Payroll statistics from the financial statements of VPBank showed that the bank recruited 1,482 employees in the first six months of the year, raising its total to 10,191 personnel by the end of the second quarter. Sacombank, despite having an enlarged workforce after the merger with SouthernBank, recruited 650 new positions in the second quarter and 865 employees for the first half.

The total headcount at Sacombank by the end of the second quarter reached 16,893 people.

TPBank’s financial report also showed that at the end of the second quarter, the bank had more than 4,100 employees, an increase of nearly 1,000 people compared to a year ago.

In the first six months of the year, Vietcombank hired 190 personnel for a total of 15,354. VIB, ACB and MBBank also increased their |numbers by 376, 186 and 111, respectively.

Positions

Most of the positions that the bank recruited for in the first half of this year were personal customer specialists, corporate customer specialists, consultants, transactors and debtors.

Some other banks, in spite of not publicising financial statements, had also announced that they intend to recruit more staff in the first half. H1. Nam A Bank, for example, announced it would recruit 500 people for various positions from senior level to management level working in the head office and business units across the country in order to realise the goal of network expansion and business development.

Apart from the official staff, banks also hired a larger number of talented students as interns who would be an important source for banks to select official employees.

In the second half of this year, banks have continuously increased their requirement for different positions.

Vietcombank now wants to recruit 404 staff members for 94 branches nationwide while VietinBank have also announced plans to recruit 77 people for its branches in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang in the third quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, after changing many of the key positions recently, Sacombank will recruit nearly 1,000 people for its different division in the rest months of the year. Nam A Bank also needs to find 500 qualified candidates for its offices nationwide.

The Statistics Department in a statement yesterday said re-exports in June were valued at 9.7 billion ringgit and accounted for 13.2 per cent of total exports.

Domestic exports were higher by 7.6 billion ringgit to register at 63.4 billion ringgit.

It said on a year-on-year basis, imports also increased from 2.3 billion ringgit to 63.2 billion ringgit. However, the growth was below the 19.8-per-cent rise by economists’ forecast.

Total trade in June, which was valued at 136.3 billion ringgit, grew 7.0 per cent from a year ago. However, it fell 11.1 per cent from May.

In June, a trade surplus of 9.9 billion ringgit was recorded, where a similar increase of 79.0 per cent for both year-on-year and month-on-month was registered.

Compared to May, total trade, exports and imports, fell 11.1 per cent, 8 per cent and 14.5 per cent.

The Statistics Department said June’s exports were mainly driven by an increase in electrical and electronic products, which rose 3.7 billion ringgit to 28 billion ringgit.

Liquefied natural gas, which contributed 5.4 per cent to total exports, grew 97.3 per cent to 4 billion ringgit due to the increase in both average unit value and export volume.

Palm oil and palm oil-based products rose 845.7 million ringgit to 6.2 billion ringgit.

Exports of palm oil, the major commodity in this group of products, rose 16.5 per cent due to an increase in both export volume and average unit value.

However, refined petroleum products, which accounted for 5 per cent of total exports, shrank 15.7 per cent to 3.7 billion ringgit due to a 31-per-cent decrease in export volume as average unit value increased 22.2 per cent.

Timber and timber-based products fell 67.1 million ringgit to 1.7 billion ringgit while crude petroleum decreased 19.9 million ringgit to 1.9 billion ringgit due to the 9.2-per-cent decline in export volume as average unit value increased 9 per cent.

The Statistic Department said on a year-on-year basis, imports increased 3.7 per cent from 60.9 billion ringgit, contributed by intermediate goods and capital goods.

It said intermediate goods, which constituted 60.5 per cent of total imports, increased 3.6 billion ringgit to 38.2 billion ringgit.

The growth was mainly attributed to parts and accessories of capital goods (except transport equipment), industrial supplies, processed industrial supplies, primary and food and beverages, mainly for industries.

In the first half of 2017, Malaysia’s total trade rose by 22 per cent to 859.17 billion ringgit from 704 billion ringgit recorded in the first half of 2016.

