Day: June 21, 2021

Export revenue of the garment and textile sector surged 21.2 percent year on year in the first five months of 2021 to about 15.2 billion USD, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS).

The association reported that fibre and yarn exports during January-May soared by 60.1 percent year-on-year to 2.1 billion USD, while that of fabrics also increased 26.4 percent to 947 million USD.

In the period, Vietnam spent more than 10.2 billion USD on importing materials for the garment and textile industry, representing a 33.4 percent increase over the same period in 2020.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade attributed the growth to positive signals from the country’s major export markets as well as domestic businesses’ effective utilisation of opportunities from free trade agreements (FTAs) which have been signed and put in place.

The United States remained the largest importer of Vietnam’s garment and textile products with a value of 6.02 billion USD, up 24.4 percent from the same period in 2020 and accounting for 49.2 percent of the sector’s total revenue.

Japan was the second largest customer with 1.31 billion USD (down 6.3 percent), followed by the European Union with 1.21 billion USD (up 14.7 percent) and the Republic of Korea at 1.07 billion USD (up 4.2 percent).

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, competition between coffee chains in Vietnam has become increasingly fierce with more giants trying to grab a slice of the lucrative market.

Masan, owned by billionaire Nguyen Dang Quang, Novaland of Bui Thanh Nhon and Tran Kim Thanh’s Kido have all heated up the billion-dollar market by entering recently.

In May, The Sherpa, a company owned by Masan, purchased 20 percent of Phuc Long Joint Stock Company, which owns the Phuc Long brand, one of the country’s most famous tea and coffee chains. As the firm spent US$15 million on the deal, the Phuc Long chain was valued at 75 million USD, a number that surprised many people, according to some insiders.

Set up in Bao Loc city, Lam Dong province in 1968, Phuc Long expanded into the retail beverage business in 2012 from its three traditional stores in Ho Chi Minh City in the 1980s. Currently, the firm has 60 stores in HCM city and seven in other localities.

After the deal, VinCommerce, another Masan member company, will set up a kiosk serving Phuc Long’s products at its chain VinMart , which has more than 2,200 stores across the country.

Earlier, realty firm Novaland Group launched a new ecosystem of Nova Consumer to develop the food, beverage and nutrition segment with a closed food production chain from farm to fork. The group has invested more than 200 million USD to bring together many famous consumer brands in its ecosystem, including PhinDeli coffee.

Last year, Vietnamese people spent about 53 trillion VND (2.28 billion USD) on tea and coffee, a growth rate of about 10 percent annually, an extremely attractive number for chains.

Local brand The Coffee House opened 24 stores in the first quarter of this year and plans to open at least another 50 this year to increase its total nationwide to nearly 230 at year-end and 1,000 by 2025.

Dinh Anh Huan, chairman of The Coffee House, told Viet Nam News: “Creating delicious coffee products to serve the local Vietnamese is key to developing the business.”

Huan said maintaining customer relationships was extremely important for the firm so it focused on developing the customer experience. With savvy, young customers, the firm has built and worked with delivery apps to offer convenient services.

He added during the fourth outbreak of COVID-19, though it had to limit and then stop serving customers in-store, online platforms had enjoyed a lot of use.

Besides its ‘Legend’ brand, Trung Nguyen Coffee is trying to expand its E-Coffee franchise chain, a small coffee stall targeted at takeaway customers, and plans to open 16 more stores nationwide.

Most recently, confectionery firm Kido said it was also about to enter the coffee market. Though Kido did not reveal which coffee segment it would join, the firm announced it would start offering coffee products this year.

Foreign firms have also shown interest in the local market.

Previously the largest local brand with about 340 coffee shops across the country alongside the most revenue and profit, Highlands Coffee is now owned by Jollibee Group, a Filipino giant in the chain restaurant business.

Other foreign names in the local market include Starbucks, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Thailand’s Café Amazon.

With a plan to expand its stores in Vietnam, Café Amazon told local media that Vietnam was one of 10 markets outside Thailand where the parent company was expected to spend up to 2.5 billion USD to expand in the next five years.

Among the chains, Highlands Coffee led the market in term of sales with 2 trillion VND in 2019, followed by The Coffee House with 863 billion VND, then Starbucks with 783 billion VND, Phuc Long with 779 billion VND and Trung Nguyen with 409 billion VND.

Due to the growing middle class in Vietnam, Euromonitor Worldwide valued the local coffee and tea retail market at more than 1 billion USD. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association reported the rapid increase in the number of coffee chains has boosted their consumption to more than 10 percent of the country’s coffee output.

As the per capita coffee consumption in Vietnam is only a third of the global average, the association sees the market as very attractive for both domestic and foreign businesses./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has flexibly operated monetary policy tools to maintain liquidity for the banking system, contributing to stabilising and recovering credit growth in the context of unpredictable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The information was announced by the SBV at a press conference on June 21 to review the banking sector’s activities in the first half of 2021.

According to SBV Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu, thanks to synchronous management solutions, as of June 15, total credit in the economy expanded 5.1 percent from the end of 2020. The credit growth rate in the same period last year was only 2.26 percent

Attention has been paid to strictly controlling credit for areas with potentially high risks, and taking measures to remove difficulties facing enterprises and people in accessing bank credit, he said.

Total M2 payment vehicle – one of the tools to measure the level of “pumping money” into the economy from the banking system – in the period increased by 3.96 percent compared to the end of 2020 and surged 14.27 percent over the same period last year. The credit institution system maintains smooth liquidity.

The sector has continued to manage interest rates in line with the macro-economic balance, inflation, market movements and the objectives of the monetary policy, contributing to cutting capital costs for people, businesses and the national economy.

A series of measures have been implemented to support borrowers amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, helping them restructure cash flows, and revive production and business activities.

As of May 31, credit institutions have rescheduled debt repayments for 257,602 borrowers with total outstanding loans of over 336.6 trillion VND (14.61 billion USD), exempted or reduced interests for 676,690 customers with total outstanding loans of over 1.2 quadrillion VND, provided new loans with low interest rates totaling over 3.5 quadrillion VND for nearly 481,000 borrowers.

Regarding the form of payment and transaction, Director of the SBV’s Payment Department Pham Tien Dung said non-cash payment activities have been expanded in the last six months.

Payment transactions via Internet channels surged by 65.9 percent in volume and 31.2 percent in value, while payment transactions via smart phone jumped by 86.3 percent in volume, and 123.1 percent in value.

Payments via QR Code increased by 95.7 percent in volume, and 181.5 percent in value, Dung added.

The SBV said it will continue to keep close watch on the macro-economic and monetary situation, as well as local and global developments of the pandemic, thus giving appropriate orientations in credit management and structure, towards promoting sustainable economic growth and development.

Notably, the banking sector will tighten control of credit in potentially risky areas such as real estate, build-operation-transfer (BOT) and build- transfer (BT) projects, and securities, Tu said.

He asked credit institutions to intensify management of credit quality, and implementing measures to curb bad debts./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency