This year, this IT-based agricultural project will experiment on growing high-value-added vegetables including medium-sized tomatoes and low-potassium leaf lettuce that will be the source of clean, ready-to-eat food.

The potassium content in this kind of lettuce is one-fifth as compared with lettuce grown in any ordinary way making it suitable for diabetics and people who are on a diet.

Under the agreement between Fujitsu Limited and FPT Corporation signed in 2014, Fujitsu provided cloud services, equipment, and expertise, and FPT facilitated the spread of information technology in the agricultural sector.

A 400sq.m centre, comprising a greenhouse to cultivate tomatoes and a vegetable factory to grow lettuce, was set up at the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute in Trau Quy Town, Gia Lam District, Hanoi.

“The showcase environment information and video information about the cultivation area can be monitored, not only onsite, but from Japan as well, enabling remote cultivation guidance,” Truogn Gia Binh, CEO of the FPT Corporation, said.

The area is self-contained and yellow electric boards are set up between the beds of vegetables that help control the cultivation and prevent entry of insects.

Environmental information, including temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, sunlight, and rain, in addition to wind direction and speed, is gathered in real time by a variety of sensors installed in the greenhouse, and this information is used to autonomously control the facilities, such as curtains and fans.

This facility is combined with IMEC Film Farming, in which plants are grown on a thin film, using a hydrogel membrane.

Since the film allows only water and nutrients to pass, and keeps out viruses and microbes, the crops grown are safe for consumption. In addition, because plants receive optimal water stress by absorbing nutrients through the hydrogel membrane, they create a higher volume of sugars and amino acids, creating crops with high sugar content and high nutritional value.

That is why one will be able to consume fresh vegetables cut from the branches without washing them.

With this technology, tomatoes are planted with a density of between 4,000 plants and 6,000 plants in 1,000 square metres. And the cultivation can take place all year long, without being dependent on the seasons and the weather.

“In Vietnam, there are calls to develop agricultural businesses to ensure food safety by promoting innovation in agricultural production technologies and in recognition of the issue of pesticide overuse,” Binh said.

“The aim of this partnership is to support restructuring of Vietam’s agricultural sector so as to make the country a world-class agricultural producer based on innovative technologies.”

Accordingly, this innovative food and agriculture will contribute to stable production volumes and higher product quality, which would otherwise depend on the expert judgment of farmers, he added.

High potential

Binh appreciated the high potential of the project, but he also expressed concern at the obstacles while implementing the Japanese technique in Vietnam.

“Fujitsu and FPT are leading information technology corporations of Japan and Vietam, but we faced numerous difficulties in establishing the smart agriculture centre such as the procedure to import technology from abroad,” Bình said.

“We have only borrowed the technology from Japan, and Vietnamese enterprises should now learn to master it,” he cautioned.

He suggested that the enterprises which want to get involved in this form of smart agriculture should meet to study and understand the technology.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat agreed that Vietnam’s agricultural sector is looking for foreign and domestic investors, especially those using advanced technology. He highlighted the fact that applying advanced technology to farming will help the country set up modern agricultural techniques with highly competitive capacity.

“However, the procedure to import chains and devices to produce takes much more time,” he said. The government policy requires management agencies to streamline procedures such as customs procedures for import of materials and farm produce.”

Phat said at the opening ceremony of the FPT-Fujitsu centre that the centre is considered a good model to boost hi-tech agricultural growth in Vietnam.The agriculture ministry has assigned plant protection and husbandry departments to cut by half the time and cost of import procedures.

Phat hoped that many more local and foreign investors will join the sector and support farmers to apply advanced technology to increase yields and turn out quality produce for sale at home and abroad.

Dang Van Dong, vice director of the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute, indicated that facilities to implement high-tech agriculture are taxed between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. He expected the government to apply new mechanism to create a viable environment for enterprises who want to invest in agriculture like the ones investing in industry.

“The FPT-Fujitsu project has the potential to develop Vietnamese agriculture in such a modern way that the people would only benefit from it,” he said.”In my opinion, both sides need innovation in implementing the next stage of the project to fit with Vietnamese socio-economic and ecological conditions,” he said.

“The enterprises may face obstacles in the beginning of the project, but, I believe that in the near future they would help Vietnamese agriculture become smarter and more developed.”

Regarding the next stage of the project, Nguyen Lan Anh, media officer of the FPT Corporation, said the technicians have been experimenting with growing soybeans on IMEC film and would try with other plants after the one-year trial project. However, the details and result of the process should be discussed among two partners before being announced.

This was the main theme of the Japanese Market Access Seminar on Lao Handicraft Products, which was supported by the Asean Japan Centre recently in Luang Prabang province.

The seminar was organised by the Promotion and Product Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in cooperation with Luang Prabang Handicraft Association and Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) Vientiane.

