German Enterprises Seeking Investment Opportunities in HCM City

  At a meeting between the leaders of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and the German Business Association (GBA), Mr Jens Ruebbert - Chairman of GBA said that Vietnam is an attractive destination for investment and business activities of foreign investors, including German businesses.

Go along with Mr. Jens Ruebbert attending this meeting, there are more than 70 German enterprises operating in various fields, wishing to expand investment and trading activities in a number of potential areas such as automobile, production, communication, finance, insurance...

With advanced professional qualifications and also experiences, German enterprises are expected to seek investment and trading opportunities, bringing practical benefits for both sides of the business community, as well as both countries.

Germany is one of the major and efficient partners of Vietnam in the field of education and training, science and technology... It is possible to mention some of their projects that have been implementing in Vietnam as Vietnamese-German University; Construction of Phu Lac 1 wind power plant worth 35 million Euros; No. 2 metro line in HCMC worth 240 million Euros or the project to improve energy efficiency in rural areas worth 120 million Euros...

According to the leader of HCMC, the relation between Vietnam and Germany are increasingly strengthened and is developing in various fields such as political, economic, commerce and education...

Germany is one of the important partners of Vietnam in the European Union. Therefore, Vietnam in general and HCMC in particular, wish to promote cooperation in the field of urban transport, health, education...

Until 2020, the two-way exchange trade turnover target between Vietnam and Germany will reach 15 billion to 20 billion USD.

Therefore, in order to create favorable conditions to help German businesses reaching and searching for investment and trading opportunities with Vietnam partners, the Department of Planning and Investment of HCMC has published information on economic and social development orientation of the city from 2016 to 2017.

Besides, the city also introduced several measures to boost production and trading, in order to remove difficulties for enterprises, improve the investment environment to attract human resources at home and abroad such as enhancing trade promotion, expanding the market by concentrating in investment sectors that are encouraged by the city.

We, ANT Consulting company, support you with the service of setting up a company in Vietnam, Risk management in Vietnam, Employee background check in Vietnam... to help you shorten the implementation time.

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Benefits of Setting Up Company in Ho Chi Minh City

  Ho Chi Minh City is considered as Vietnam's economic hub. During the long history of foundation and development, the city's economy is growing constantly and motivating the development of the country.

The city is therefore considered as a potential investment environment for domestic investors as well as foreign investors. The investment through establishing companies and conducting business activities in Ho Chi Minh city certainly promises to achieve multiple benefits. These benefits come from the following reasons.

First, Ho Chi Minh City has strategic location advantage in Vietnam. Southeast Asia Region, Ho Chi Minh City is 1,700 km south of Hanoi, 297 km east of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 881 km east of Bangkok, Thailand.

Food, glass, textiles, paper products, plastics, chemicals, building materials and machinery are produced here. Ho Chi Minh City accounts for 20% of total gross domestic product (GDP), 30% of industrial production and 40% of export products of Vietnam. The city also accounts for 33% of the national budget and 60% of foreign investment flows into the region. In the past few years, the economy have been grown at a rate greater than 10% (6% to 8% nationally).

Second, Ho Chi Minh City is home of  well – qualified, abundant and young human resources.

With a population of more than 8 million, accounting for more than 10% of the total Vietnamese population, Ho Chi Minh City itself has potential employment market to make any business investment. The work force in Ho Chi Minh City was estimated to reach 4.7 million people in 2012, making up more than 50% of the total population of the city. The percentage of trained labor increased from 40% in 2005 to 55% in 2010 and was forecast to reach 70% in 2015. The percentage of labor source holding postgraduate degree is also increasing year by year and most of them tend to stay in the city after holding degrees. Ho Chi Minh City is also home to more than 80 universities and colleges, vocational schools with over 400,000 students providing an abundant trained work force.

With the above – mentioned abundant labor force, any companies set up in Ho Chi Minh City can easily recruit suitable employees in a short time..

Third, the city has modern and high infrastructure system. Namely, when setting up company in Ho Chi Minh City, the owners will benefit from the modern and comprehensive infrastructure system.

Tan Son Nhat Airport is the largest airport in the country with the capacity to accommodate 20 million people a year. From Tan Son Nhat Airport, there are 50 routes to other countries all over the world such as China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, European countries, etc.

Saigon Port serves as a gateway to the Mekong River Delta, the South China Sea (83 km away from the sea) and the Asia continent. The port has a total area of 500,000 m² with 5 terminals meeting the international standards, and it handles about 8.3 million tons of cargo annually. Throughout the history of foundation and development of Saigon, Saigon Port plays an important role in making Ho Chi Minh City a flourishing trading center. It accounts for a fifth of the nation's Gross Domestic Product and almost a third of its industrial production.

Ho Chi Minh City is also home to industrial zones. According to the statistics of Cushman & Wakefield, the city has 18 industrial parks that are operating with a total area of 3635 ha. When investing in such industrial zones in Vietnam, enterprises can benefit from various incentive policies such as low rate tax or other incentive policies.

Telecommunication and information technology in the city is modern. The system of post and telecommunication in Ho Chi Minh meets international standard, providing fast, reliable and high quality services such as ADSL, rapid data transfer, wide broadband MAN. The Internet service in Ho Chi Minh city is also among the cheapest in the world.

