Day: January 15, 2022

Supermarkets, shopping centres and convenience stores in the capital city of Hanoi are gearing up to ensure an adequate supply of essential goods for the upcoming Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday.

The stockpiled goods has doubled or tripled compared to normal days.

Goods for Tet included pork, fresh vegetables and fruits, rice, confectionery and beverage products. The products are diverse in types and origins, making it easy for customers to choose the ones that suit their needs.

Some big retailers such as GO! BigC, VinMart, Co.op Mart and Hapro Mart have offered discounts on essential items such as pork, chicken and eggs. Supermarkets also organised many promotion programmes with the prices reduced by between 5 and 49 percent for thousands of items for Tet.

Amid complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic that made many people unable to return to their hometown to celebrate Tet, relevant units have proactively prepared many regional specialties such as banh chung (square sticky rice cake) and pickled onions.

Online sales and shipping services are also applied by supermarkets and shops to serve the demand of people.

To create favorable conditions and support prices for consumers, GO! Big C and Tops Market supermarket chains have implemented the price stabilisation policy to more than 7,000 essential consumer products and committed not to increase selling prices for more than 10,000 others.

Supermarkets also strengthened pandemic prevention and control regulations to ensure the safety and convenience for consumers during year-end shopping while minimising the crowded gathering of people at the same time./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The luxury and mid-priced apartment segments will continue to lead the market in 2022, while affordable apartments will remain scarce, according to property consultant DKRA Vietnam Joint Stock Company.

According to the company’s report on the housing market in Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding provinces in 2021, there were 41 apartment projects with about 21,138 units, mostly in HCM City and Binh Duong province, entering the market. They sold 17,122 units.

In HCM City, supply and demand decreased sharply from 2020 and fell to the lowest levels since 2015.

Luxury apartments in the city reached new price levels of nearly 400 million VND (17,555 USD) per square metre.

According to another real estate service provider Cushman and Wakefield, 25,000-30,000 new apartments are expected to enter the market in HCM City this year, mostly in the luxury and high-end segments.

The supply would mostly be in the new Thu Duc City, and online sales channels would remain popular.

The average selling price of luxury and high-end apartments topped 143.6 million VND (6,266 USD) per square metre in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 23 percent year-on-year.

Mid-range apartments cost 56.7 million VND (2,474 USD) and affordable units cost 40.9 million VND (1,785 USD), up 15 percent and 26 percent year-on-year.

The total number of new and old apartments sold last quarter was nearly 3,000, with mid-range apartments accounting for 82 percent and high-end ones for 11 percent, according to Cushman and Wakefield.

No new affordable project was sold.

High-end apartments are those in prime locations and costing above 3,000 USD, mid-range apartments are in convenient locations and cost 1,800 – 3,000 USD, and the affordable segment sells at below 1,800 USD./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on January 15 for the construction of the first phase of Hai Lang liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant in Hai An commune in the central province of Quang Tri’s Hai Lang district.

The project, which spans 120ha, will have a capacity of 1,500 MW and is able to supply 8.25 billion kWh to the national grid each year.

With an investment of 54 trillion VND (2.37 billion USD), the project is invested by a consortium of Vietnam’s conglomerate TandT Group, Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), Hanwha Energy Corporation, and Korea Southern Power (KOSPO). It is expected to be put into operation in 2026-2027.

It will include a port capable of handling vessels carrying up to 226,000 cu.m of gas and receiving 1.5 million tonnes of LNG per year.

Addressing the ceremony, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Vo Van Hung asked the investors to speed up the project’s procedures and mobilise financial resources to carry out the project, ensuring the quality, safety and meeting the schedule.

He also said that favourable conditions will be created for them during the project’s implementation./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Land prices in Ho Chi Minh City are rising sharply, and experts warn this can have negative consequences on public works and housing supply.

Tran Van Chau, Chairman of Cho Lon Real Estate Joint Stock Company, said enterprises were worried that the abnormally high prices would affect their land acquisition for projects.

If land prices continued to rise, it would limit housing supply in the coming years, stymieing the city’s goals such as controlling home prices and developing social housing and affordable housing for migrant workers, he warned.

