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Overseas investments spark local concern
Overseas investment has had little impact on foreign currency reserves, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has assured National Assembly Deputies who have raised concerns about Vietnamese investments abroad, particularly at a time when the country faces a shortage of foreign currency.
Questions have been raised about the US$3.2 billion project invested by the Viet Nam Oil and Gas Corporation (PetroVietnam) in Venezuela.
At an NA meeting in late November, Deputy Pham Thi Loan asked the Ministry of Finance and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung about the investment.
NA Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Kien said: "Under the current imbalance of payments, the Government must pay great attention to overseas investment projects."
Overseas investment management is defined by the Law on Foreign Investment.
The most important factor is how to prevent investors from using these overseas investment projects as a channel to transfer foreign currencies abroad, according to Tran Du Lich, member of NA's Economic Committee.
The NA has demanded that any overseas investment project capitalised at more than VND20 trillion ($950 million) or any project using capital of VND7 trillion ($330 million) must be approved by the NA.
Addressing the NA meeting in late November, Prime Minister Dung said PetroVietnam's investment in the project to seek fuel and energy from Venezuela was sound, and that the project would contribute to ensuring energy security for Viet Nam.
In response to a question, the ex-chief of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Phan Huu Thang, said overseas investment had had no impact on Viet Nam's foreign currency reserves and, especially, on the current shortage of foreign currencies in the local market.
Thang said Viet Nam licensed its first overseas investment project in 1989 and the number of these foreign direct investments (FDI) from Viet Nam had increased significantly in the past five years, with a total registered capital of $7.05 billion.
However, disbursements for these overseas investment projects totalled nearly $1.8 billion, or a fourth of the registered capital.
"These figures prove that overseas investment has by no means affected the country's shortage of foreign currency," said Thang.
Under the Government's policies on the macro-economy, measures have been mapped out together with socio-economic development plans, and overseas investment would also be included in development plans.
"So, in the coming years, overseas investment would neither have any negative impact on the country's macro-economy nor create shortages of foreign currencies," said Thang.
According to MPI figures, the Vietnamese Government has licensed 558 overseas investment projects in 53 countries and territories, mainly in Viet Nam's traditional markets such as Russia, Cambodia and Laos.
A report released by MPI in November says overseas investment from Viet Nam will increase significantly in the coming years. It says these projects offered more employment opportunities to Vietnamese labourers, promoted economic relations between Viet Nam and other countries, and at the same time accelerated the country's trade and investment liberalisation.
Thang said the increase in overseas investment projects showed the growth of Viet Nam's economy and the enhanced competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises.
So far these overseas investment projects have brought profits of $39 million remitted to Viet Nam.
These projects would help prove the efficiency and profitability of foreign investments in the next few years when most of them became operational, said Thang.
Executives learn leadership skills
Leadership is Everything was the title of a training workshop held by the online recruitment solution provider VietnamWorks in Ha Noi and HCM City earlier this month. It aimed to equip some 150 company chiefs and HR managers of domestic and multi-national corporations with simple yet powerful leadership principles, values and behaviour to increase their leadership effectiveness.
Gilbert Ng, a certified Top Master Trainer in Asia, helped participants understand their leadership capability better through the use of the "five levels of leadership" model developed by John C Maxwell, a renowned leadership guru.
The five levels are leadership by position, permission, production, people development, and personhood.
The trainees also learned about the seven Lasting principles of leadership created by Gilbert Ng, an acronym for Love, Attitude, Sincerity, Trust, Innovativeness, Never give up and Gratitude.
The final session was dedicated to learning about an effective succession plan that would help the participants mould talented future leaders.
According to VietnamWorks' latest quarterly employment indicator report, the online labour market has been growing since Q1/2010.
However, the labour supply has been growing faster than demand, showing that job-seekers are now more proactive in finding their dream jobs, causing concern among employers about retaining their best talent.
Home prices remain high
Although the local property market has encountered stagnancy for more than one year, house prices, especially prices of property projects in Ha Noi and HCM City, remain sky-high.
According to Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the HCM City Property Developers' Association, the "not-too-fast recovery" of the country's economy was one of the reasons behind the stagnant property market.
Chau said the great efforts made by the Vietnamese Government to curb inflation, including the policy to tighten credit for property projects, resulted in a reduction of capital flows into the real estate market.
Few investors or buyers could shoulder loans with an interest rate of 18-19 per cent per year granted by banks for property projects.
As a result, only a small fraction of buyers who purchase houses for their own residency can buy accommodation with their savings, while the majority of investors are awaiting better opportunities in the property market.
In addition to the impact of the global crisis and the Government's policy on inflation control, high land-use fees, site clearance compensation and other "unaccountable" expenses have exerted pressure on property developers.
Market mismanagement, which has led to price fever for cement, steel and fuels, was also blamed for the high prices of property projects.
House prices in Viet Nam were too high compared with those in other ASEAN countries, he said.
"The Government should seek to reject expenses for paperwork that add to production costs of property projects, so that favourable conditions can be created for developers to lower house prices," said Chau.
Meanwhile, property experts from Ha Noi said 252 property projects awaiting approval from authorities would become operational in coming years, flooding the market with apartments.
Many experts believe that when construction of these projects are complete and these apartments sold between 2011 and 2013, housing supply will exceed demand, leading to lower prices of houses and apartments and the stagnancy of the Ha Noi property market.
However, many property developers and experts who participated in a workshop on Tendencies of Viet Nam Property Market in 2011 held in Ha Noi on December 4 believe in the brighter future of the local market.
They said the country's property would remain profitable in the next decade or two.
A population and housing survey conducted in 2009 shows that 86.3 per cent of houses in Viet Nam were either makeshift or not built for long-term use.
Nguyen Van Minh, general secretary of the Viet Nam Property Developers' Association said the rising per capita income would be a major condition for residents to improve their housing.
"The housing segment of the local property market will remain bustling for the next five to 10 years," said Minh.
Le Hung Vong
vietnamnews
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