The State Bank of Vietnam has licensed South Korea’s Kookmin Bank to open a branch in Hanoi, the government said on Tuesday. The branch has a chartered capital of $35 million and the contract runs for 99 years, the government said in a statement.
South Korea is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Vietnam and the Southeast Asian country’s second largest trading partner.
Emart is going fully digital with its brand new Uiwang branch that will open in Gyeonggi tomorrow. Innovative features of the Uiwang branch – the first Emart store to open in 30 months – include digital displays instead of paper signs and guide robots that can escort customers to desired products. The Uiwang store will span 9,917 square meters (106,745 square feet) across two basement floors in a commercial building.
“We will introduce a revolutionary format of offline stores that breaks away from tradition in order to meet the challenges of our fast-changing era,” read an Emart report.
Going paper-free is a big change that Emart hopes will both appeal to customers and help management.
Price labels will be digitalized and controlled by a central server in the Uiwang branch, allowing store managers to display and change prices with unprecedented ease and speed. The new store will also install digital signage, or electronic displays, alongside elevators, moving walkways and cashiers instead of paper posters for advertisement and notices.
“By minimizing paper usage, we can provide consumers with a unique shopping experience while practicing green management and boosting productivity,“ read the Emart report.
The new Uiwang store will also be home to Tro.e, an autonomous robot equipped with a 27-inch touch screen that is capable of guiding consumers to desired products and making casual conversation. Like Pepper, a robot the company employed earlier this year at its Seongsu branch in eastern Seoul, Tro.e will only be available for a limited time on a test run at Uiwang.
Emart developed Tro.e, named after the Swedish word tro, which means trust, together with Future Robot, one of the official robot providers for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
The grocery section of the new store will only be located on the lower floor of the store, while the upper floor will host a variety of affiliated shops including Electro Mart, Pierrot Shopping, Daiz, Boots and a Kakao Friends Store.
Emart will open a 660-square-meter “Culture Lounge” for customers to read books and purchase beverages.
“We will continue striving to offer consumers a unique shopping experience with our distinctive products and digital shopping environment,” said a senior manager in charge of development at Emart.
International pizza franchise Pezzo has launched in Brunei Darussalam. The brand, operating under Satami Group of Companies, features a “Grab & Go” kiosk serving pizza by the slice for immediate purchase, and a “mix and match” pizza purchase option, whereby customers can collate their own pizza out of 12 different flavours. The brand stakes its reputation on generous toppings with shredded mozzarella cheese.
Pezzo, best-known for its circus-themed design, is exclusively using ingredients certified under the Brunei Halal procedure in the store.
In May of this year, Pezzo launched in Cambodia. The company now boasts more than 120 kiosk outlets, mainly in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
The arrest of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada has triggered alarms in the Korean telecommunications industry, especially after LG U+ moved onto a fifth-generation (5G) network this month that uses Huawei network devices.
The Chinese telecommunications giant has maintained a sizeable influence since it first entered the Korean market in 2002. While it was originally focused on the cable infrastructure business, Huawei moved on to offering wireless telecommunications devices in 2007 as local telecommunications companies introduced third-generation wide-band code-division multiple access services.
In 2013, Huawei received orders for fourth-generation 4G long-term evolution (LTE) wireless base stations from LG U+ for services in Seoul, Incheon, and areas in Gyeonggi and Gangwon.
The 5G equipment market in Korea is estimated to be worth 10 trillion won ($8.89 billion).
While Huawei is a leading supplier to the telecommunication industry, concerns about the security of its devices has held the company back. Only LG U+ decided to use Huawei equipment for 5G. Huawei has claimed that it had no such security problems in the 170 countries that it operates in and would follow inspection requests by the Korean government.
LG U+ signed a deal with Huawei to introduce around 30,000 base stations in the Seoul, Incheon, and the Gyeonggi and Gangwon regions by next March. The deal is reportedly worth around 300 billion won, not including maintenance fees.
The decision by Korea’s smallest telecommunications company made business sense as it used Huawei equipment for its 4G network.
Huawei’s equipment, however, will not be installed in areas occupied by United States Forces Korea (USFK) such as in Pyeongtaek, Dongducheon, Yongin in Gyeonggi. The U.S. government has requested that Huawei equipment not be used out of concerns about a Chinese cyberattack. USFK has been suspicious about Huawei equipment. When LG U+ chose Huawei equipment for its 4G network, around 10,000 USFK soldiers switched carriers.
The current situation has left LG U+ in a difficult position. Its deal with Huawei is already inked, and the 5G service works in sync with the existing 4G system, so it is impossible for the company to simply not use Huawei equipment.
