After terminating the application of a 50 per cent promotion for prepaid subscribers in from March 1, mobile call rates between operators in Vietnam will be decreased from May 1.

The Ministry of Information and Communications issued Circular 48/2017 regulating mobile rates for mobile operators.

Accordingly, from May 1, the fee for voice calls between two mobile networks will apply as follows.

In case of a call to a Viettel number, the outgoing mobile network must pay for Viettel 400 dong per minute. For calls to subscribers of Mobifone, Vinafone, VietnamMobile, Gtel, the outgoing mobile network will pay 440 dong per minute.

Previously, the fee was regulated from 500 dong to 550 dong per minute.

Therefore, the new rate will be 20 per cent lower than the current charge. |— Viet Nam News

Bulog to disburse subsidised rice in March

Indonesia’s National Logistics Agency (Bulog) will distribute 400,000 tonnes of subsidised rice in an attempt to stabilize the price in March.

Of the 400,000 tonnes, 250,000 tonnes was taken from the March allocation, while the remaining allocations were in January and February, said Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti after meeting with President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, a further 150,000 tonnes of rice from the April allocation would be pushed forward to March he said, adding: “The president has allowed us to distribute April’s allocation in March.”

According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) released on Thursday, the price of all qualities of rice had increased in February compared to January.

The price of premium rice increased by 0.31 per cent, while the prices of medium and low quality rice increased by 0.37 per cent and 1.99 per cent respectively.

BPS chairman Suhariyanto said that the price of low quality rice reached Rp 9,987 per kilogramme, higher than the government’s price ceiling target. – The Jakarta Post

Russian vehicle group enters the Philippines

Russian automotive firm GAZ group is rolling out its GAZelle line of buses and minibuses in the Philippines through five dealerships set up with local firm Eastern Petroleum Corp, seeking to ride on the government’s moves to modernise ageing public utility vehicles (PUVs).

The two partners also launched Gazelle Motors Corp, the authorised distributor of GAZelle vehicles in the Philippines, which has made available the GAZelle NEXT Minibuses and GAZelle NEXT Citiline framed buses—both of which run on 2.8-liter diesel engines.

GAZ and Eastern Petroleum signed a partnership in Russia in September following President Duterte’s visit to that country in May last year.

In particular, the two companies agreed to supply the commercial vehicles “which fully meet the requirements of the [Philippine] government’s Fleet Modernization Programme.”

Gazelle Motors said that in the first stage of the programme, over the next few years until year 2023, a total of more than 200,000 units of PUVs are due to be replaced by new buses and more than 150 new bus routes would be introduced. – The Philippine Daily Inquirer

The ministry expects to gain a growth rate of 3.05 per cent in gross domestic product (GDP) and notch export value of US$40.5 billion for this year. Meanwhile, 39 per cent of communes are expected to meet new rural standards and forest coverage will reach 41.65 per cent.

To achieve those targets for fisheries, Tuan said the fishery industry must strengthen public relations activities as well as boost inspection and control to avoid illegal fishing. The ministry expects the European Commission (EC) to withdraw its warning label regarding illegal, unregulated and undeclared (IUU) fishing in Vietnamese seafood exported to the European Union (EU).

Nguyen Thi Phuong Dung, director of the Department of Science, Technology and External Cooperation under the General Department of Fisheries, said that the State has acted drastically to eliminate IUU within fishing activities. Efforts included reviewing current regulations and developing more regulations relating while popularising urgent solutions to prevent IUU fishing among fishermen.

In addition, Vietnam will cooperate with coastal countries and island nations to prevent IUU fishing and implement dialogue with the EU, as well as providing progress updates to show that Vietnam has been working to improve responsibility in fisheries management, she said.

During the meeting, Tuan delivered a summary report on equitisation of State-owned enterprise. The Agricultural Materials Corporation has completed successful equitisation and turned into a joint stock company.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Rubber Group sold 2 per cent of its total shares in its initial public offering (IPO), lower than the 11.88 per cent that was expected to sell in the IPO, he said.

At present, the ministry has directed to the group to sell its shares for a second time, including selling to workers and the union.

So far, the group has not attracted any strategic shareholders, according to the ministry.

However, Tuan said the equitisation of the group will still follow the scheduled roadmap and the group will become a joint stock company even it does not sell its shares as scheduled.

He said the Southern Food Corporation will have an IPO on March 14 and it is seeking strategic investors.

The corporation must be careful in implementing its equitisation because at present, it has had many difficulties in finance and other factors affecting on the equitisation process.

The corporation is expected to turn into a join stock company in the second quarter of this year.

Higher rice export prices

The minister also reported that in the first few months of the year Vietnam had strong rice exports. The export prices of Vietnamese rice stood at US$475 per tonne, higher than that of Thailand.

The high export price was due to Vietnam increasing the area of growing high-quality rice seeds over the past three to four years to 80 per cent of the total area of rice production.

Meanwhile, to promote stabilisation and sustainable development in the husbandry industry, the MARD has proposed relevant state offices to cooperate with and support enterprises in the development of chain producing animal products for exports, including solutions on developing systems of slaughtering, processing and distribution of animal products.

The ministry said the national export value of farming, forestry and fishery products in the first two months of this year reached $6.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30.2 per cent.

At the sidelines of a press conference last week, top officials of Daikin Airconditioning Philippines Inc complained about the lack of long term continuity in the country’s policies, noting that investors want to see the rules that are sustained beyond one administration.

Partly because of this, they said their parent company, Daikin Industries, Ltd, had decided to open a production hub in Vietnam in order to help meet the growing global demand for its products, instead of putting it up here in the Philippines.

Daikin’s operations in Vietnam sell a million units annually, around ten times larger than its sales here in the Philippines, wherein only less than a hundred thousand units are sold in a year.

However, in spite of the sales difference, the country could have hosted the production facility if there were “attractive” tax packages and a sense of continuity in its policies, according to Bart Roa, deputy division manager under the company’s sales operations.

“Even though our unit sales are not big, if our [tax] packages are very attractive for investors, of course, they would choose the Philippines as their production hub. But that’s not the case. Here, they’re scared because they’re not protected,” he said in Filipino.

The complaint did not necessarily centre around the Duterte administration, as officials noted that the policy changes from one president to another. Previous administrations were also guilty of this.

However, this comes as the Duterte administration is introducing a series of tax packages, including one which would rationalise the tax incentives that companies like Daikin could have benefited from.

If the company set up in an economic zone, it would eventually only pay five per cent gross income earned (GIE) tax in lieu of all taxes, a perk which essentially has no expiration date. This is under the currently available tax incentives.

However, according to the proposed second tax package from the Department of Finance, the perk would be replaced with a reduced corporate income tax rate of 15 percent based on net taxable income This 15 per cent tax rate could be continued for another five years on a per-project basis.

The report was released by wireless coverage mapping firm OpenSignal, which relies on users to download their mobile application and voluntarily submit data about their networks’ speed back to the company. It analysed companies on six categories including 4G download speed, 3G download speed, download speed overall, 4G latency, 3G latency and 4G availability.

Cellcard took first place outright in four of the report’s six categories, only losing to Smart in the 4G latency category. All three providers tied for 4G availability, and Metfone took third place in the other five metrics.

In a statement, Cellcard CEO Ian Watson credited improvements to the Cellcard network, which he said have resulted in a 400 per cent increase in average mobile data usage over the past year.

Smart and Metfone have each made significant strides forward since the third-quarter analysis, OpenSignal’s report found, with Smart greatly increasing its download speeds and Metfone expanding its overall availability by nearly 15 per cent, but the two fell short of Cellcard’s overall performance.

Smart CEO Thomas Hundt said his company was working to improve their network, noting that this year “another US$80 million will be invested to expand and upgrade our 4.5G network to provide even better service quality for all Cambodians”.

