Thread: Latest news on the Dong!

Last Updated: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 12:39:18 Vietnam (GMT+07)

Gov’t greenlights industrial-service center in northern Vietnam

Vietnam’s government said it will soon approve an industrial-service zone in northern Vietnam proposed by Vietnamese-Singaporean venture VSIP, one of the nation’s leading industrial park developers.

VSIP, a venture between local Becamex IDC Corp. and Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries, has suggested to build the Vietnam – Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) Bac Ninh on 700 ha in Tien Du and Tien Son districts, Bac Ninh province.

VSIP Bac Ninh will include 500 ha for industrial facilities and 200 ha for commercial-residential-service area.
The park’s estimated investment scheme is not yet available.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung also agreed to add the VSIP Bac Ninh to the list of priority parks to be built between now and 2015.
The PM instructed the local government to consult relevant ministries and agencies before licensing the project.
Many foreign companies are flocking to propose urban-industrial parks in Bac Ninh province, viewed as a focal area for high-tech projects in the northern Vietnam.
The interested group includes Taiwan’s Foxconn, South Korea’s IGS, and Japan-based Orix, the local government said, adding that their proposals would be submitted to the PM for final say.
The province has lured around 70 foreign-invested projects with total registered capital of $620 million in the first quarter.
It now has four operating IPs, which are home to 222 projects worth $560 million in pledged capital, with the province focused on developing 10 more in the near future.
Established in 1996, the VSIP venture has built two industrial parks in the southern Binh Duong Province.
The 500ha Thuan An District IP has attracted 230 tenants with a combined investment of nearly US$1.5 billion.
The larger park, Binh Duong Industrial-Service-Urban Complex, is located on 4,200 ha in the provincial town of Thu Dau Mot and the districts of Tan Uyen and Ben Cat.
The first 345 ha IP in the complex is nearly fully occupied with 87 investors having already set up shop.
Source: Government Office – Compiled by Dong Ha

Securities investors rush to borrow money prior to June 1517:12' 07/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – Securities investors are racing against time and rushing to borrow money from banks before June 15, the day when the State Bank of Vietnam’s decision on limiting loans for securities investors comes into effect.

On the morning of June 6, Duc Hung, an investor on Bao Viet Securities Company’s trading floor, went to a bank to borrow money, mortgaging the shares he holds.

“It would be better to borrow money right now, as it would be more difficult to get loans once the decision on limiting funding securities investment deals comes into effect,” he said.

Many other investors, like Mr Hung, are also racing to get loans for securities investments prior to June 15.

The newly promulgated decision by the central bank has been worrying investors. They fear that share prices will fall dramatically once investors sell shares to get money back to pay bank debts.

Huynh Anh Tuan, Head of the Brokerage Division under the ACB Securities Commission, said that most investors were borrowing money to buy listed shares. And now they have no other choice than selling shares to pay debts, which will lead to an abnormally big supply on the market.

Vo Huu Tuan, Deputy Director of Bao Viet Securities Company HCM City branch, said that with the new decision banks would keep cautious when making investment decisions, which would lead to lower purchasing power on the market.

Vo Tan Tai, Deputy Director General of the Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), said that clients had had unfavourable reactions towards the central bank’s decision.

Mr Tai said that the outstanding loans funding securities investment of ACB had exceeded the allowed level. Therefore, the bank will focus on collecting debts in the time to come, instead of giving more loans.

Meanwhile, Tran Phuong Binh, Director General of the East Asia Bank, said that banks needed more than 15 days as allowed by the central bank to get prepared for the new policy. “Providing loans is a kind of business contract, and banks cannot terminate contracts immediately,” he said.

Commercial banks are complaining that the new decision may spoil their business plans as all of them had previously planned to loan more than the allowed level. Securities companies, of course, are also not pleased with the decision as their profit may decrease as they will lose clients. They have all said that the regulation may “pollute” the business environment.

