Corporate

With Vietnamese regulators’ efforts to minimise the risks of corporate bonds’ mass issuance, the landscape is predicted to be cooled down compared to a frenzy of debt instruments in the previous period. Corporate bond rush heads for slowdown. According to fresh data from the Hanoi Stock Exchange, as of January 22, there were seven successful corporate bond private placements with a total value of $279 million and two public offerings of $70 million. The real estate sector accounted for $233.7 million, equivalent to 66.9 per cent of the total issued value. Previously, over $17.82 billion of corporate bonds were issued last year, which increased by 38.5 per cent from end-2019 and 83.5 per cent from end-2018. Albeit a decline in the last quarter of 2020’s issuance volume the real estate sector witnessed the largest corporate bond issuance volume in 2020 of over $6.09 billion, accounting for over 35 per cent of total issuance value at an average coupon rate of 10.52 per cent. The banking sector also made up for nearly 30 per cent, with an average coupon rate of 6.69 per cent, lower than 7.06 per cent in 2019. Some significant bond issuers included BIDV, VietinBank, HDBank, and TPBank. The rush of corporate bond issuance has sought attention from yield-hunt investors in the face of ultra-low interest rates. “Rising medium- and long-term capital demands to satisfy stricter regulations on credit safety limits and capital adequacy ratio in 2021 were putting much pressure on commercial banks to raise funds from bond issuance in late 2020,” explained Nguyen Tu Anh, director of the General Economic Department under the Central Party’s Economic Commission. “On the other hand, foreign investors have been closely engaged in the domestic debt market. In 2020, foreign investors were actively net buyers, expect only three months of slight net-selling, with a total net buying value of $179.7 million.” However, the lack of transparency and independent credit …

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Thoughts return to stronger rail options. Source: freepik.com Although the Ever Given container ship was rescued one week after being stranded in the Suez Canal in Egypt, the trading world remains rocked as hundreds of billions of US dollars has evaporated in the wake of the global trade system significantly relying on this narrow canal. The incident has also posed questions on developing other transportation channels, in which trans-continental rail routes may be top of the list. “One of the most effective channels is to develop a rail route running through Asia and Europe. This would be very good for exporters in Vietnam,” said Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Agency of Foreign Trade. It is now recommended that exporters should consider and take advantage of the current rail route connecting Vietnam through China to Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Germany. From Germany, the goods can be transported to other European markets. Currently if goods are transported via this rail route, it would take a month from Vietnam to Germany, with a cost of $8,000-9,000 per container, which is higher than the $6,000-8,000 for sea transportation which can take up to 50 days. However, the existing difficulty is the difference in railway widths and also standards of the trains themselves. The width of Vietnam’s railways is one metre, while that of other nations is around 1.4m. Moreover, trains in Vietnam cannot accommodate a huge volume of goods at the same time – each train can carry a maximum of 90 tonnes of goods for 15 compartments. If exporters want their goods transported by trains from Vietnam to overseas markets, they will have to change trains many times, meaning higher costs. These factors currently make it difficult for Vietnam to boost the transportation of goods by train to other international markets. Kazakhstani Ambassador to Vietnam Yerlan Baizhanov previously told VIR that Kazakhstan, China, and …

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S. Korean firm taps Vietnam’s music streaming market The Saigon Times Representatives of KT Corporation and VTV Cable with the memorandum of understanding for strategic partnership to develop a music streaming platform in Vietnam - PHOTO: KT HCMC - South Korea’s KT Corporation on April 9 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Vietnam Television Cable Corporation (VTVcab), an arm of Vietnam Television, to develop a music streaming platform in the country. Under the MoU, the two corporations will design a music streaming platform to distribute K-pop music and protect intellectual property rights, VietnamPlus news site reported. KT said that the firm would provide key technology in developing the service such as music personalization using Artificial Intelligence, which is currently used by its media affiliate Genie Music. Genie Music is South Korea’s second largest music streaming service operator and a major music distributor. The partnership is expected to meet the rising demand for K-pop music in the Vietnamese market and contribute to deploying the K-pop music distribution strategy in Vietnam. KT also said that it would expand cooperation with the Vietnamese partner in the broader media industry, including internet protocol television and over-the-top media services. The South Korean telecom giant currently operates video streaming service Seezn. …

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