The seminar aimed to encourage handicraft makers in Luang Prabang to seek ways to strengthen their businesses while developing handicraft products in response to the demands of customers such as tourists and especially the Japanese market.

“80 per cent of Lao people live in rural areas and are involved in handicraft related production, so if they could produce and design more appealing products, this would attract more interest from the Japanese market,” an official explained.

The seminar also informed Small-Medium Enterprises how they could access funding for product development, while helping the state sector in marketing by attending exhibitions, promoting products via the internet, and supporting the One District, One Product concept.

As an example, the seminar showed some products supported by JETRO which had been on the Japanese market for several years.

According to data, in 2014-2015 Luang Prabang province reported exports to Japan valued at more than 4 billion kip, including 930 handicraft bags worth around 232 million kip.

In 2008 the value of Lao exports to the Japanese market reached US$80 million, increased to over US$100 million in 2010 and was about US$250 million last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce

Japan was currently ranked seventh for investment in Laos, with the most popular exports to Japan being handicrafts such as fabrics and wood products, plus coffee and tea, according to a Trade and Product Promotion Department report.

KCIC, however, needs to secure one more permit — the construction permit — before it can begin the construction of the railway track.

KCIC is a consortium consisting of China Railway Corporation and four Indonesian state-owned companies.

During the signing of the agreement, which gives KCIC a fixed concession period of 50 years, on Wednesday, Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan promised to issue the necessary permit this week.

Yes, the ministry has signed the railway infrastructure operational permit,” Joice Hutajulu, spokesperson for the ministry’s railway directorate general, said on Thursday.

Hermanto Dwiatmoko, the ministry’s director general for railways, was reported to have had a private, lengthy discussion with Jonan before the announcement of the signing.

KCIC president director Hanggoro Budi Wiryawan confirmed the news, stating that the permit had been signed by Jonan.

“They will sign the construction permit tomorrow morning,” he said over the phone, referring to the construction permit for the first five kilometres of the project.

He said that all of the necessary documents had been submitted but he could not confirm whether construction work would start right away next week or whether the company would need to prepare more.

Also, the company has not retrieved the loans from China Development Bank, which make up roughly 75 percent of the US$5.1 billion slated for the project. The delay in the concession agreement signing was blamed for the delay in the loan.

The project’s groundbreaking ceremony was conducted in January and featured the attendance of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

The two-month vacuum between January’s groundbreaking and the commencement of the project was due to the failure of KCIC to submit the necessary documentation.

Meanwhile, Hanggoro said KCIC had started preparing the necessary documents to get the construction permit. He planned to submit the documents in April at the latest.

Based on the concession agreement, KCIC gets the right to operate the Jakarta-Bandung railway line for a span of 50 years, starting from May 31, 2019.

The company estimates that it will break even within 40 years.

The ministry has also set a three-year time limit for the construction of infrastructure from the issuance of the construction permit.

The flagship project between Jakarta and Bandung spans 142.3 kilometres and will stop at four stations, namely Halim, Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar.

In one point of the concession, the ministry also granted KCIC the authority to approve or disapprove of other high-speed railway operators that intend to use its track.

The ministry also decided to give KCIC the exclusive right to operate the railway track. The ministry will allow other rail operators to use the track and build stations as long as the stations are about 25 kilometres away from a station belonging to KCIC. Previously, KCIC wanted the distance to be 50 kilometres.

“During the concession period, this exclusivity is their right. But after that, it’s not,” Joice said.

It would depend much on how Vietnam takes advantage of the pact and copes with related problems, and only with appropriate efforts would the country be able to achieve its potential and overcome challenges, Khánh, who was the head of Vietnam’s TPP negotiation delegation, said.

Speaking at the “TTP Dialogue – Envisioned growth opportunities for businesses in Vietnam” conference yesterday, he said the TPP would facilitate trade with and investment in the 12 countries involved in the pact, who account for 40 per cent of the world’s GDP.

It would help attract more foreign investors to Vietnam for setting up their production chains, enable the nation to become a part of their manufacturing and supply chain base, and help Vietnamese firms become part of the chains, he said.

Besides investment and trade commitments, the new generation free trade agreement requires much higher standards of international compliance, including creating a fair and non-discriminatory business environment, which would help create a sound trade and investment environment in the country, he said.

Tran Dac Sinh, chairman of the HCM Stock Exchange, said the TPP is expected to benefit the bourse as companies, including in the supporting industries, take advantage of trade benefits.

Portfolio investment from abroad would also increase sharply, creating a momentum for market growth, he said.

Khánh said: “Several studies have found that the TPP would create huge economic opportunities for Vietnam, but these researches were based on the premise ‘with other conditions remaining stable’.

