According to Grab, this investment will tap into opportunities in fintech, new mobility solutions and logistics in order to spur the development of Việt Nam’s digital economy and create millions of income opportunities that will elevate the quality of life of all Vietnamese people.

The investment will be in addition to the $200 million that Grab had already planned to invest in the Southeast Asian country by the end of this year, said Grab Vietnam’s head Jerry Lim.

Grab also announced the implementation roadmap for its “Tech For Good” mission, with goals aligned with the policy priorities laid out in the Government’s socio-economic plan for 2020.

The three main areas of focus will be contributing to reducing poverty, expanding the benefits of the digital economy to 63 provinces and cities nationwide and giving millions of Vietnamese people higher incomes by helping drivers, delivery partners and business partners become micro-businesses that co-operate on the Grab platform. Grab expects these activities to contribute to the national goal of reducing the urban unemployment rate to below 4 per cent.

The roadmap also includes building a skilled workforce with the expectation that it will continue to develop a contingent of engineers at the Research and Development (R&D) Centre in Viet Nam and investing in Vietnamese technology talent to tackle the biggest challenges in Southeast Asia through artificial intelligence (AI), big data, machine learning and more. Grab will also support the development of the country’s technology start-up ecosystem through the Grab Ventures programme.

Grab said it was committed to a shared, seamless and smart mobility future for Viet Nam, including complimentary solutions to the existing public transport system and changing people’s habits from private vehicle ownership to shared transport methods such as GrabBus, a marketplace for bus travel that will cater to mass-market consumers.

Russell Cohen, head of regional operations for Grab, said: “This investment is a reflection of our redoubled commitment to Viet Nam. The country’s rapidly developing economy and young, mobile-first population make it ripe for the adoption of digital services.”

Grab has seen significant development since entering Viet Nam in 2014. Payments through Moca, its e-payment partner, grew by 150 per cent in the first six months of this year, while the number of monthly active mobile users has grown by more than 70 per cent.

During the reviewed period, GrabFood saw the number of transactions quadruple to an average of 300,000 orders per day. Grab said its driver-partners in Việt Nam have earned a total of almost $1 billion in the last five years.

“Competition in ride-hailing will become fiercer,” Reuters quoted HCM City-based economist Bùi Quang Tín as saying. “The size of the investment means Grab will be able to offer heavy discounts even if it risks losses in the short term.”

In late July, the Singapore-based firm also said it would invest $2 billion in Indonesia over five years, where it aims to build a next-generation transport network and transform how critical services such as healthcare are delivered.

It is well up to the manhandling too, with a chassis machined from a solid piece of aluminum through a 27-step process that maintains its good looks thanks to hairline-brushed, bead-blasted and diamond-cut finishes.

The laptop uses a new asynchronous hinge system, providing smooth one-handed opening. This design allows it to glide from laptop to tent and then to tablet mode. And the 360-degree hinge design also allows for smaller bottom borders and a larger screen size, allowing Dell to pack a 14-inch display into a 13-inch body.

The 16:9 FHD WVA Touch display has 1920×1080 pixel resolution. It uses anti-reflective and anti-smudge design, is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 glass and also supports Active Pen stylus, allowing you to draw with precision.

The display is sharp with 300 nits of brightness and the high Full HD resolution is great for watching movies.

And the laptop is fast for business and general applications in line with its mission of being the ultimate portable computer for office workers on the go.

The one sent to me for review was powered by 8thGeneration Intel Core i7-8665U running at 1.9 GHz and installed with 8 gigabytes of DDR3 working memory or RAM. It uses fast 256GB SSD (solid state drive) storage and an Intel Integrated UHD Graphics 620 graphic engine. Like all new laptops, it runs on Windows 10 Pro operating system.

During the test, I found the Latitude 7400 ran Microsoft Office and other business applications fast and without glitches. HD video clips played smoothly and beautifully on the FHD display. Web pages were also rendered fast.

The laptop comes with MaxxAudio Pro stereo sound system speakers and I was suitably impressed by the quality of the soundtracks of the HD movies I watched.

