencies led by DWF will visit 10 disaster-prone areas from the mountainous north to the steamy Mekong delta in the south to collect information about traditional beliefs in the hope it could be used in programmes to reduce the risk of natural disasters.

Dr. Ben Wisner, a hazards expert at Oberlin College, Ohio and London's University College, says indigenous knowledge can help make disaster prevention programmes more effective by pinpointing areas that are vulnerable to flooding and which are not visible on satellite images or official maps.

The idea of using local knowledge to create better ways to adapt to climate change and reduce the risk of natural disasters is slowly gaining ground as experts, scientists and aid workers scramble to find ways of predicting and dealing with the threat.

Critics dismiss traditional ways of reading the weather as backward and old-fashioned.

But, according to a U.N. report, during the devastating 2004 tsunami, the Moken nomads on the coast of Thailand were among other Asian communities that were largely spared, because they noticed the change in environment, using knowledge passed down through generations, and fled to higher ground.

"It's important for us practitioners to know how communities usually protect themselves," Chantry said.

Vietnam Urges Lenders to Tighten Credit

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:16:00 -0700

Vietnam's central bank said it is encouraging lenders to tighten credit for some borrowers in one of the first signs Asian economies are readying to rein in stimulus spending if the world economy continues to recover.

Like the U.S., China, Vietnam and other Asian nations have flooded their economies with cash over the past six months to avoid a deep recession. But as evidence mounts that the worst stage of the downturn is ending, many economists are advising governments to start curtailing credit lest some sectors overheat and trigger serious inflation problems in 2010 or beyond.

Economists are particularly concerned about Vietnam, a favorite of foreign investors in Asia that has experienced serious trouble with asset bubbles in the recent past, including a period when inflation soared to 28% in mid-2008. Although inflation is now below 4%, many analysts worry the government has gone too far to stimulate growth by subsidizing hefty bank lending programs that are feeding more money into the economy. Real estate and stock prices already have started to climb rapidly.

On Wednesday, State Bank of Vietnam Governor Nguyen Van Giau appeared to confirm those fears by saying the central bank wants local credit institutions to tighten lending to real estate and stock investors, as well as to consumers. He said lenders should focus instead on extending loans to small- and medium-sized enterprises to boost their production, and to major state-owned projects. Further details on the potential tightening, which appeared in a statement published in the central bank's Thoi Bao Ngan Hang newspaper, were not available.

"I think the key reason behind the central bank's comment is that it wants Vietnam to avoid high inflation," said Nguyen Duy Hung, chief executive of Saigon Securities Inc., a Ho Chi Minh City-based securities company.

Since the beginning of the global economic crisis, Vietnamese state banks have poured at least $19 billion in loans into the economy, equivalent to about one-fifth of the country's annual gross domestic product, as part of a broader stimulus program aimed at expanding credit for state enterprises and exporters. Partly as a result of the stimulus efforts, total outstanding loans in Vietnam's banking system at the end of June were 17% higher than at the end of 2008, and 17.5% more than a year earlier, the government said this month.

Unfortunately, economists say, it's hard for the government to police borrowers to know exactly how they are using the stimulus money. Many analysts suspect that large sums are leaking into activities the government doesn't want to stimulate, with borrowers taking money to speculate in stocks or real estate rather than investing in new productive capacity, though proving they are doing so is difficult. Since March, Vietnam's benchmark stock index is up more than 70%.

"I think it's the right decision" to begin reining in credit to some parts of the economy to make sure the money is used wisely, says Vu Thanh Tu Anh, an economist with the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City. It may difficult to do so, he said, unless policymakers take more concrete steps such as putting a cap on loan growth or raising interest rates. Asian governments remain wary of taking those kinds of steps because they are still uncertain about the outlook, despite recent signs of economic recovery.

Either way, the pressure to wind down some stimulus packages is growing. In a report released Wednesday, HSBC economists warned that "money's too loose in Asia" and raised the specter of new asset bubbles, especially in real estate. Although Asian countries generally aren't tightening credit yet, "it won't be long, I suspect" before they start doing so on a more widespread basis, says Tim Condon, an economist at ING in Singapore.

Wall Street Journal

Vietnam flood toll hits 28: officials

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 02:48:00 -0700

HANOI (AFP) — The death toll from flooding and landslides in mountainous northern Vietnam has risen to at least 28, authorities have said.

Most of the deaths were in Bac Kan and Lai Chau provinces, said the National Flood and Storm Control Committee, updating its previous figure of at least 22 deaths since heavy rains began on Friday.

Thanh Nien newspaper quoted Trieu Kiem Vang, a farmer in Bac Kan's Khen Len hamlet, as saying his two sons, their wives and two granddaughters were buried in a landslide.

There were also deaths in Cao Bang, Son La, Lao Cai and Ha Giang provinces, the flood committee said, listing three people as missing.

The storms destroyed nine bridges, flooded hundreds of houses and about 600 hectares (1,480 acres) of cropland, authorities said.

Security forces are assisting in the aid and rescue effort, state television reported.

Vietnam's flood and storm season generally starts in July and lasts until November.

Last year at least 550 people died in disasters triggered by bad weather, the national statistics office said earlier.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Vietnam's Sacombank H1 gross profit jumps 20 pct

noreply@blogger.com (Thang Long) — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 02:47:00 -0700

HANOI, July 8 (Reuters) - Vietnam's Sacombank STB.HM, 10 percent owned by Australia's ANZ (ANZ.AX), said its first-half gross profit reached 905 billion dong ($51 million), up 20 percent from a year earlier, thanks to strong lending.

Sacombank, the country's sixth-largest lender by assets, said in a statement on Wednesday that its loans totalled 47.64 trillion dong at the end of June, up 36 percent from the end of last year.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based lender said its bad debt fell to 0.71 percent of loans last month from 0.76 percent in April.

Sacombank's credit growth in the first half was nearly double that in the entire Vietnamese banking system, which the central bank estimated at 17.01 percent. [ID:nHAN357450]

The lender's total assets reached 82.76 trillion dong at the end of June, 21 percent higher than at the end of 2008.

The World Bank's International Finance Corp, Dragon Capital and ANZ Bank together own 30 percent of Sacombank, the ceiling for foreign ownership of listed banks in Vietnam.

Sacombank has forecast that its gross profit would rise 47 percent this year to 1.6 trillion dong after a fall in 2008. [ID:nHAN369575].

Sacombank shares closed up 0.85 percent at 35,300 dong. ($1=17,760 dong)