Of the S$170.3 million, the fund is acquiring the land for the serviced residence component from CapitaLand Mall Trust (CMT) for S$90.5 million and developing the Singapore flagship of Ascott’s millennial-focused lyf brand on the site for an estimated S$80 million

To be named lyf Funan Singapore, the prime property “will be designed by millennials for millennials”, and is set to offer a new way of living and collaborating as a community in the heart of Singapore’s Civic & Cultural District. The nine-storey co-living property spans about 121,000 sq ft in gross floor area.

Slated to open in 2020, it will have 279 units with the flexibility to offer up to 412 rooms.

Funan Singapore will be an integral part of Funan, which also comprises a mall and two office towers offering innovative retail outlets and co-working spaces for customers to enjoy a live-work-play experience within the integrated development.

Ascott said the acquisition cements its position as the largest and fastest growing serviced residence operator in Singapore with close to 2,000 units in 12 properties.

Within a span of two months, Ascott has added about 1,000 units across four properties in Singapore; which includes securing a contract from Low Keng Huat (Singapore) Limited to manage a 166-unit Citadines Balestier Singapore that will open in 2021. This follows Ascott’s recent addition of the 240-unit lyf Farrer Park Singapore that was also awarded by Low Keng Huat, as well as a prime 299-unit project at CapitaLand’s landmark integrated development at Raffles Place. Both serviced residences are also slated to open in 2021.

On Ascott’s acquisition of lyf Funan Singapore, Ascott chief executive Lee Chee Koon said: “We see strategic advantages for lyf’s co-living concept at Funan as we expect demand from local and foreign business executives working in the business district and in Funan, as well as new market segments like technopreneurs, startups and those in the entertainment, fashion and creative industries.

“With the millennial traveller segment already making up a quarter of Ascott’s global customer base and poised to further expand, securing our fourth lyf property will enable us to leverage our scale to capture this rapidly growing market, which is set to be the largest spending travel demographic by 2020.”lyf Funan Singapore is Ascott’s fifth acquisition under its serviced residence global fund with committed equity of US$600 million (S$809 million). Set up through a 50:50 joint venture with QIA in July 2015, Ascott’s largest private equity fund has committed a total investment amount of S$533 million to date to lyf Funan Singapore, La Clef Champs-Elysees Paris that will open in 2018, Citadines Islington London and Quest NewQuay Docklands Melbourne that will both open in 2019, as well as Somerset Shinagawa Tokyo which is already operational.Part of these investments will be funded by debt.

Ascott has four lyf properties – lyf Wu Tong Island Shenzhen and lyf DDA Dalian in China which are scheduled to open in 2018, followed by lyf Funan Singapore in 2020 and lyf Farrer Park Singapore in 2021.

Besides Singapore and China, Ascott said it is actively looking at other potential markets, including Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and the United Kingdom, as it works towards its target of achieving 10,000 lyf-branded units worldwide by 2020.

“Currently, the US imposes a 12.5 per cent import duty for our textiles, while it imposes zero per cent for Vietnamese textiles because they already have a bilateral agreement,” said Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto.

Indonesian exports to the US reached US$9.13 billion (Bt303 billion) last year. The biggest exports were palm oil, furniture, pulp and paper, handicrafts, electronics and aluminium products.

The Industry Ministry’s Director General of Manufacturing Industrial Base, Harjanto, said that Indonesia had discussed various issues with the US through the Trade Investment Council (TIC) forum.

He explained that the TIC consisted of four working groups on industrial and agricultural products, illegal logging and associated trade, intellectual property rights, and investment.

Meanwhile, Indonesia and the US recently established a commercial dialogue, a forum that encourages the private sector to explore investment and trade opportunities in both countries.

“Currently, the dialogue focuses on several issues, including investment climate, trade expansion, small and medium enterprises, entrepreneurship, clean energy and industrial cooperation,” Harjanto said.

PLN was initially scheduled to seal deals for 64 renewable projects with combined capacity of around 380MW.