The OpenSignal analysis is based on over 100 million data points collected from nearly 12,000 local cellular service devices last year between October 2 and December 31.

OpenSignal did not provide specifics about how many devices were recorded for each operator, and has declined to provide those statistics in the past.

The region’s trade architecture might have served the grouping well, but it has to be strengthened so that goods, services and investments can continue to flow across the region, he added.

Lim was speaking on Thursday at the opening of an annual retreat of economic ministers from the 10 Asean member countries.

In his speech at the Asean Economic Ministers’ Retreat, he outlined Singapore’s priorities and initiatives for Asean on the economic front this year.

Singapore, which chairs the regional grouping this year, wants to promote innovation, improve digital connectivity, and facilitate e-commerce flows in the region.

It also seeks to improve trade facilitation, deepen the integration of services and investment, and cultivate a regulatory environment conducive to trade and investment.

Deepening Asean’s ties with external partners is also on the cards.

Asean’s digital economy is tipped to grow to US$200 billion (S$265 billion) by 2025, with e-commerce making up about US$88 billion, a 2016 study by Google and Temasek Holdings found.

Lim said Asean needs to lay the groundwork now to make full use of these opportunities.

He said: “Our trade architecture might have served us well over the past years, but we need to enhance and update it to ensure that trade and investment flows continue unhindered throughout our region.”

Asean is poised to benefit from the recovery of the global economy this year precisely because it laid the foundations well, he added.

It has improved its trade and investment regimes, as well as infrastructure, under efforts to build an Asean Economic Community (AEC).

As a result, the rise in investment, manufacturing and trade around the world is expected to boost exports and growth in Asean economies, he said.

This week’s meeting, he added, was a chance for ministers to discuss frankly the economic issues confronting the region, and deliberate on how to better integrate Asean’s economies, in particular, through the AEC Blueprint 2025.

“The region will benefit from pushing forward the implementation of the AEC,” he said.

“To do this, all Asean member states must stay the course in pursuing deeper economic integration and liberalisation, so that our citizens can enjoy the benefits of our collective community-building efforts.”

Yesterday, Lim was to chair the Asean economic ministers’ consultations with European Union trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, and they are expected to discuss the next steps to resume talks on an Asean-EU free trade agreement, which were halted in 2009.

Today,, Asean ministers will meet their counterparts from the six key partners involved in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Malaysia’s International Trade and Industry Ministry said it will hold talks on speeding up negotiations, in particular, on market access on goods, services and investment as well as on rules geared towards facilitating trade and investment, to support the expansion and deepening of regional value chains.

Megawide-GMR announced it had submitted an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate, expand and operate Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), the country’s busiest air gateway, and to solve its congestion woes.

The pair will compete with the 350-billion peso proposal submitted by the consortium composed of Ayala Corp, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Alliance Global Group Inc, Asia Emerging Dragon, Filinvest Development Corp, JG Summit Holdings Inc and Metro Pacific Investments Corp on February 13, 2018.

Megawide-GMR’s proposal differs significantly in several aspects, most notably in size and scope.

Its offer is valued at $3 billion (150 billion peso), since it does not cover the construction of a third runway for Naia, citing issues such as land constraints and complex infrastructure, assuming it will be built in Manila Bay. A third runway was included in the super consortium’s proposal.

Megawide-GMR noted its offer was “technically responsive” as it sought to increase Naia’s capacity to 72 million passengers yearly and air traffic movements by 50 percent. Moreover, it sought a concession period of 18 years, or about half the 35 years under the super consortium’s offer.

The concession period is seen as a key element, given that the government has yet to determine if and for how long Naia will remain Manila’s main gateway. This is due to the physical constraints of its location and separate private sector proposals for the construction of new international airports in Bulacan and Sangley, Cavite.

It was also important for Megawide-GMR to give a considerably different offer because of the way unsolicited projects are evaluated in the Philippines. Under the Build Operate Transfer Law, the implementing agency uses a “first in time approach” when reviewing multiple proposals for the same project.