“Our company hopes that the city government will stabilise market prices such as by quickly issuing land-use right certificates for outstanding projects and increasing the supply of products in the market to stabilise prices.”

Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the HCM City Real Estate Association (HOREA), said there was inflationary pressure now.

“Real estate is considered a safe haven by wealthy people amid high inflation. This will lead to higher real estate prices and fewer opportunities for low- and medium-income earners to own accommodation.”

Also, real estate supply and prices, especially in the southern market, could be affected by the recent land auction in the Thu Thiem New Urban Area where four land plots were sold at sky-high prices.

Ngoi Sao Viet Real Estate won the land plot for 2.45 trillion VND ( 1.1billion USD), or 8.3 times the reserve price.

Chau said that land prices in HCM City, especially the central area, had been pushed to new highs, which made it difficult for developers to build housing.

Saying the various segments in the market were inter-connected, he said, “When a segment is affected, the other segments will also be affected.

“I believe that real estate prices in HCM City will go up after the Thu Thiem land auction.”

Tran Duc Vinh, General Director of Tran Anh Real Estate Company, said the high purchase price at the Thu Thiem land auction could lead to a situation where rich people buy land but not use it, making it difficult for people who need land for living, especially low-income people.

Rising land prices were also likely to affect credit markets since real estate prices are the basis for banks to decide loan limits, and price bubbles could create risks for the banking system, he added.

Ha Ngoc Phi Hai, General Director of Khai Hung Group, said the auction had created a price bubble, and is likely to cause land prices across the city to rise rapidly.

Nguyen Hoang, Director of DKRA Vietnam’s RandD division, said there would be many difficulties imminent in 2022, including a supply shortage caused by legal problems and high property prices.

Nguyen Van Dinh, Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Vietnam Real Estate Brokers Association, said the short supply would continue to plague the real estate market, and increase prices further.

He said the legal issues causing the problem would not be sorted out soon.

“I think there will still be problems in 2022.”/.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Ho Chi Minh City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (HEPZA) aims to attract 500 million USD worth of investment in 2022.

Hua Quoc Hung, head of the authority, said at a conference on January 14 that HEPZA will offer consultancy on legal procedures for the construction and operation of Pham Van Hai industrial park.

The 668-ha zone has been included in the city’s industrial park development planning scheme, as approved by the Prime Minister.

HEPZA will conduct administrative reform, raise investment quality and efficiency, step up COVID-19 prevention and control, and further support businesses, he added.

It will coordinate with municipal departments and agencies to set out criteria for investment attraction in processing and industrial parks, Hung said, noting that investment promotion will be enhanced through associations.

Notably, the authority will review processing and industrial parks that are eligible to be converted into COVID-19 hospitals.

To complete the tasks for 2022, HEPZA suggested the municipal People’s Committee boost decentralisation, authorizing it to perform State management tasks towards enterprises in processing and industrial parks.

Last year, investment inflow in HCM City’s processing and industrial zones was over 600 million USD, surpassing the target by 9.23 percent, with foreign investment reaching 220.26 million USD./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) has received approval for its public offering of over 181.3 million shares to existing shareholders at a price of 15,000 VND (0.66 USD) per share.

The bank is expected to collect 2.72 trillion VND (119.8 million USD) from the issue with a ratio of 12.2633:100 to improve its financial capacity, step up business activities, maintain stable operation and raise charter capital to 16.6 trillion VND (731 million USD).

Shareholders who want to exercise their rights to buy shares must register for the offering no later than January 18, 2022.

Previously in 2021, SeABank managed to increase its charter capital to 14.78 trillion VND (651 million USD) through public offering, ESOP scheme and stock dividend.

The bank officially listed over 1.2 billion shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in March 2021 (HOSE: SSB). After the listing, the SSB price increased steadily for many consecutive sessions.

Notably, SSB’s closing price hit 45,000 VND (1.98 USD) per share on January 5, 2022, pushing SeABank’s market cap to over 2.9 billion USD and putting it on the list of the 10 banks with the largest cap on Vietnam’s stock market.

SeABank was recognised among 17 influential credit institutions in Vietnam’s banking system in 2021. It was assigned a long-term rating of B1, with a positive outlook by Moody’s for three consecutive years./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency