Current housing market

Assoc Prof and PhD Đinh Trọng Thịnh. The corporate bond market is expected to become a major source of capital for businesses in the long term, alleviating the pressure on the banking system in supplying capital to the economy. However, recent scandals involving bonds issued by property developers as well as uneven quality of corporate bonds have weakened investor confidence in the market. Assoc Prof and PhD Đinh Trọng Thịnh, a senior economist from the Academy of Finance, spoke to Vietnam News Agency Television about the loopholes in this market and solutions to make the market healthier and grow well. How do you evaluate the current state of the corporate bond market after a number of controversies related to corporate bonds? After some scandals involving corporate bond issuance, the corporate bond market has slowed down. Previously, the market grew about 46 per cent on average in the 2017-21 period and in 2021, the growth rate was 56 per cent. It still kept growing … [Read more...] about Fixing loopholes to improve health of the corporate bond market

Accordingly, the city set massive targets for housing development, including a demand of at least 6.7 million square meters of housing and an average housing floor area per person reaching at least 21.2 square meters, extending 194.6 hectares of land for commercial housing projects and 52.1 hectares for social housing projects . Regarding capital sources, the city will need around VND72,578 billion (US$3.1 billion), including VND28,435 billion (US$1.2 billion) for commercial housing projects, VND43,456 billion (US$1.9 billion) for individual houses and VND698 billion (US$30 million) for social housing projects. Besides, the city is also reviewing the land fund of 20 percent for social housing construction at commercial housing projects and new urban areas in the locality. In addition, Ho Chi Minh City also proposed the State Bank to monitor and direct the commercial banks on strictly controlling the loans in the real estate sector, money transfer from real estate to overseas, … [Read more...] about HCMC needs over US$3 bln for housing development

Australia posted its lowest jobless rate in 48 years Thursday, a potential boost two days before federal elections to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is fighting to stay in power. The unemployment rate dipped to 3.85 percent in April, the official statistics body said, the lowest level since 1974 -- when flared trousers were in fashion and US president Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal. Australia's economy created an additional 92,400 full-time jobs in the month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. That helped to trim April's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from 3.93 percent the previous month. Many employers say they are struggling to find staff in the tight jobs market. "We're definitely still feeling staff shortages," said Matt Jenkins, human resources manager at Sydney restaurant group Applejack Hospitality. "I know for chefs, they can have multiple job offers at a time. And even candidates that we're speaking to, they're sitting on offers … [Read more...] about Australia reports 48-year-low jobless rate before election

A farmer harvests sugarcanes in Tuyên Quang Province. Photo qdnd.vn HÀ NỘI — After the Vietnamese imposition of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties, the volume of Thai sugar imported to Việt Nam hit a four-year low in Q1 of 2022, speeding up the recovery of domestic sugar. Thailand exported 199,780 tonnes of sugar to Việt Nam in Q1 of 2021. On June 15, 2021, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade began to apply trade remedies to the commodity, driving down the figure to just 33,682 tonnes in Q1 of 2022. The decline of Thai sugar has given a boost to domestic production. The Vietnam Sugar and Sugarcane Association (VSSA) reported that 6.4 million tonnes of sugarcane had been pressed by late April to produce 662,530 tonnes of sugar, up 5.1 per cent year-on-year. Domestic producers also saw better profits. Specifically, the leading firm in the industry, Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa JSC, made an after-tax profit of VNĐ648 billion (US$28.3 million) between July 2021 to March … [Read more...] about Trade remedies to Thai sugar boost domestic recovery

Speakers at a conference discuss how improving institutional performance can help Việt Nam achieve its target of reaching high-income status in 2045. — VNA/VNS Photo HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam must seek to adapt its economic growth model while drastically improving the Government's capacity to coordinate and implement economic policy reforms and public investments to realise its objective of reaching high-income status by 2045, said a recent World Bank (WB) report. The report emphasises the major challenges faced by Việt Nam's traditional growth model during the COVID-19 pandemic, slowing globalisation and the Southeast Asian economy's increasing vulnerability to external shocks, especially climate risks. The key to addressing said issues, according to WB, is for the country's institutions to adapt and improve. “Việt Nam's GDP per capita has increased fivefold over the past three decades, while its institutions have not adapted at the same speed since the Đổi Mới (Renewal) course of … [Read more...] about Institutional reforms key to reaching high-income status

