SMEs are the backbone and driving force of the economy, however, they have faced tremendous challenges such as an opaque business environment, a shortage of high-quality labourers and a lack of capital for start-ups and business expansion, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong said at the ceremony.

Hoang Thi Hong, director of the fund, said that the fund would support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are in need of capital to implement their projects and production and business plans.

The purpose of the fund is to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises through supporting them in developing competitive and eco-friendly products; investing in technical equipment and advanced technology; developing a support industry and improving corporate governance.

SMEs, which are established and operating in line with the country’s regulations nationwide, are eligible to receive support from the fund. The fund gives commercial banks a mandate to loan to SMEs at a preferential interest rate of five per cent for short-term borrowing and seven per cent for medium and long-term credit.

At the ceremony, the fund also inked a co-operation agreement with mandated commercial banks in 2016.

Last year, there were only 36 per cent of Vietnamese enterprises participating in the production chain toward exports, he added.

“The rate is too low in comparison to the rate of around 60 per cent in Malaysia and Thailand,” Khuong said.

He said most of the local firms do not have adequate knowledge of the challenges they could encounter when meeting international organisations or as part of teams involved in free trade agreements with regions and big economies. Domestic businesses are not well prepared to compete with competitors in the region, especially in the labour market.

“In the international integration process, Vietnam should pay attention to three issues. These are clarifying on manufacturing and industrial sectors which have competitive advantages, clarifying on products and supply chains, and improving competitiveness of manufacturing and industry,” he added.

Sharing ideas, Tran Dinh Thien, director of Vietnam Institute of Economics said that after 30 years of Doi moi (Renewal), the proportion of industry and construction in the GDP rose 16 per cent.

However, Thien said that the processing and manufacturing sector, which has been the core of the industry and construction, increased by only 1.6 per cent.

“In the hi-tech era, the increase of processing and manufacturing in GDP was much lower than the world’s average level,” he added.

The director also said that State-owned groups and corporations have not targeted the use of technologies, but it was hard to compete with private firms in exploiting natural resources and minerals, if the environment was not conducive.

He said Vietnam should review its real advantages as natural resources and cheap labour cost could be no longer competitive tools. The advantages should be left on private firms to develop in association with foreign companies.

“We should associate with foreign firms and choose the right supply chain,” he said.

This comes four months after SEC’s former head Jose Raymond joined APP as its vice-president of corporate affairs in Singapore.

SEC declined to comment on the moves, and observers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude to see if environmental change can truly be effected from within.

While under Kavickumar, SEC’s eco-certifications unit suspended the use of its Green Label on APP products. This spurred supermarket chains to pull APP products, such as toilet rolls and facial tissue, from the shelves.

Brushing off criticism that he was a turncoat, Kavickumar said: “I am guided by my moral compass. I see the appointment as a new challenge and being one step closer to the problem to address the root cause of the haze.”

He also said: “Eventually, I want APP to be recognised by local and international green certification bodies for its efforts in combating haze.”

Professor Ang Peng Hwa, who leads volunteer group Haze Elimination Action Team, said that the two new hires could be a double-edged sword. “These are high-reward-high-risk hires for APP. Should either disagree and resign, it will be another reputational dent for the firm.”

Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan said that hiring Kavickumar, who used to be head of eco-certifications at SEC, could help APP regain the Green Label for their products as part of the urgent rebuilding of trust with consumers.

“But the chain of events will also raise concerns over the rigour and transparency of the SEC’s Singapore Green Label scheme and whether hiring former SEC staff is more a strategic than substantive move.”

According to the Government Office, the conference, themed “Vietnamese enterprises – the country’s economic development force”, aims to realise the Prime Minister’s message that the Government will create favourable conditions for start-up businesses and boost the development of enterprises in terms of both quantity and quality.

In the meeting, the Prime Minister will hear recommendations from businesses as well as discuss solutions to facilitate business operations and tackle difficulties and obstacles that enterprises face.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) was assigned to prepare a report on the operation of enterprises and to co-operate with Hanoi and HCM City’s people’s committees to draft a commitment to create the most favourable, healthy and fair business environment for local enterprises.

The agreement between the VCCI and the two committees are required to be signed with the Prime Minister as witness in the meeting.