“If the world economy suddenly faces difficulty, our economy will be affected.

“Opportunities cannot by themselves turn into benefits; it depends on the efforts made by all: the more you prepare, the more successful you will be.”

Besides, opportunities always go hand in hand with challenges due to fierce competition, and businesses need to be courageous to compete and should take the initiative to innovate to improve their competitiveness, he said.

“Businesses should not compete only on price, but also quality and prestige.”

He urged Vietnamese firms to focus on improving their management and adopt modern marketing methods.

To enjoy the benefits of TPP, Vietnamese goods would have to comply with regulations on origins, quality, and others, he said.

For instance, the “yarn-forward” rule in the garment and textile sector could be a challenge in the short term, but in the long term it would help the domestic industry develop a complete supply chain, he said.

In the last two years investment in the fibre and yarn making has shot up, equalling the entire previous investment, he said.

Nguyen Công Ái, deputy general director of KPMG, said, “A number of Taiwanese and South Korean investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars in Vietnam’s textile and dyeing sectors.”

Local companies have also stepped up investment in the sectors, he said, adding they have done extensive studies to thoroughly understand the “yarn-forward” rule to capitalise on opportunities to boost exports to markets like the US and Japan when the TPP comes into effect, he said.

The seminar was organised by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with KPMG and HOSE.

“Interior refurbishment of the Brunei International Airport will need to be done to make it one of the best in the world,” Mustappa Sirat said at yesterday’s 12th Legislative Council (LegCo) meeting, in response to claims that the airport facilities are inadequate to meet the needs of modern travellers.

The minister said the Department of Civil Aviation will use the criteria and benchmarks set by the Sky Track World Airport Award to make the Brunei airport among the best in the world. The award is one of the largest customer-based awards in the airport industry.

Mustappa said the early stages of some facilities are being designed. These cilities include retail shops, food courts, a transit hotel and business centres. The minister said the government has so far spent BN$164 million (US$118 million) for the airport’s upgrade.

“Everything is designed to be held under PPP in line with the government’s pro-business policy,” he said.

He said operators for shops, restaurants and other retail outlets have been appointed through the tender process and will begin work in the near future. The results of the tender to manage the transit hotel and related services will also be out as soon as possible.

He said the ministry is conducting two projects – a runway rehabilitation project and the aviation revelatory advice project organised by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. The two projects will cost approximately BN$114 million (US$182 million) over two years.

The ministry is also looking at establishing a public transportation system which connects the airport to the city centre.

He said a smoking suite has been identified in the airport but he noted Brunei has laws and regulations that regulate smoking in public buildings and government under the Tobacco Act. He will still discuss with other agencies if the site can be exempted from this regulation as the airport has to cater to travellers who transit in the sultanate.

During yesterday’s legislative council session, Awang Abdul Rahman said airport facilities are inadequate despite the completion of the modernisation project in 2014. These include the lack of a transit hotel and a smoker’s room.

Traders, including 20,000 in the Middle East, were using the app to get live alerts every time the price of crude hit a new level.

The app was launched in 2014 by Call Levels, one of Singapore’s fastest-growing fintech start-ups.

Fintech – which involves using technology to devise new financial services and products – is still at an early stage in Singapore but activity is increasing fast. New start-ups frequently announce beta versions and pilot tests for new mobile wallets or robo-advisers to help people with investment decisions.

But for entrepreneurs whose products have kicked off, their reach is global. Call Levels co-founder Daniel Chia, said: “We have more than 70,000 users and we’ve raised US$500,000.”

There is no official data on the size of the fintech cluster here but consultancy Accenture estimated last year that fintech investments in Asia-Pacific hit almost US$3.5 billion in the first nine months of 2015, up from about US$880 million in all of 2014.

Jeremy Tan, chief executive of payments solutions firm Korvac, said: “There is probably a little bit of exuberance, but there are some good companies that we think will make it huge. We will have people standing when the tide goes out.”

The local fintech cluster is growing so fast that the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation is pulling together 30 members to form a new fintech industry group, said Tan, who is also the federation’s treasurer.

How the Monetary Authority of Singapore will regulate new innovations like equity crowdfunding or digital remittances is still not clear, and Tan hopes the fintech alliance can consolidate views and offer suggestions to “speed them along”.

The government has also had a hand in grooming local fintechs. Infocomm Investments, the venture arm of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, is a backer of Startupbootcamp FinTech Singapore, a specialised accelerator programme for fintech firms in the region. The programme unveiled its second cohort of 10 start-ups, including Singapore digital insurance manager Policy Pal, this week.

But the fintech ecosystem is not airtight. Capital market support for local start-ups needs to be stronger to encourage fintechs to list here, many entrepreneurs said. “The Singapore Exchange is not known for supporting innovation and start-up companies. It’s known for dividend-based companies and seafood restaurants,” said Tan.