The laptop uses Adaptive Thermal Performance (ATP) technology to prevent the computer from overheating. The ATP works with a gyroscope that senses different profiles when in various use modes to intelligently adapt the power from the battery to the style of working, thus enables all-day battery life.

The laptop also comes with double security measures – fingerprint reader and facial recognition so your data is securely protected.

The Latitude 7400 is generous in terms of devices, boasting two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, one on each side, plus two Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type-C) and an HDMI 1.4 port on the left side and a micro SD 4.40 memory card reader and a microSIM slot on the right side.

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 has a starting price of Bt63,990, depending on the configuration of CPU, memory and storage.

Key specs:

OS: Windows 10 Pro

CPU: 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8665U 1.9 GHz

Graphics: Intel Integrated UHD Graphics 620

Memory: 8 GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz

Storage: 128GB SSD

Display: 14-inch 16:9 FHD (1920×1080) WVA Touch, Anti-reflective and Anti-Smudge, Corning Gorilla Glass 5, Super Low Power, 300 nits, Active Pen Support

Sensors: Gyroscope, eCompass/Magnetometer, Accelerometer, GPS (via WWAN Card only), Ambient Light Sensor, Adaptive Thermal Performance (via Gyroscope/Accelerometer), Dell Proximity Sensor (~1 metre)

Ports: 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (with PowerShare, USB Type-A) 2 x Thunderbolt 3 with Power Delivery & DisplayPort (USB Type-C) HDMI 1.4 uSIM card slot (WWAN only) uSD 4.0 Memory card reader Noble Wedge Lock slot

Battery: 4-Cell, 52 WHr6 Polymer, Express Charge capable

Dimensions: 319.77×14.89×199.9mm

Weight: 1.36kgs

Google, Facebook and Netflix have partnered with local tech companies including Naver and Kakao in ramping up criticism that the “network sharing” regulation has caused excessive financial burdens for content providers here and abroad.

The criticism intensified after the court ruled last week that it was unlawful for the Korea Communication Commission to impose a fine of 396 million won ($367,000) on Facebook for delaying access for local internet users by changing network connection routes.

“The crux of the issue lies at excessive burden on network usage and never-before-seen network-sharing regulation,” the content providers said in a joint statement with associations of local startups and internet companies.

The network-sharing regulation, enacted in 2016, ended the principle of ignoring costs that occur when internet service providers (ISP) send data to and from each other, which was based on the proposition that they are on equal footing and the networks are “public good.”

The regulation mandates ISPs to calculate and allocate costs that are created when large amounts of data are exchanged between one another. It stipulates that the ISP from which the traffic originates should shoulder most of the cost of providing that service.

The regulation, while always the subject of debate, was thrown into the limelight in 2017, when KT suddenly faced a huge bill for the massive amount of Facebook traffic it was hosting. KT had been operating the cache server for Facebook. SK Broadband and LG Uplus demanded KT pay more for the traffic created through its cache server dedicated for Facebook.

KT then urged Facebook to pay more for using its network services in Korea, which Facebook rejected. Instead, it decided to reroute users of other ISPs to its servers in Hong Kong, causing network delays to SK Broadband users and others.

“If it had not been for the network-sharing regulation, there would not have seen such problem,” said an official from local content provider. “It is a battle between telecom firms and Facebook over who should pay more for improving the network service.”

The firms that run popular data-heavy services like video-sharing service YouTube and the KakaoTalk messenger app claimed the regulation has been “exploited” by local internet service providers.

According to related companies, the network-sharing regulation created a new financial burden that had not existed before.

Because connections to big content providers such as social media and video streaming sites usually involve much more data going to the user than the user sends. This means that, under the “network sharing” regulation, the ISPs that run their servers have to pay for most of the cost of providing those services.

Unable to pass the costs onto the consumer, and unwilling to pay for them out of their own pockets, the telecom firms have looked to charge the content providers. But the providers say they are having to shoulder a “disproportionate” burden.

“Increase in network usage fees worsens the country’s competiveness in the IT industry and ultimately creates an additional burden on the consumers,” the content providers said. “They have to stop creating conflicts among the providers and come up with measures to protect the consumers’ rights.”

