“More foreign investors are coming to Vietnam, but are not able to catch up with the character of the new emerging market |with its unstable policies,” Le Hai Binh, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Electronic Commerce Association, said at the Viet Nam Start-up forum.
The forum was held during Global Entrepreneurship Week, |an event celebrated in more |than 160 countries by 10 million people.
Huynh Viet Phuong, head of the representative office of Viet Nam Internet in Ho Chi Minh city said “challenges for foreign investors are our advantages. This is a strength for Vietnamese start-ups and you don’t need to worry about their money or experience”, although its was suggested start-ups have quality-control measures, know who their customers are and not do business in a hurry.
Around 95 per cent of start-ups in Silicon Valley in the US failed because they did not have the right development trend,” Lucy Keoni, a US start-up expert, said.
She stressed the role of investors and trainers in guiding start-up owners and staff. Binh added: “This is the same for Vietnamese start-ups. Before starting business operations, you should set out your development path.”
Huynh Ngoc Duy, CEO of Mat Bao JSC, said Vietnamese start-ups dare not share their ideas because they are afraid of them being stolen, but it is not fully true.
By 2020, Vietnam plans to have at least 1 million enterprises, with the private economic sector contributing 45-50 per cent of GDP. TRAFFIC’s research has identified e-commerce as an important area to target to reduce wildlife trafficking. The Viet Nam Startup Forum is a key way to reach companies entering the sector.
In June, TRAFFIC conducted a 23-day rapid assessment of the top eight e-commerce websites in Vietnam to determine the prevalence of wildlife sales online. For 30 minutes each day, TRAFFIC searched for wildlife products that ranged from birds and lizards to rhino horn and ivory.
Over the course of the assessment, TRAFFIC found 180 advertisements for wildlife – 64 per cent of which advertised illegal commodities.

Severance pay is not required if the employee resigns by himself or by herself. Nevertheless, if it is established that the employee resigns as a result of relocation of work premises initiated by the employer and the relocation substantially affects the normal livelihood of the employee or the employee’s family, the employee may refuse to be relocated to the new location and instead choose to resign.
In this case, the resigning employee will also be entitled to special severance pay at a rate no less than the rate of severance pay offered in the case of termination if the employee informs the employer of his or her resignation within 30 days of the employer’s relocation notification date or the relocation date (if the employer fails to notify).
Based on past court precedents, this special severance pay provision has been interpreted very strictly and narrowly. Relocation refers to the process involving an employer closing a business premise in its entirety and subsequently opening another new premise in a different location, as opposed to an employer simply assigning an employee to work in another existing premise or branch. For example, if an employer has two offices, one in Bangkok and the other in Chiang Mai, and the employer assigns an employee based in the Bangkok office to work in the Chiang Mai office without closing the Bangkok office, this would not be considered a relocation that would entitle the resigned employees substantially affected by such relocation to special severance pay.
Interestingly, the recent Supreme Court decision has gone one step further in analysing whether a scenario such as the scenario previously mentioned would be considered a “relocation” for the purpose of determining whether the special severance pay will be triggered. This court tends to take the approach that protects the right to special severance pay of affected employees, while also taking into account the employer’s bad faith and intention.
In this case, the employer’s headquarters had originally been in Bangkok. However, in 2006, the employer had set up another office in Samut Sakhon and also changed its headquarters from Bangkok to the Samut Sakhon office while keeping both premises in operation. Afterwards, the employer gradually ordered its employees to be relocated to its new headquarters in Samut Sakhon. All of the employees were eventually relocated within a span of approximately two years from the date of the first relocation. The employer finally closed its Bangkok office.
It would seem that this case would not fall within the court’s interpretation of “relocation” and is only a case of assigning employees to work at another existing business premise based on past Supreme Court decisions given that the Bangkok office was still operating |at the time when all relocations was taking place. Thus, the affected employees should not have been entitled to special severance pay under the law. Interestingly, the employer also cited various past Supreme Court decisions in |supporting its argument of a |narrow interpretation given to “relocation”.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court took into account two important facts. First is the fact that the employer changed its headquarters from Bangkok to its new office in Samut Sakhon and second and more importantly, is the fact that the Bangkok office was closed right after all of the employees had been relocated. The court held the view that such actions combined to show the true intention of the employer, which was to close the Bangkok office and relocate the employees to the Samut Sakhon office. Hence, this was deemed a case of “relocation” under the law whereby special severance is required to be paid to employees who are substantially affected and chose to resign from their jobs.
This Supreme Court decision addressed the loophole that would allow some employers to get around the special severance pay requirement by piercing through all the facts to discover the employer’s true intention. It is prudent for companies to ensure that in the case of relocation under the law, special severance is required to be paid to employees whose livelihood and whose family’s livelihood are adversely affected by the relocation. Failure to comply with the special severance pay requirement could subject the employer and its responsible directors to a maximum of six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine of Bt100,000 plus an interest of 15 per cent of the outstanding special severance pay until it is fully paid.