Chairing the first Government cabinet meeting as Prime Minister, Phuc highlighted the importance of tackling institutional obstacles that are holding back business development. He requested Government members to have action plans to solve problems, focusing on building and completing legal frameworks so as not to let the community weaken.

Im Changho, mayor of Hamyang, said through the meeting on April 20 that his county sought to promote its quality agricultural products and wild ginseng.

Hoang Van Anh of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry said trade with Korea has grown rapidly and it is now one of Vietnam’s largest trade partners.

Korea is also among the largest foreign investors in the country, having more than 4,000 companies that employ more than 700,000 people, he said.

The Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement that took effect last December is expected to open up businesses opportunities in the two countries, he said.

In addition to business co-operation, Korean firms with their technological prowess could help Vietnamese firms develop agricultural products and export markets, he said.

Hamyang and CEOLink Corporation, a pioneer in Vietnam in offering online and offline B2B business models, signed an agreement to promote the county’s products in Vietnam.

Exports to Vietnam

South Korea exported more to Vietnam in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year, while its exports to other nations, particularly China, dropped significantly, reported the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

In the first three months, the RoK sold commodities worth US$7 billion to Vietnam – its third biggest importer – representing a 7.6 per cent annual increase. By contrast, revenue of the country’s shipments to its number one importer China fell by 15.7 per cent annually to $28.5 billion, the biggest drop in the past seven years.

Regarding the types of products imported to China, the number of conductors, flat screens, petrochemical products, auto spare parts and synthetic materials plunged during the given period. Park Jin-woo, head of KITA’s market research office, said China had invested heavily in expanding local conductor manufacturing to reduce imports.

He advised Korean firms to exploit the potential of the household-article market.

Also in the first quater, the RoK’s export value to the US and Japan decreased by 3.3 and 13.1 per cent to $16.8 billion and $5.5 billion, respectively.

As part of the government’s efforts to bring the country’s financial standards in line with international systems, the Bank of the Lao PDR (BOL)’s Anti-Money Laundering Intelligence Unit yesterday (April 20) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Registration and Management of Enterprises Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The MoU was signed by BOL’s acting head of the Anti-Money Laundering Intelligence Unit Phengsy Phengmeuang, and director general of the Registration and Management of Enterprises Department Dr Somphouang Phienphinith.

The banking and financial sectors in Laos would be more widely trusted by customers if their financial systems were more transparent, she noted.

The MoU is also an important aspect of compliance with the Law on Enterprise, Phengsy said.

“AML/CFT is an international issue, which is complex. We have to have detailed information about business operators who register in Laos in order to prevent transnational crime, under the convention to which Laos is a party,” she added.

The issue would be not successfully addressed if cooperation from the relevant sectors was not forthcoming.

Money laundering is a serious issue but wrongdoers are not severely punished, Dr Somphouang said.

On behalf of the Bank of the Lao PDR, the Anti-Money Laundering Intelligence Unit last month signed an MoU with the Foreigner Control Department under the Ministry of Public Security.

As a member of the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering, Laos is obliged to implement the Financial Action Task Force’s 40 recommendations in order to meet international standards on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.

In the past few years, BOL’s Anti-Money Laundering Intelligence Unit has signed MoUs on data exchange with several government bodies including the State Inspection Authority. In addition, the BOL cooperates with various Asean countries in technical areas, including Myanmar, Cambodia and several other developing countries.

Last year, the BOL signed an MoU with the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit to exchange information on preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism, which was a significant form of international cooperation to actively address the central bank’s AML/CFT deficiencies.

The long-haired, uncannily human-looking robot pauses as her software runs through past interactions to figure out the most appropriate thing to say. Finally, she settles on: “We talked about your job.”

At the National University of Singapore campus, a driverless cart attempts to navigate along a crowded walkway. When it senses a person in front of it, it stops; and as the crowd disperses, it inches forward, having learnt when to stop when an obstacle impedes its progress and when it is safe to move again.

The revenue prediction by India- based research and consulting firm MarketsandMarkets was based on an expected rise in the adoption of AI in media and advertising, retail, finance and healthcare, growing from a market size of US$419.7 million in 2014.The new wave of AI machines like Nadine has moved beyond traditional AI design, in which machines are given specific instructions to follow with no room for improvisation.