(Source: Tuoi tre)

BIDV to name consultant for equitization soon15:57' 07/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – Either Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley will most likely become equitization consultant for the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), show data from the tender dossiers opened on Tuesday.

Merrill Lynch obtained the highest technical score of 87.2 points given by the bank while Morgan Stanley followed with 76.5 points. For the financial scores, Merrill Lynch proposed a total fee of US$3.5mil while Morgan Stanley suggested only US$1.8mil.
Two other competitors in the tender look set to be left out in the race, as UBS earned 74.6 technical points and JPMorgan 73.9 points. These two contenders asked for rather high fees, at US$7mil and US$3.25mil respectively.
Technical points will be decisive, making up 70% of the weighted result while the financial points the remaining 30%, according to BIDV.
Initially there were five institutions putting their names down to join the tender, but Goldman Sachs later withdrew from the race because it wanted to become BIDV's strategic investor. Under current regulations, an equitization consultant shall not be chosen as the bank's strategic investor.
Tran Bac Ha, general director of BIDV, said that the selection of the consultant would be finished on Friday, and then a report would be submitted to the Government. The bank would sign a consulting contract by late June.
While JPMorgan does not appear the winner in this tender, the company is likely to be named an equitization consultant for another State-owned bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Vietnam (Incombank), said a well-informed source.
The source told the Daily that JPMorgan was rated the most promising contender including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Macquarie, and Daiwa Securities SMBC.
Both BIDV and Incombank plan to launch their initial public offerings in the fourth quarter of this year.
(Source: SGT)

SSI releases list of 20 blue chips

13:47' 07/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The Saigon Securities Incorporated (SSI) has released its first report about the stock market, which names 20 listing companies which have the biggest market capitalization value.

According to SSI, the named 20 companies now account for 80% of the total market capitalization volume on Hanoi and HCM City Securities Trading Centres. These include:

1. Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technologies (FPT)
2. Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (VNM)
3. Saigon Thuong Tin Bank (STB)
4. Asia Commercial Bank (ACB)
5. Pha Lai Thermopower Joint Stock Company (PPC)
6. Petro Drilling Company (PVD)
7. Saigon Securities Incorporated (SSI)
8. Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Co. (REE)
9. Vinh Son – Song Hinh Hydropower Joint Stock Company (VHS)
10. The Cable and Telecommunications Materials Co (Sacom)
11. Bao Minh Insurance Joint Stock Company (BMI)
12. Tan Tao Industrial Zone Development Company (ITA)
13. Song Da Industrial Zone and Urban Development and Investment Company (SIS)
14. General Forwarding and Agency Co., Ltd. (GMD)
15. Kinh Do Joint Stock Company (KDC)
16. Bao Viet Securities Joint Stock Company (BVS)
17. But Son Cement Joint Stock Company (BTS)
18. Thu Duc Housing Development Company (TDH)
19. Vietnam Petroleum Transport Joint Stock Co (VIPCO)
20. Binh Minh Plastics Joint Stock Company (BMP)

The report said that the prospect of the 20 companies proves to be very bright as they have the turnover growth rate of 58.32%, higher than the average growth rate of top 50 S&P 500’s companies in the last three years. However, the companies do not have the big capitalization value in accordance with international standards.

On the experts’ worries about the overly high prices of the 20 companies’ share items, even higher than the actual value, SSI said that the worries prove to be reasonable if considering the P/E (price on equity). The average P/E index of 20 companies on March 12, the day when the VN Index hit the highest level, was 54.98 (the index of 40 and higher are considered high).

Having the low starting level, while striving for a fast development, these companies need big sums of capital for expanding production.

If considering the turnover, profit and growth rate of the 20 companies, one may see many factors that attract investors. Even when the VN Index fell down to the 900-point threshold, the 20 share items still led the market.

Vu Ngoc Thang, an investor on ACBS trading floor in HCM City said that investors always check the information about the trading volume of FPT, SSI, REE, ACB, and SJS to predict the market performance.