Suriyong Tungsuwan, the author, is partner and head of employment practice group Baker & McKenzie. suriyong.tungsuwan@bakermckenzie.com

Ho Chi Minh City metro underground section bid approved
The management board of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City urban railway projects held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of an underground segment from Ben Thanh station to the municipal Opera House of the metro route No 1.
The joint venture by Sumitomo Mitsui and Cienco 4 won the bid with an offer of 4.85 trillion Vietnamese dong (Bt7.5 billion).
According to Le Nguyen Minh Quang, head of the management board, the package will build the four-basement Ben Thanh central station and a 515-metre tunnel from Ben Thanh station to the municipal Opera House station under Le Loi Street.
Le Van Khoa, vice chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee, emphasised the significance of the kicking off of the bidding package, as it is the last package of metro route No 1.
Completing the package means completion of the project to put the whole route into operation by 2020, he said.
Metro route No 1 is 19.7km long and has a total investment of $2.49 billion funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. – Viet Nam News

Indonesia promotes financial inclusion with new strategy
Indonesian President Joko Widodo expected the new financial inclusion strategy would help the country increase the proportion of its citizens who have bank accounts from 36 per cent to 75 per cent by 2019.
The Indonesian government introduced a coordinated national strategy to promote financial inclusion in an effort to open up access to banking services for more people.
The so-called National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (SNKI) will focus on six pillars: financial education, public financing facilities, financial information mapping, supportive regulations, distribution networks and intermediation facilities and consumer protection.
President “Joko” Jokowi Widodo said he expects the strategy would help Indonesia, home to more than 250 million people, increase the proportion of its citizens who have bank accounts from the current 36 per cent to 75 per cent by 2019.
“There are many citizens who have no bank accounts. This makes it |difficult for them to get access to loans from banks or financial institutions,” the president said at the State Palace during the ceremony to launch the |SNKI.
The success of the implementation of SNKI, which was jointly prepared by Bank Indonesia, the Finance Ministry and the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Alleviation, will also help the government to channel the money from its social assistance programmes to the public more effectively, Jokowi said. – The Jakarta Post

Indonesia urges Vietnam to have same wage standard
Indonesia used the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit in Lima, which kicked off on Saturday, to meet with its main industrial rival in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, to discuss the possibility of the two countries having the same wage standard for workers.
The initiative comes in the wake of many investors having left Indonesia |in the past year after learning that Vietnam offers cheaper labour for |industry.
Accompanying Kalla during the meeting, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto said that “having the same wage standard for workers would support the development of human resources in the two countries”.
“We proposed an initiative to establish a joint platform with regard to a wage standard in the industrial sector so that both Indonesia and Vietnam will not be confronted by investors with regard to which country offers cheaper wage for workers,” Airlangga said in Lima on Friday.
The minister said that the same wage standard for workers would support Apec’s goal of encouraging its 21 member countries to support human development in the Asia Pacific region, adding that Vietnam would consider Indonesia’s proposal.
It is expected that representatives from both countries after the Apec concludes yesterday will conduct meetings in the future to discuss the Indonesian proposal in detail. – The Jakarta Post

In a report released last week titled “Americas and Asia Pacific: Shift in US Policies Could Dampen Trade and Investment, Weaken Growth”, Moody’s said that “while the nature of policies under the next US administration is uncertain, President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign proposals indicate that a shift involving lower US imports and foreign direct investment, and curbs to immigration is possible.
“While we expect trade agreements that have already been implemented to remain in place, US policies going forward could incentivise onshoring – the repatriation of jobs at overseas-based suppliers back to the US – and a focus on domestic production and sourcing. The countries that are most reliant on exports of high value-added goods and services, which would offer greatest onshoring potential, are more vulnerable to a potential shift in US trade policies,” the debt watcher said.
“India and the Philippines could also suffer in the event of policies that disincentivised foreign sourcing of business services. These two Asian countries are the biggest BPO destinations in the world. In the Philippines, the BPO sector is among the largest dollar earners, seen to surpass cash remittances from overseas Filipinos in the coming years.”
As for Trump’s plan to tighten US immigration rules, Moody’s said it |could curb remittances. “A tightening in immigration rules in the US |would over time dampen growth in remittances from foreign workers, which are significant for some economies in Latin America and Asia-Pacific,” it said.
“In Asia-Pacific, exposure to remittances is smaller, although they still provide an important source of income for a number of countries. Remittances from the US are largest for the Philippines and Vietnam at 3.3 per cent and 3.8 per cent of GDP, and 9.2 per cent and 4.1 per cent of current account receipts, respectively,” according to Moody’s.
The Philippines and Vietnam are nonetheless expected to withstand any negative impact on remittance flows from the US, Moody’s said.

Former president of Taiwan Mah Ying-jeou said: “We have been waiting for 13 years. Please do not let us wait for another 13 years to achieve our dream.”
At the World Chinese Economic Summit, Ma, in delivering his speech entitled “The Prospects for Closer Relations between Taiwan and the Asean Economies”, he urged Asean to implement non-exclusion of regional trade agreement.
He said trade should be profit-oriented. A non-exclusion trade agreement would benefit all parties.
He said Asean regional trade agreements, such as free trade agreements, have initiated exclusion policies under the requirements of World Trade Organisation. Under political and diplomatic factors, Taiwan has encountered various obstacles.
“We are unable to participate |in all the main regional trade |agreements,” he said.
Ma added: “I sincerely hope all Southeast Asia counties can support the move of including Taiwan into your free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Asia Pacific Free Trade Agreement. These collaboration would for sure benefit all people.
Taiwan is capable of playing a very important role in supply chain. We are also very advance in new technologies.”
He said when he was attending the East Asian Economic Forum organised by the World Economic Forum in Singapore, in his capacity as Taipei mayor in 2003, he gave a speech that touched on collaborations and integration with Asean economies and Taiwan’s wish to join.
During Ma’s eight years as Taiwan president, the country signed free trade agreements with China, Singapore and New Zealand.

Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015, up to 189 countries have submitted national plans that target aggressive growth in climate solutions – including renewable energy, low-carbon cities, energy efficiency, sustainable forest management and climate-smart agriculture. These plans offer a clear roadmap for investments that will target climate-resilient infrastructure and offset higher up-front costs through efficiency gains and fuel savings.
IFC’s study, based on national climate-change commitments and underlying policies of 21 emerging-market economies, identifies sectors in each region where the potential for investment is greatest. This includes green buildings in East Asia and the Pacific – where China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam show a |climate-smart investment potential of $16 trillion.
Latin America and the Caribbean offer the next largest opportunity – particularly in sustainable transportation, where the potential for investment in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico is about $2.6 trillion. Opportunities in South Asia are mostly in climate-resilient infrastructure, where $2.5 trillion of opportunities exist in India and Bangladesh.
“There has never been a better time than now for climate-smart investing,” Philippe Le Hourou, IFC executive vice president, said. “This reflects the dramatic reduction in the price of clean technologies and the rise of smart policies that are driving businesses to invest. In this context, it is important to set ambitious goals – which is why IFC has pledged to increase our climate investments to a goal of $3.5 billion a year by 2020 and catalyse another $13 billion through other investors.”
Sub-Saharan Africa represents a $783 billion opportunity – particularly for clean energy in Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. In Eastern Europe, the biggest markets – Russia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine – show a combined investment potential of $665 billion, mostly in energy efficiency and new green buildings. And in the Middle East and North Africa, the total climate-investment potential for Egypt, Jordan and Morocco is estimated at $265 billion, over a third of which is for renewable-energy generation, while 55 per cent ($146 billion) is for climate-smart buildings, transportation and waste solutions.
The report also finds that government action will be critical to unlock the full scale of investment potential. It recommends that governments integrate national climate commitments into their development strategies and budget processes, strengthen the investment climat8e for climate-smart industries and deploy public funds strategically to mobilise private capital, by reducing risk and providing project support, for example.