However, prospective developers of 17 mini hydropower plants and one biogas plant decided to pull out from the agreements in what appears to be disagreement over the electricity prices set in the PPAs.

“It doesn’t mean that the 18 projects have been cancelled. Maybe it’s just because the developers weren’t able to attend the event yesterday,” PLN renewable energy division head Tohari Hadiat said on Thursday.

“We’re still trying to find out what the real problem is.”

Some developers had demanded the government review the electricity prices set in the PPAs, which are calculated in accordance with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Decree No 12/2017.

The decree caps electricity rates from renewable sources, except geothermal and waste, at 85 per cent of the local electricity supply costs if they exceed the national average.

PLN still uses the decree as a reference, even though the ministry has amended it by passing Decree No 43/2017, which exempts hydropower plants from the 85-per-cent cap.

The Securities Commission (SC) has dropped insider trading charges against the former executive director of Kencana Petroleum Bhd Datuk Yeow Kheng Chew and two others following instructions from the Attorney-General.

Almost immediately after the criminal charges were dropped, the SC filed a civil suit against the three individuals, seeking, among others, a declaration that they had contravened regulations under the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA).

In an update on its criminal prosecutions posted on the regulator’s website yesterday, the SC stated that it had dropped all charges against Yeow, better known as KC Yeow, on July 20, 2017, “on the instructions of the Attorney-General”. Two others, Paulene Chee Yuet Fang and Tan Yee Chee, who had been charged for abetting in the offence, also had all charges against them dropped.

The three individuals had been charged for their alleged involvement in insider trading in relation to the proposed merger of Kencana Petroleum and SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd in 2011. When contacted, a spokesperson for the SC said that the AG had the power to discontinue any criminal proceeding at his discretion. “Under the constitution, the Attorney-General as the public prosecutor has the power, exercisable at his discretion to institute, conduct or discontinue any criminal proceedings.

“As this is a criminal case, the SC is required to act under the instruction of the public prosecutor,” the spokesperson said. – The Star

E-commerce tax must be settled in payment gateway

While the Malaysian government is preparing an income tax bill, an expert has suggested that the taxes from e-commerce activities should be deducted at the payment gateway to assure fairness for both the government and businesspeople.

In the current bill, which is being discussed by the government, e-commerce transactions must be reported so that the government can calculate the amount of tax that should be paid from the transactions.

However, Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis (CITA) executive director Yustinus Prastowo said on Thursday the government could not collect taxes based on the transactions that had been made because not all transactions ended with payment. Purchasing financial products can be as easy as purchasing goods

“We should apply the Korean system, where the authority collects the taxes in the payment gateway because e-commerce transactions are paid through online systems,” Yustinus said at a seminar on taxation in Jakarta on Thursday.

Under Director General of Taxation Regulation No. SE-62/PJ/2013, the government collects income tax and value added tax (VAT) from four kinds of e-commerce: online marketplace, classified ads, daily deals and online retail. – The Star

Mining licences of two Australian firms nixed

Cambodia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy revoked three mineral exploration licences from two Australian firms that failed to meet work performance guidelines, it said yesterday in a release.

According to the announcement, Summer Gold Investment’s single exploration licence and Riva Natural Resources’ two exploration licences were terminated at the end of June and the companies ordered to pay financial dues to the ministry.

The areas covered under the exploration licences included sites in Rattanakiri province, Mondulkiri province and an area that stretched between Banteay Meanchey province and Oddar Meanchey. – The Phnom Penh Post

San Miguel Brewery nets 9.4 bn pesos in first half

Beer giant San Miguel Brewery grew its six-month net profit by 14 per cent year-on-year to 9.4 billion pesos (Bt6.2 billion) on a double-digit expansion in revenues.

Consolidated revenues for the first semester went up 12 per cent year-on-year to 53.1 billion pesos.

SMB said it had benefited from creative marketing and sales executions that opened new markets and boosted consumption of its products. – Philippine Daily Inquirer