However, among the 20 share items, there were the ones the prices of which could not exceed the VND70,000/share threshold, like PPC and VHS (both were priced at VND69,000 on June 6), and BTS (VND43,900).

In fact, many share items, though were not listed on the top 20, but have the biggest trading volume and high prices, including S99, NTP, SGH, HRC, DRC,EBS and HPC.

Bui Ngoc Tuoc, a securities expert also said that S99, DRC, HRC and ECS have good indexes, and even better than the items listed on the top 20. He also said that the number of blue chips is actually more than 20 if considering the trading volume of share items.

SSI’s report just reflects the viewpoint of SSI only. However, Vu Thu Huong, an investor on SSI’s trading floor and many other investors said that she would refer to the report before making investment decisions.

(Source: VNE, Tien phong)

Hanoi’s “Wall Street” may be moved to Dong Anh District

13:24' 07/06/2007 (GMT+7)

Many banking institutions are located on the area around the Hoan Kiem Lake, with the State Bank of Vietnam headquarters, the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), and Citibank (photo: TBKTVN)
VietNamNet Bridge – Hanoi previously planed to build its finance and banking centre in the West West Lake new residential area but the city is considering a move to the centre of the suburban district of Dong Anh.

Hanoi to have “Wall Street”

Under the suggestion of the Hanoi Department of Planning and Architecture, Hanoi needs to build its finance and banking centre on a large scale so the centre should be moved to the northern part of the Red River, instead of in the West West Lake residential area.

The Hanoi Economic – Social Development Research Institute is designing the centre and it has submitted the second design draft to the city’s government but Hanoi has not decided the location for the centre yet.

According to the city’s development plan to 2020, the northern part of the Red River, which includes Dong Anh District and part of Soc Son District, will be a large urban area with 800,000 to 1 million residents.

The Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment said that some local and foreign investors have expressed their wish to invest in the finance and banking centre.

As the West West Lake project was implemented, the investor reserved the land in the centre of the area for the city to build its new People’s Committee. However, Hanoi changed its plan last year by putting the finance and banking centre to the site planned for the municipal People’s Committee and the investor of the West West Lake residential area project would have to give 5-25ha of land to the investor of the Hanoi finance and banking project this year’s end.

According to its comprehensive development plan, Hanoi aims to become a regional finance and banking centre.

(Source: Dothi.net)

Cabinet holds May meeting, eying set GDP target

08:45' 07/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge - Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung chaired a Government cabinet meeting on June 6, and called for all-out efforts to be undertaken in order to ensure the set GDP target of 8.5 percent is reached by the end of this year.

PM Dung was pleased that the national economy continued to grow in a sustainable manner and would post an 8 percent growth rate for the first half of the year.

He went on to request that all ministries and localities accelerate the pace of needed administrative reforms while keeping a close eye on corruption and avian influenza that continues to sprout up around the country.

Cabinet members at the meting agreed that the national economy remained on track over the first five months of the year and pointed to a surge in industrial production of 16.8 percent as the key driver for GDP growth.

The cabinet was informed that exports rose 18.4 percent to over 18.1 billion USD in the first five months with two industries raking in over 1 billion USD in revenues and two others earning more than 2 billion USD. However, imports also soared by 26.9 percent to come in at 21.3 billion USD.

Foreign direct investment was also up to 4.37 billion USD, an increase of a massive 64.2 percent over the same period last year.

In addition to the solid performance of the economy, the Cabinet was concerned that the implementation and disbursement of capital of projects using the State budget, Government bonds, investment credits and official development assistance (ODA) remained too slow.

Other areas of concern were traffic safety and the re-emergence of bird flu since May of this year</SPAN>.

(Source: VNA)

No room for cheap share items on OTC trading floors

17:09' 06/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The list of commodities for the OTC market will not include cheap share items, experts say.

In anticipation of putting OTC shares into public transaction and under State management, securities companies are trying to get ready in terms of staffs and ‘commodities’ for the market.