Most organisations have adopted a disaster-recovery (DRP) and business-continuity plan (BCP) to ensure that in the event of disasters, the organisation is able to continue operations with minimal downtime. Resilience to natural disasters or the ability to recover quickly despite a crippling disruption can in some cases save a company US$182,000 (Bt6.5 million) per hour of downtime. (footnote 1)
However, a DRP and a BCP are no longer sufficient in this age of digital transformation with organisations’ high dependency on technology as an enabler and information having no borders. No company, organisation or government is immune from cyberattacks. An example is the complete breach of Ashley Madison’s user databases, financial records and other proprietary information. (footnote 2)
Cybersecurity alone is insufficient for handling cyber-disasters because it does not indicate the ability or readiness of the affected organisation to contain the pandemonium that will follow. Besides, an organisation facing a cyber-disaster will have a multitude of split-second decisions it has to make in order to respond effectively to the consequences of the attack.
Are you ready? How do you prepare? 
Cyber-resiliency in action is about having detailed plans of response for all personnel and resources of the organisation – to be executed in the event of a breach. Building cyber-resiliency requires cooperation between the public and private sectors, but more than that, much greater awareness by everyone from business partners to front-line employees to those in the C-level suites.
Cyber-war gaming can help develop cyber-resiliency in an organisation by putting it through its paces with simulated cyber-scenarios in a controlled environment. This puts into practice the response plan of the organisation so team members can respond better in the advent of a crisis. This aims to achieve two outcomes for cyber-resiliency:
1. Assess and improve capabilities of personnel involved in cyber-resiliency efforts.
2. Assess and improve processes previously defined in the response plan for greater efficiency and effectiveness.
Cyber-war gaming can be delivered via various exercises within a controlled environment. For instance, tabletop exercises that are focused on testing-defined processes, the participants’ familiarity with it and their thought processes during a crisis. A cyber-war game also tests technical capabilities and infrastructure readiness to deal with any scenario in a crisis.
The purpose of cyber-war gaming is really meant to strengthen incident response and crisis management capabilities. It aims to achieve an organised approach to addressing and managing the aftermath of a cybersecurity breach or attack.
It is also focused on the attribution of an attack, and its root causes for future preventive, detective and recovery methods. Other capabilities it aims to improve are around the processes developed to deal with sudden emergency situations, which involve the legal and communications team.
An example of good versus bad crisis management is the comparison between Home Depot and Target in the United States. Both had payment systems breached. Target was hit in December 2013 and Home Depot in September 2014. Target estimated 40 million credit- and debit-card details of customers were stolen and Home Depot estimated its breach to be about 56 million. The difference can be summed up below.
Target’s senior management did not handle the breach very well, which generated a lot of bad press. One of their biggest failures was that Target took about a week after learning of the potential breach to address consumers, while Home Depot acted within about a day of discovering the breach. (footnote 3)
Finally, when a cyber-disaster strikes, an organisation is bound to see a strong negative impact from loss of public trust and reputational damage to monetary loss. A simple way to determine cyber-resiliency is to measure how quickly an organisation can recover from a disaster and the duration the negative impacts or sentiments last from day zero.
Other measurements to determine the accuracy of cyber-resiliency efforts are the following.
Minimised impact to business, quickly resuming normal business functions.
Resiliency against the recurrences of a similar cyber-disaster.
How well do you think your organisation will handle a crisis?

Footnotes:
1 Duffy, Christopher, “A Resounding Yes! BCP and DR Can Bring Real Cost Savings”, Strategic BCP, February 17 2015, http://www.strategicbcp.com/ blog/business-continuity-cost-savings/, accessed October 6, 2016
2 Krebs, Brian, “Online Cheating Site Ashley Madison Hacked”, Krebs on Security, July 19 2015, https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/online-cheating-site-ashleymadison-hacked/, accessed October 13, 2016
3 Hill, Catey, “Home Depot’s data breach is worse than Target’s, so where’s the outrage?”, MarketWatch, September 25 2014, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yawn-who-cares-about-home-depots-data-breach-2014-09-24, accessed on October 18, 2016

PARICHART JIRAVACHARA is a partner/ risk advisory at Deloitte Thaiand