Besides, the city is also considered the best working conditions. Enterprise will not be fear that it is not enough place for working. The city with the system of offices provide ideal working environment for all investors.

Finding the right business partner in Vietnam is also important. We recommend doing research on the reputation of the company and individual shareholders, corporate or individual, gathering publicly available company information, and performing background checks on key personnel to find potential risks in cooperation. Working with a reliable partner can help achieve economic benefits, saving time and money in business.

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Vietnam Aviation Outlook in 2016

  Vietnam aviation market is growing fast with fierce competition. Although the growth rate reaches 20% in the first quarter of 2016, the airport infrastructure systems are not fully meet the demand.

Currently Vietnam Airlines (VNA) is at the last stage of the equitization process. Therefore, when the largest airline company of Vietnam finishes their equitization process, the majority of enterprises in this industry are joint stock companies.

Currently, Vietnam aviation industry has 137 aircraft teams with very young age (less than 6 years old) and the aircraft team is forecasted to increase rapidly in the coming time.

Domestic aviation market is increasingly fierce competition as VietJet Air has 31 aircrafts and VNA has 88 aircrafts, which are mainly serve domestic flights. However, while VietJet already accounts for 37% of the market, the market share of VNA fell below 50%. Accordingly, the competition in the domestic market is very fierce.

Furthermore, there are 53 foreign airlines joined with 3 domestic airlines. Accordingly, there are 48 domestic fly routes and 98 international fly routes, which are growing very fast with growth rate of more than 20% in the first quarter of 2016. Particularly Tan Son Nhat Airport has the strongest growth when accounting for 50% of market share.

The strong development of the aircraft teams have been identified as a huge pressure on the existing airport system. In a recent report on flight congestion, in the Lunar New Year period when travel demand increases, the congestion was limited. However, after the Lunar New Year period until now, the situation of delayed, canceled flights and congestion at the airport occurred more often due to unfavorable weather conditions.

Currently, Tan Son Nhat International Airport is under pressure to increase the load until the Long Thanh Airport goes into operation, which is expected until 2025. Moreover, the Department of Civil Aviation has set the direction and submitted to the Government by trying to bring Tan Son Nhat Airport to the design capacity of 40 million passengers/year, while relocating the whole military flight operations out of this airport.

In addition, other key projects are also being carried out according to plan. Among them, Da Nang Airport could be put into service for the Apec Conference in 2017; Cat Bi Airport is trying to put into operation before March 13th and Cam Ranh Airport is still deploying the construction of the 2nd runway.

For airports in the northwest area, currently there are many investors interested in the Lao Cai Airport project in the form of socialization. Lai Chau Airport is proposing to the Department of Defense to switch to civil airport; Na San Airport would like to retain the airport by the budget of the Ministry of Defense; Dien Bien Airport will organize study to rotate the shaft.

To overcome the congestion, delayed or canceled flights, the operating capability at airports and the training of air traffic control have been enhanced. At the same time, the Department of Civil Aviation has begun to send officials to pilot school in order to save the State budget for the rental of flight inspection as well as enhanced flight safety.

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Ba Ria - Vung Tau Attracts Investment to Build Logistics Center

  In order to promote the development of seaports, Ba Ria - Vung Tau is calling for investors in the field of logistics to come and build logistics centers.

Being the only deep-water port in Vietnam, in the near future, Cai Mep - Thi Vai port will be planned to become the national southern gateway port.

This will be a large center of regional ports. However, the operation of logistics enterprises in Ba Ria - Vung Tau is quite discrete, not yet being organized into a unified network.

The operation of the logistics service centers will bring more sources of goods to the port. This reciprocal relationship is not only creating incentives for the South East region to develop, but also generating revenues from the export activities.

Finding the right business partner in Vietnam is also important. We recommend doing research on the reputation of the company and individual shareholders, corporate or individual, gathering publicly available company information, and performing background checks on key personnel to find potential risks in cooperation. Working with a reliable partner can help achieve economic benefits, saving time and money in business.

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Hanoi Ranks the 3rd in Attracting Foreign Investment

  This is the information published by the Department of Planning and Investment

Accordingly, the situation of industrial production in the first 8 months of 2016 in Hanoi is relatively stable with positive growth rate.

In particular, attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) increased, accrued to the date of August 30^th 2016 reached 374 FDI projects (including 256 new projects and 118 projects that increase the capital). The total registered capital reached 2079.37 million USD, exceeding the target of 2016.

Currently in the city there are 3,686 valid projects with the total registered capital of 24.07 billion USD from 72 countries, regions and Hanoi now also ranks the 3^rd in attracting FDI in the whole country.

According to the city leaders, the city will greatly improve the investment environment, promote production and business activities, use the public investment capital effectively...

Finding the right business partner in Vietnam is also important. We recommend doing research on the reputation of the company and individual shareholders, corporate or individual, gathering publicly available company information, and performing background checks on key personnel to find potential risks in cooperation. Working with a reliable partner can help achieve economic benefits, saving time and money in business.