Experts said that there would be no room for cheap share items on the OTC share trading floors. The list of commodity items for the OTC market, which has been prepared by securities companies, will include share items with high liquidity, good prices. These will be shares of companies which have good business results and operate in fields with high growth rates.

Nguyen Dinh Phong, Director of Investment Services Division under VnDirect, a securities company, said that VnDirect was making a list of share items to be put into transaction. Its staffs are now trying to get information about the share issuance institutions so as to give assessments on the risks and possible profit of OTC shares. Mr Phong said that VnDirect’s list would include 50 share items.

A representative from Vietcombank’s Securities Company (VCBS) said that VCBS’ list of share items would include items issued by public companies that authorise VCBS to manage shareholders’ books or by the companies for which VCBS has organised share auctions. Moreover, the list will also include share items of investors which have transaction accounts at VCBS.

Securities companies all said that they would select the ‘best sellers’, especially the shares of the companies operating in banking, telecommunications, real estate, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, seafood, rubber, wooden furniture processing and transport services.

According to Mr Phong, cheap share items with low liquidity will have no place on its company’s trading floor. “We know that we can collect fees from the transactions of these share items, but we care more about the quality of services we provide to clients,” he said.

As planned, OTC shares will be transacted on securities trading floors by the end of this year, after public companies register with the State Securities Commission (SSC). However, only around 200 companies of more than 1,000 public companies had registered by the end of May 2007.

As securities companies will offer transactions of OTC shares as well as transactions of listing securities, experts have warned that they will face a serious labour shortage.

In order to help settle the problem, SSC has recently decided that those who want to get a certificate to work in the stock market just have to pass the exam to be held by SSC, while there was no need to follow the three training courses provided by SSC’s Centre for Scientific Researches and Securities Training. It formerly took 2-3 years at least to finish the three courses and get a practicing certificate.

(Source: VNE)

From September 1, organizations and individuals having these kinds of banknotes will be able to exchange them for polymer notes with the same value at SBV’s branches in cities and provinces across Vietnam.



Cotton banknotes with 50,000 and 100,000 denomination were issued on October 15, 1994 and September 1, 2000. Later on December 17, 2003 and September 1, 2004, polymer banknotes of the same value were issued and since then were in parallel circulation.



Vietnam now has six different denominations of polymer banknotes in circulation, including the 500,000 VND note, the 200,000 VND note, the 100,000 VND note, the 50,000 VND note, 20,000 VND note and the 10,000 VND note.

The launch of polymer banknotes is aimed at improving anti-counterfeiting money endeavours, making the notes cleaner and more durable, better responding to payment needs of the economy and also significantly contributing to reducing costs of producing banknotes over the long term.

Originally Posted by blackwulf

From September 1, organizations and individuals having these kinds of banknotes will be able to exchange them for polymer notes with the same value at SBV’s branches in cities and provinces across Vietnam.



Cotton banknotes with 50,000 and 100,000 denomination were issued on October 15, 1994 and September 1, 2000. Later on December 17, 2003 and September 1, 2004, polymer banknotes of the same value were issued and since then were in parallel circulation.



Vietnam now has six different denominations of polymer banknotes in circulation, including the 500,000 VND note, the 200,000 VND note, the 100,000 VND note, the 50,000 VND note, 20,000 VND note and the 10,000 VND note.

The launch of polymer banknotes is aimed at improving anti-counterfeiting money endeavours, making the notes cleaner and more durable, better responding to payment needs of the economy and also significantly contributing to reducing costs of producing banknotes over the long term.

WOW!!! Am I glad mine all came polymer!

But to look at this another way....What are thoughts of a rate change BY September's switch-er-oo plan?

yea me too! Well here is todays rate.

Tỷ giá bình quân liên NH
Ngày 7/6/2007

1 USD=16.111,00 VNĐ

Tỷ giá giao dịch của NHNN tại Sở Giao dịch
Ngày 7/6/2007

Mua

Bán

USD

16.098

16.108