For Megawide-GMR, Naia can see big improvements if it will “optimise” existing airside infrastructure, said Andrew Harrison, one of the consortium’s authorised representatives.

The Naia complex handles more than 40 million passengers yearly against its designed capacity of only 30 million passengers a year.

“As an experienced private operator, we have a deep understanding of the problem experienced by Naia and we would like to offer our take-on solution,” said Louie Ferrer, another authorised representative.

Meanwhile, the domestic-invested sector experienced a trade deficit of $3.68 billion in the January-February period, reported the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Wednesday.

During the reviewed period, the country’s export turnover jumped 23 per cent year-on-year to $33.62 billion while its imports stood at $32.54 billion, up 15.3 per cent year-on-year.

Export revenue of the domestic-invested sector experienced a positive increase of 26 per cent to $9.66 billion, while that of the foreign-invested sector rose 22 per cent to $23.96 billion compared with the same period last year.

In first two months, the domestic-invested sector imported $13.34 billion worth of goods, up 16.4 per cent and imports of the foreign-invested sector reached $19.20 billion, up 15 per cent.

Major export products posting encouraging export earnings in two months were mobile phones and components, which were valued at $6.6 billion, up 42 per cent; garment-textile products ($4.3 billion, up 22.3 per cent); computers, electronic devices and components ($4 billion, up 19.2 per cent); and footwear ($2.3 billion, up 12 per cent).

Others included machinery, equipment and parts ($2.1 billion, up 20 per cent); wood and wooden goods ($1.3 billion, up 20.1 per cent); modes of transport and their components ($1.3 billion, up 19 per cent); and seafood ($1.1 billion, up 21 per cent), as well as fruits and vegetables ($604 million, up 44 per cent) and rice ($413 million, up 32 per cent).

Turnover declines, however, were seen in several staples such as crude oil with $395 million, down 13 per cent, and pepper with $117 million, down 23 per cent, GSO noted.

In the first two months, China passed the United States to become Vietnam’s largest import market, with a total turnover of $6.2 billion, surging 65 per cent against the same period last year. The United States ranked second, with $6 billion, a year-on-year rise of 14 per cent.

China, meanwhile, was also Vietnam’s largest supplier of goods in the period. Vietnam imported $9.4 billion worth of products from this neighbouring country, up 25 per cent compared with last year’s corresponding period. The reviewed turnover was much higher than that from the United States, the European Union and Japan, with respective values of $1.4 billion, $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), global trade is predicted to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2018, and this is expected to help Viet Nam’s trade growth.

The MoIT will work to devise measures to improve national competitiveness, thus creating a foundation for sustainable exports.

Efforts made by the Government to promote administrative reform, simplify investment procedures and support start-ups are expected to create more commodities for export, especially in terms of processing and manufacturing, and heavy industry.

In a filing to the Singapore Exchange, Frasers said that under the programme, Frasers Property Holdings (Thailand) has priced the offering of up to Bt2 billion in aggregate principal amount of 2.19 per cent debentures due 2021, up to Bt1 billion in aggregate principal amount of 2.55 per cent debentures due 2023, and up to two billion baht in aggregate principal amount of 3.54 per cent debentures due 2028.

Frasers added that interest is payable on each series of debentures for every six months throughout the tenor of the relevant series of debentures, and that the debentures will be guaranteed by the company.

The debentures are offered to institutional investors and high net worth investors on a private placement basis, in reliance on a regulation of the Capital Market Supervisory Board of Thailand, pursuant to the registration statement and draft prospectus which became effective on Friday. The debentures will be registered with the Thai Bond Market Association, Frasers said.

Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited and United Overseas Bank (Thai) Public Company Limited have been appointed as the joint lead arrangers for the debentures.

Frasers Property Holdings (Thailand) will use the proceeds received from the offering of the debentures for the repayment of existing debts, investment, and financing its working capital.