Rather, they tap into a subfield of AI, called machine learning, in which machines generate new outcomes for themselves after learning from previous outcomes.

“Nadine could eventually act as a robotic caretaker for the sick or elderly,” said NTU’s Professor Nadia Thalmann, Nadine’s creator.

Machine learning was thrust into the spotlight last month when a computer program, AlphaGo, beat one of the highest-ranking players in the world 4-1 in the ancient, complex board game of Go.

Such a feat was thought to be at least five years away, and would not have been possible without machine learning. It would have been impossible to code all the optimal moves into the software as the number of moves on the evolving board state can exceed the number of atoms in the universe.

However, AlphaGo’s developer company, DeepMind, fed the software millions of Go games and had it play against itself, where it eventually learnt and developed a play style of its own. AlphaGo’s success brought renewed interest in the capabilities of machine learning.

While both AI and machine learning are not new, they have become more accessible to software developers due to two recent factors: the rapid increase in computational power and the proliferation of big data.

“These two advances in computing technology made it possible for computers to efficiently crunch large amounts of data to look for patterns, and to have a wide dataset to learn from,” said Associate Professor Steven Hoi, an expert in machine learning from the Singapore Management University.

Consumers are seeing the applications of machine learning in the smart devices in their hands. Speech-recognition software like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, for instance, make use of machine learning to comprehend a user’s voice and the spoken instructions to the phone via a process called natural language processing.

Machine learning also underlies many of Google’s services found in Android devices. Google Photos, for instance, uses machine learning to learn and tag objects in its gallery.

When a user searches for “cats”, for example, the app is able to pick out photos with cats in them, having learnt how to identify such felines through millions of examples.

According to Professor Alfred Huan, executive director of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*Star) Institute of High Performance Computing, current capabilities of AI have reached near human-level performance in areas such as machine vision and speech recognition.

But while machine learning has enabled AI to leap ever closer to the ambitious goal of simulating human consciousness, experts say there is still a long way to go before the days of robotic superiority.

“As impressive as these feats have been, machines are still nowhere near the intelligence of even a two-year-old child,” said Prof Huan. “We are still far away from any truly intelligent machine capable of replacing humans.”

WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING?

Machine learning is a subset of the field of computer science known as artificial intelligence (AI), which seeks to simulate the workings of a human brain.

Machine learning is a form of programming, where the software improves its response after learning from previous responses, rather than following only scripted responses.

Nascent forms of machine learning first emerged some 20 years ago. The most modern form is “deep learning”, which tries to model the neural networks of the human brain by identifying millions of patterns in large datasets to predict the next outcome.

It plays an important role in big data analytics and is currently the rage in machine-learning research, given the accessibility of big data and computational power.

Professor Lee Wee Sun, vice-dean of undergraduate studies at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing, says “true” AI is still far off in the future because there are four requirements for software before it can be deemed “intelligent”: learning, planning, reasoning and knowledge representation.

So, while machines may currently be able to crunch large amounts of data and make accurate decisions, such as when to buy and sell in the stock market based on statistical predictions, the human mind may never be replaced in areas like artistic creativity or coming up with novel solutions to open-ended problems.

The conference sought to review the implementation of a project on developing the environmental industry in Vietnam for the 2010-15 period and set goals through to 2025.

Preferential financial policies were needed for environmental service providers, the association said, adding that incentives should be devised to boost the consumption of domestically made environmentally friendly products, while financial assistance should be provided for promotional events. Localities also needed to develop their own plans for developing the sector through 2020, it added.

Developing a mechanism on environmental technology transfers should also be considered, Hoan said.

In the 2010-15 period, within the framework of the project, the ministry approved 57 research missions relating to technology, equipment and products serving the industry, with a total investment of VND198 billion (US$8.91 million).

There are nearly 4,000 licenced firms operating nationwide in the environmental field, said the association’s chairman, Nguyen Dinh Hiep. A majority of them are small-sized enterprises, with capital below VND5 billion ($225,000), Hiep noted.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment the environmental firms have not been able to invest into areas which require large investments due to their small scale.

There are almost no State-owned enterprises in the sector eligible to resolve large environmental issues, such as harmful solid waste and oil spills.