No official data has yet become available as to how much content providers have been paying to telecom firms for using their networks. Except in 2017, Naver’s CEO Han Sung-sook had said the company paid 73.4 billion won in network usage fees.

The cycle of buck-passing network usage fees has even widened into accusations among tech companies, with local firms like Naver complaining their financial burdens are much higher than those of global firms like Google.

The telecom companies, for their part, asserted that sharing network usage fees with content providers was justified because it can “lead to establishing better infrastructure for seamless delivery of popular contents to the consumers.”

“Imagine we built 100 units of telecom infra for Netflix and 120 units were needed for increased demand. If we didn’t build an additional 20 units, Netflix would suffer badly. So it’s a win-win strategy.

“Plus, we can’t pass on the additional cost to the consumers because they only agree to pay for using our mobile service, not Netflix or Facebook. And some of their platforms are offered as paid services only. So we believe the regulation is quite a fair framework.”

Facebook Korea, meanwhile, reportedly accused the government of being “one-sided” in its policies and blamed internet service providers for withholding information that it said ultimately made it difficult for Facebook to foresee the 2017 network delay incident.

“The network-sharing regulation must be fixed. … This issue did not exist when internet service providers didn’t have to pay for exchanging data,” Facebook Korea said in an email sent to reporters.

Under the multi-year agreement, Michelin is also becoming the “official tyre supplier” of FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships, with Michelin-branded tyres featured in the game during its third World Tour live event, which was running at the PlayStation Theatre throughout the weekend.

The relationship begins by increasing Michelin’s visibility through free downloadable content on Gran Turismo Sport available to users by October. The Michelin-themed download will include a new Michelin section on the Gran Turismo Sport “Brand Central” virtual museum, which introduces players to Michelin’s history in global motorsports, performance and innovation.

Tyre technology by Michelin will also be available in the “Tuning” section of Gran Turismo Sport, applicable to the game’s established hard, medium and soft formats.

It will feature on-track branding elements and scenography from many of the world’s most celebrated motorsports competitions and venues.

Michelin will share its motorsport knowledge with Sony in the first co-development exchange of its kind, aiming to provide Gran Turismo players with a new dimension of strategy and competition linked to tyre selection and performance, drawing ever closer to the pit-level decisions that race teams evaluate on every track.

The HUB2C is a compact and easy-to-carry solution for users to keep their standard USB accessories up and running, while expanding the connectivity options of devices with the new USB-C ports.

The 4-port HUB2C comes with a reversible USB Type-C connector for greater ease of use making it ideal to pair with computers, laptops, and Android mobile devices featuring USB Type-C ports. By transforming a single Type-C port into four Type-A ones, instantly expanding the number of devices that you can connect to your device at one time, it allows you to connect accessories such as USB flash drives, keyboards, or mice to your tablet, or USB flash drives to your Android smartphone. Simply connect the hub to a Type-C port on your gadget, then enjoy instant plug-and-play fun.

Equipped with the USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface, the HUB2C offers high speed transfer unparalleled to previous USB2.0/ 1.1 specifications. It dramatically reduces large data transfer time and provides instant data access.

Modern information technology, represented by the internet, big data and artificial intelligence, is witnessing rapid changes, Xi said in a congratulatory letter to the 2019 Smart China Expo, which opened in Chongqing on Monday and runs through Thursday.

A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing with strong momentum, and the fast growth of smart technology is having significant and far-reaching influence on economic development, social progress and global governance, Xi said.

The president emphasized that China attaches great importance to the development of smart technology and industrial digitalization, and advocates for forward-looking, in-depth integration of the digital economy and the real economy.

The annual Smart China Expo, begun last year, aims to showcase new products, technologies, business formats and modes of smart technology through conferences, exhibitions, summits and competitions.

This year’s expo attracted over 1,800 participants and 843 companies from 28 countries and regions, including 13 Nobel Prize laureates, four Turing Award winners, Fortune 500 business leaders and tech giants including Intel, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi.

“Smart technology is developing very fast in China,” Vice-Premier Liu He said at the opening ceremony.