Harvested tra fish at Cần Thơ City's Ô Môn District. — VNA/VNS Photo Thu Hiền HÀ NỘI — Two more Vietnamese enterprises have been permitted to export seafood products to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) by Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (FSVPS). They are Hùng Cá Co and Vĩnh Hoàn Joint Stock Company – the country's two leading tra fish exporters, tienphong.vn cited the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department as saying. Some of the key export items to the EAEU market are frozen tra fish, fresh and frozen pangasius fillet that are produced in seafood facilities coded DL 126 and DL 500. In line with this, the centres for the agro-forestry-fisheries quality assurance in Vietnamese localities have been assigned to grant certificates of quarantine for products coded DL 126, DL 500. After several years of implementing the Việt Nam-EAEU FTA, most of Việt Nam's goods exported to the region are entitled to a zero per … [Read more...] about Two additional firms permitted to export seafood to EAEU

Developing modern logistics infrastructure and enhancing linkage to lower logistics costs would give a push to export growth. — Photo baochinhphu.vn HÀ NỘI — Lowering logistics costs is key to increasing the competitiveness of Việt Nam’s export products and the whole economy. The latest figures of the Việt Nam Logistics Association revealed that logistics costs were equivalent to around 20-22 per cent of the country’s GDP, much higher than Thailand (19 per cent), China (18 per cent), Malaysia (13 per cent) and nearly three times higher than the US and Singapore (8 per cent). The association pointed out that about 4,000 enterprises were providing logistics services in Việt Nam, 97 per cent of which were micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. However, service quality, capital, information technology application, digital transformation and human resources remained limited. Trần Đức Nghĩa from the association said that logistics costs were pushed up by high road … [Read more...] about Lowering logistics costs key to competitiveness

Customers buying MEATDeli, a product of Masan MEATLife, at a Vinmart+ store. — Photo thitmatmeatdeli.com HÀ NỘI — Higher animal feed prices have eroded livestock companies’ profits in the first quarter of 2022. VNDirect Securities Corporation said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict had a negative impact on the animal feed industry as supplies of raw materials for animal feed production like corn, soybeans and wheat, are disrupted, causing prices to rise sharply. The two countries are respectively the world's leading and third largest wheat exporter, accounting for one-third of the total trade of this commodity. Besides, Ukraine is the second largest corn exporter, accounting for 22 per cent of the world turnover. As of early April, the price of imported corn at Cái Lân port, Quảng Ninh Province, reached VNĐ9,200-9,500 per kg (US$0.4-0.41 per kg), an increase of 20-25 per cent compared to the end of 2021 and up 50 per cent over the same period last year. The average price of … [Read more...] about Livestock companies profit hit by rising animal feed prices

Many blue-chip stocks are at attractive price ranges for investment A significant increase On May 17, Vietnam's stock market had a breakthrough session, reaching the highest point globally with the VN-Index rising by more than 56 points (+4.8 per cent) and crossing the threshold of 1200 points. All key stocks in the VN-30 group gained, in which many codes in the banking, consumer, and retail sectors grew strongly. The Masan shares of billionaire Nguyen Dang Quang increased to their limit of VND96,500 ($4.20) per share, with nearly 1.6 million units transferred. Foreign investors bought more than 500 thousand. This is a major breakthrough for the consumer-and-retail giant as other stocks have been on a downward trend over the past weeks. This is in line with the declining trend worldwide and pressure from local retail investors to sell-off. However, the demand from institutional investors for large and industry-leading stocks showed signs of strong growth. A … [Read more...] about Vietnamese stocks see world-leading growth

Blockchain-based projects in all kinds of sectors promise enticing income opportunities, Photo: FOTA Vietnam is emerging as one of the blockchain hubs in Southeast Asia and across the globe as the number of startups in this field increases significantly. At the Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai last month, two non-fungible token (NFT) games developed by Vietnamese enterprises were in the top 10 GameFi projects with the highest revenue in the Binance ecosystem. Often bringing in billions of dollars in profits, blockchain is becoming a fertile land that attracts investors and developers, and also those who have the need to find new job opportunities. A report from LinkedIn confirmed that the hiring demand for blockchain programmers will continue to explode in 2022. Positions such as blockchain engineer and blockchain programmer alone account for 15.6 per cent of all LinkedIn job openings, proving the undeniable attractiveness of the blockchain industry in the market. The data … [Read more...] about Blockchain industry yearns for new talent