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Resort Real Estate Segment Flourishes with New Projects

  2016 is identified as a good year for the resort real estate segment with a series of new launching projects to attract the attention of both investors and consumers. In particular, the real estate projects located in the sea area are attractive to consumers who want to own a second home to serve the needs of pleasure. From the end of 2015, there were many resort real estate projects that are introduced to the market.

According to statistics, the sales volume of apartment and villa are very good, with 70-80% of the launched units were ordered. The amount of people interested in the projects and decide to buy is increasing, thanks to the incentive sales policy, profit commitments from investors, support for preferential interest loans from the cooperative banks with the investor and can use the house for free for a certain period.

Many wealthy families share that they would like to own a coastal apartment or villa because the demand for resort tourism is increasing sharply. Moreover, foreign investors see that resort real estate segment in Vietnam is rich in potential with many famous tourist resorts and long beautiful beaches. The loosening policy allows foreigners to buy and own real estate in Vietnam is also a positive move to promote the demand of many investors jumping into this playground although there are still many difficulties in policy implementation

Currently, many domestic enterprises began to invest into the resort real estate segment, which is an inevitable trend of the market. For about 10 recent years, resort real estate has been formed and attracted the attention of investors. Some domestic investors have experienced successfully in other segments also expanded into this segment. Most of the projects are in the luxury and high-end segments such as beach villa. On the other hand, according to experts, if we can build resort real estate products at a reasonable price, the liquidity will be very good.

Vietnam has the potential for tourism therefore resort real estate is a good investment channel. Investing in an area with great potential for tourism and large amount of passenger traffic would have faster payback than the places that tourism does not develop. At the present, Vietnam has a lot of large investors as Vingroup and Sungroup... are capable to invest in large-scale resort projects. At the same time, the market is also attracting a lot of foreign investors with good financial capability and ability to invest quickly.

Currently the coastal cities like Da Nang, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc are 3 hotspots in attracting capital investments in resort real estate segment. In terms of location, these coastal cities have the potential to attract investors the most because they are also the famous tourist destination that attracting millions of tourists each year.

2016 is the year of resort real estate segment. The projects in this segment stretch from the sea to the mountain and Sapa is a typical example. Many large investors as Vingroup or Sun Group have been implementing major investment projects here.

Only in 2015, Sa Pa tourism has welcomed nearly 2 million passengers, increased by 42.2% compared with 2014. Currently, the number of tourists visiting Sapa is large and has always had a tendency to increase. While the demand for luxury resort services continues to rise, the supply is limited. Hence, this is a good opportunity to develop the resort real estate segment in this dreamy mountain city.

Resort real estate has opportunity to develop rapidly thanks to the development in transport infrastructure such as airport, highway and cable car system... allowing the movement of tourists to be convenient and easy.

Finding the right business partner in Vietnam is also important. We recommend doing research on the reputation of the company and individual shareholders, corporate or individual, gathering publicly available company information, and performing background checks on key personnel to find potential risks in cooperation. Working with a reliable partner can help achieve economic benefits, saving time and money in business.

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M&A Activities in Vietnam in Recent Years

  Vietnam's population is more than 90 million people so that foreign investors are looking at Vietnam as a fertile ground to expand their market by M&A deals.

Accordingly, along with the process of restructuring the economy and international integration of Vietnam, in recent years, merger and acquisition (M&A) activities have been fairly active, in which many major transactions involving Thai enterprises.

In 2009, the total value of M&A transactions in Vietnam reached 1 billion USD then in 2015, the number is 5 billion USD. Particularly for the first 6 months of 2016, the value of M&A in Vietnam has exceeded 3 billion USD, in which it took place in such sectors as retail, commodities and real estate...

Thailand, Japan and Singapore are still the major buyers in Vietnam market. While Japan invests in companies in aviation, petroleum and pharmaceutical sectors, Singapore emerges with commercial real estate projects. Lastly, Thailand continues to focus on the retail segment with the goal of expanding the market.

Head of M&A transactions last year is the retail sector and consumer goods, accounting for 38.46% of the total value. In particular, the scale of 2 M&A deals from Thailand accounted for 24.8% of the total value of 2015 and the first half of 2016. This shows the trend that retail businesses at home and abroad continue to explore the market with more than 90 million people of Vietnam. Recently, Thailand's major corporations continuously acquired large supermarket chains such as Metro, Big C...  Singha has also become a strategic partner of Masan with investment value of 1.1 billion USD.

According to experts, there is a great competition in the business sector of Thailand and Japan when investing in Vietnam because Vietnam market has now fully matured and become more attractive. On the other hand, the market of Thailand and Japan has begun to saturate.

Especially, there is a wave of M&A of Thai investors in Vietnam in order to expand the market for the “Made in Thailand” products. While Thailand's population is about 50 million, the size of Vietnam's population is almost double - over 90 million people.

With many innovations in policy such as the Investment Law and the Enterprise Law, the process of international integration will create opportunities and new playing field for the M&A transactions to boom.

We, ANT Consulting company, support you with the service of set up a company in Vietnam, Risk management in Vietnam, Employee background check in Vietnam... to help you shorten the implementation time.

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