“It has become a new, important economic growth point, with preliminary statistics showing that the total industrial scale of AI-related industries in China surpassed 500 billion yuan ($71.4 billion) in 2018.”

As the gateway to Southwest China and a major industrial base, Chongqing, on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, has established one of the world’s largest IT industrial clusters and one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing bases.

Local traditional manufacturing companies are investing heavily in digital and smart factories. In 2018, the city poured over 7 billion yuan into smart manufacturing upgrades, People’s Daily reported.

Pony Ma, chairman of internet giant Tencent Holdings, called for joint efforts across industries and countries to achieve technological breakthroughs.

“No one country in the world can have all the resources, technology and capabilities to develop new generation science and technology. Industrial fragmentation and technological decoupling will eventually hurt the interests of mankind,” Ma said at the expo.

Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta said on Monday that Cabinet approval for his operating budget was expected soon.

The Bt2.5 billion sought by the Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission is the third-highest amount requested by government agencies, behind the Bt3.8 billion earmarked by the National Statistical Office and the Bt3.2 billion that the Office of the Permanent Secretary wants.

Buddhipongse said he planned to spend the money on, among other items, establishing 10,000 free WiFi hot spots in rural areas to “promote the use of and access to the internet and improve people’s knowledge”.

Net Pracharat, also known as the Village Broadband Internet, will operate the new WiFi hotspots as part of the government’s “Thailand 4.0” drive to strengthen innovation, knowledge, technology and creativity.

Enhancing the quality of the digital infrastructure is a crucial factor in improving the quality of life in remote areas.

Buddhipongse said his ministry has collaborated with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to expand the high-speed network to all villages where it is not yet available. The ministry will focus on 24,700 villages, the commission on 3,920 villages in border areas and another 15,732 elsewhere.

Some six million people in Thailand are currently using 7.84 million devices to access the internet through Net Pracharat’s 2,277 digital community centres, where online know-how is promoted.

The planned anti-fake news centre will seek to counter false reports and protect people’s privacy, Buddhipongse said. It will help boost public confidence to seek out news, he added.

Its efficiency will rely on the assistance of the private sector, such as Line, to monitor information circulating on social media.

The ministry also plans to create a coding platform to support schools in teaching computer coding, he said.

It will help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increase online commerce with the aid of international e-commerce corporations such as Alibaba, making Thai products better known and more readily available overseas.

The ministry will ask Thailand Post to serve as an e-marketplace and help with logistics to support SMEs in their product deliveries.

The new game drive has been meticulously designed with the gamer in mind and features built-in active cooling technology to help maintain thermal conditions and reduce failure risk. It comes equipped with two 7.5W USB Type-A charging ports to make charging gaming gear or accessories even easier and is carefully crafted to stand either vertically or sit horizontally so as to keep devices charged and prepared for battle at a moment’s notice.

The drive comes with a 3-year limited warranty.

This number is five times higher than 2015’s demand and represents a growth of 56 per cent compared to last year. TopDev’s data also showed this is the highest growth rate in the recruitment need for IT personnel since 2015.

Manpower demand is rising fast in areas like artificial intelligence, data science, big data, and cybersecurity.

“Viet Nam’s technology community is facing two waves,” said Nguyen Huu Binh , TopDev’s CEO.

First, foreign investment funds are flocking to Viet Nam and following more new openings of start-ups with innovative technological solutions to serve rising social demands. Second is the wave of digital transformation of enterprises which need to apply advanced technology to enhance competition and wish to hire more IT staff.

“The wave of tech start-ups and the increase in projects from big companies have contributed significantly to the surging demand for IT personnel,” Binh said and added that “when the market is in short supply, IT engineers know their value, so retaining them is a headache for many businesses”.

The thirst for IT workers is also shown in the results of the 2019 university entrance exam when admission scores for the IT major at universities exceeded other “traditional top majors” such as medical and pharmaceutical.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Mạnh Hung said Viet Nam needed to develop new 50,000 ICT enterprises to accelerate the country’s digitalisation process as the country is building a strategy of transitioning to a digital economy.