Najib, who is also Finance Minister, said in a written reply to parliament Thursday, that Malaysia was still classified as a nation with manageable debt, and said measures were in place to control spending with 2020 being set as the year where the country may start seeing its credit improving.

He said fiscal consolidation measures would be continued to reduce the country’s deficit levels, stage by stage, by prioritising expenditure cuts and only taking loans for national development projects.

“Adherence to fiscal discipline and good debt management will continue to be emphasised to ensure we remain strong and able to cushion any crisis,” he said.

“We will ensure that administrative expenditures will be footed by profits from national products, which will also be used to pay for development costs.

“Prudent spending will be emphasised to prevent wastage. Government borrowing will solely be to finance development and high-impact projects that will contribute to the country and the people in the long term,” he said.

Najib added that the government would continue its policy of giving out domestic loans that does not contribute to inflation, taking into account the high liquidity and lower borrowing costs.

Najib had to revise Budget 2016 in January, to optimise the country’s developmental and operational expenditures in the face of slower economic growth.

Nguyen ThI Thu Trang, Director of the WTO and Integration Centre under the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), spoke about concerns regarding Viet Nam law at a conference in Ha Noi yesterday.

“To constantly improve the investment environment is an internal requirement of any economy, and Vietnam is no exception,” Trang said.

For instance, she said the EVFTA agreement allows EU investors in Vietnam to sue State agencies if these agencies violate the EVFTA’s commitments in a number of clauses related to most-favoured-nation treatment, which causes damage to investors.

In addition, Vietnamese law doesn’t comply with EVFTA’s commitments on compulsory purchase requisition and pay compensations, as well as paying interest for late compensation, Trang said.

With the current Vietnamese law system, domestic investors don’t have an opportunity to access investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases, she said.

To solve these problems, Trang said that instead of checking all specialised legal documents, the lawmakers should create a separate law covering the implementation of the agreement’s investment section.

Speaking at the conference, Former Director of Department of Legislation under the Ministry of Planning and Investment Phim Minh Dung said an obstacle to investment is not only the law, but also the implementation of the judgment.

“The judgment execution is now very passive. We must improve law enforcement, as well as the court system,” Dung said.

Dung said Vietnamese law should be based on the foundations of modern market economics instead of reviewing the rules every time the country signs an FTA.

Good preparation will better serve the implementation of the agreement and promote investment flows from the EU to Vietnam, as well as stimulate two-way trade, Dung added.

The investment section in EVFTA consists of 60 pages and three chapters, including investment liberalisation, protection of investment and the ISDS mechanism.

Growth is likely to come in at a modest 1.9 per cent this year, down from an earlier forecast of 2.2 per cent, say economists polled by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in its quarterly survey out yesterday (March 16).

The latest poll, sent out on February 24, reflects views from 24 economists who closely monitor the Singapore economy.

Government forecasts tip growth to come in at between 1 per cent and 3 per cent this year.

Economists said the outlook worsened at the start of this year amid oil price volatility and signs of flagging global demand.

The jury is still out on China’s mid-term growth prospects, while other traditional global growth drivers like the United States continue to eke out a slow recovery.

Singapore’s manufacturing and finance and insurance sectors have been hit the hardest, with economists giving these industries the sharpest growth downgrades in the latest survey.

Manufacturing, which makes up a fifth of the Singapore economy, is now tipped to shrink 2.7 per cent this year, a deeper contraction than the 1.2 per cent decline estimated in the previous survey.

“Manufacturing is still very much responsible for the state of the numbers,” said CIMB Private Bank economist Song Seng Wun.

The finance and insurance sector, which contributes about 13 per cent of gross domestic product, is expected to expand 3.6 per cent according to the latest survey, down from an earlier estimate of 5.9 per cent.

UOB economist Francis Tan noted that bank loans have been shrinking in recent months, a possible sign that financial institutions are holding back on lending given the poor outlook.

Meanwhile, survey respondents expect inflation for this year to come in at negative 0.2 per cent, down from an estimate of a 0.5 per cent rise in the previous survey.

Those surveyed also expect MAS core inflation – seen as a better gauge of out-of-pocket expenses for households – to come in at 0.8 per cent, down from the 1 per cent projected in the previous survey.

This comes as global energy prices experienced a further rout at the start of the year amid ongoing uncertainty over the economic outlook.

Song said he is still keeping his fingers crossed for brighter prospects in the second half of this year. “We’ve said that for the past few years about the second half and so far it hasn’t panned out… But with the labour market in developed economies improving, there is a spark of hope. The underlying assumption that cheaper energy is good for global growth also still stands.”

Economists in the latest MAS survey expect Singapore’s economy to grow a stronger 2.5 per cent next year.