The hiring demand for IT engineers has been growing stronger than ever and at this rate, it will need to fill 400,000 jobs by the end of 2021, but until now, only about 200,000 people are qualified for the work requirement, according to the report.

Short supply

Despite rising salaries and benefits, Viet Nam will face a shortage of 90,000 IT workers in 2019, 100,000 by 2020 and 190,000 by 2021.

IT workers may be offered salaries of up to US$18,000 per year but many businesses still struggle to find suitable staff. The top five highest-paying jobs include machine learning/artificial intelligence, data scientist, dev-ops specialist, full-stack developer and embedded developer, with monthly salaries ranging between $1,120 and $1,497.

According to data from the Ministry of Education and Training, the country has a total of 235 universities nationwide, including 153 IT training colleges with annual output of 50,000 IT graduates. However, only 30 per cent of them are able to work right after graduation while the other 70 per cent require additional training.

“The issue of training high quality IT personnel is becoming a focus of both the education sector and IT businesses to satisfy work demand,” the report said.

HA NOI Viet Nam jumped from fifth to third in the list of most active start-up ecosystems in the six largest ASEAN economies in only two years.

The change was from the first half of 2017 to the corresponding period of 2019, with the country trailing only Indonesia and Singapore.

According to the Vietnam Tech Investment Report released recently by Singapore-based venture capital firm Cento Ventures and Viet Nam’s early stage venture fund ESP Capital, the amount of invested capital and the number of technology deals done in the country have grown six-fold in the period.

The report showed local start-ups raised a total of US$246 million during the first half of 2019. Of which, the three largest investments, including Tiki, VNPay, and VNG, captured 63 per cent of the funding. In terms of sectors, key blocks of the digital economy such as retail and payment accounted for almost 60 per cent of investment.

Multi-vertical companies are growing well and have captured a 12 per cent share of capital, while emerging sectors such as fintech, real estate and logistics are only just beginning to pick up in Viet Nam, collectively taking a 10 per cent share of total capital.

According to the report, 2018 and 2019 have seen a new wave of Vietnamese start-ups that raised $50 million to $100 million rounds for the first time. If this trend progresses, more Vietnamese companies could approach the $500 million and eventually $1 billion valuation mark in the years to come.

Between 2017 and 2018, most deals came from Singapore and Japan-based investors. This year, Korean venture capital firms led as one of the most active investors during the year’s first half, having participated in almost 30 per cent of deals. Notably, many of the Korean financiers invested in Vietnamese start-ups for the first time. Local investors were also active, with participation in some 36 per cent of deals. The number of deals grew from 13 during the first half of 2018 to 21 deals in the same period of 2019.

Enterprises also play an active role in Viet Nam’s start-up ecosystem. For example, FPT has long provided investment support to local start-ups. Last year saw Vingroup set up its corporate ventures capital (CVC), while other prominent corporations such as Masan and VietjetAir are considering similar initiatives, the report noted.

Banks like VPBank and TPBank provide preferential lending programmes for start-ups, while VPBank and UP Coworking offer free facilities for qualified companies. Viettel, the largest Vietnamese State-owned corporation, has run and sponsored numerous start-up events such as Viet Challenge, IOT Hackathon, and Viettel Advanced Solution Track.

Viet Nam has experienced a surge in both the amount of capital invested and the number of deals done since the beginning of 2018, with the 2018 fiscal year totalling $444 million, whilst the 2019 fiscal year is expected to reach $800 million.

Cento Ventures believes the amount raised during the second half of the year will be significantly higher than that of the first as several later stage companies that raised funds in 2018 and early 2019 are in the process of closing another sizable investment round or expanding their current round.

The country shares similar trends with other Southeast Asian markets. Online retail attracts a large portion of funding, while sectors such as financial services, real estate, and logistics are also gradually growing. Multi-vertical companies are being formed as mature digital companies seek to expand outside their core business and are likely to attract an increasing share of funding in the coming years.

Simultaneously, differences exist. Education is among the country’s better-funded sectors. Payment firms continue to attract the majority of fintech investment as Viet Nam continues to develop the necessary digital payment infrastructure.