The recent banning of Huawei equipment by Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan, along with growing worries in Korea, places more pressure on the telecommunications unit.
A senior LG U+ official expressed frustration at the current situation and the Korean government’s inaction.
“Our government is just trying to not upset either China or the United States,” said the official. “Shouldn’t the government come forward and clear things up?”
Meanwhile, the government maintains its stance that the selection of telecommunications equipment is an issue for companies to decide.
“Inspecting security is the responsibility of the business operator. It is not appropriate for the government to take part in an area that a company should make a decision on,” said Park Jun-guk, an official at the Cyber Security Industry Bureau in the Ministry of Science and ICT.
“[We] will, however, strengthen security inspections in the form of a technology advisory conference.”
While 5G has stirred controversy, Huawei has an even stronger presence in the country with its cable and optical transmission equipment businesses. In the cable business, all three telecommunications companies, SK Telecom, KT and LG U+, are customers of Huawei.
Huawei has also won orders from Koscom, a state-run financial IT solution company, and from electric utility Kepco.
Last month, the Chinese company won an order with KT to connect the sales network of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation and the National Livestock Cooperatives Federation worth around 120 billion won.
According to market researcher IHS Markit, Huawei is the biggest global telecommunications equipment maker, with a market share of 22 percent. While Samsung Electronics holds a strong position in the Korean market, a 45 percent market share, it commands a paltry 4 percent share of the global market.
The technology and engineering sectors will see strong growth in human resources demand in Vietnam in the next five years. The growth is forecast by 90 percent of experts polled in a survey recently released by online recruitment website VietnamWorks.
The survey was done in the second half of this year by polling more than 200 human resources professionals in management positions at multinationals and top Vietnamese companies.
According to the survey, 62 percent forecast increased demand for arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media workers.
Forty-two percent said there would be a decline in administrative and clerical work in five years though these are among the top three in terms of demand this year. VietnamWorks said this is because repetitive jobs like these are likely be replaced by machines.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents believed developments in automation and information technology would be the most influential factors in the labour market in the next five years.
Mobile Internet and cloud technology would be the next major factor, according to 57 percent, and processing power and big data, according to 54 percent.
Forty percent said privacy issues and greater awareness of environmental responsibilities would have a great impact on the labor market demand.
As socio-economic factors alter the nature of jobs, employers will require more sophisticated skills and abilities. The respondents expected cooperating with others, people management, emotional intelligence, and judgement and decision making to be the top cross-functional skills needed in future.
Gaku Echizenya, general director of Navigos Group, which owns VietnamWorks, said: “The market is experiencing major changes with the fourth industrial revolution. Therefore, businesses need to keep up-to-date with market information from reputable sources to respond promptly to changes, allowing them to set out a strategy to recruit and attract talented people.”
Employees need to actively educate themselves in IT and digital knowledge, and develop crucial skills such as cooperation with others and people management to increase their competitiveness, he added.
Chinese sports apparel brand Li-Ning has released a collaboration with esports organisation Edward Gaming (EDG). The Li-Ning X EDG apparel line, which includes hoodies, jackets, tracksuits, and shoes, is now selling at its retail location in Shanghai’s Daning shopping complex.
Li-Ning has become one of China’s largest sportswear brands, having signed multiple sponsorship deals with international-league athletes. EDG is best known for its League of Legends team, which competed in the world gaming championship earlier this year. It closed a funding round of close to RMB100 million (US$15.7 million) last May.
Chinese group tours, which helped fuel local retail sector growth in recent years, have yet to make a full comeback despite the easing of restrictions by Beijing, Korean duty-free store operators said on Sunday. The assessment came as official data from the Bank of Korea showed that 475,000 Chinese nationals visited the country in October, up 37.6 percent from a year earlier.
Local tax-exempted outlet operators like Lotte Duty Free and Shilla Duty Free, as well as the umbrella Korea Duty Free Shops Association (KDFA), said that most Chinese customers were individual travelers and so-called “daigongs,” rather than “youkers,” or group travelers.
Daigongs are small-scale merchants who buy products here on behalf of customers back home.
Chinese authorities clamped down on group tours to Korea in March 2017 after Seoul allowed the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense system on its soil, despite objections from Beijing. China has since partially lifted restrictions, but the number of group tours has not returned to past levels.
Lotte said that it had almost no youkers, who enter the country on a group visa, and that most shoppers were individual travelers or small merchants.
It said that before the frictions caused by the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense’s deployment, there were 7,000 to 8,000 youkers daily at its main duty free store in downtown Seoul. This dropped to around 2,000 after the uproar and then to zero.
Shilla said it did receive 820 youkers in October.
Three Hanoi operators have banded together to create the largest taxi business in the capital and compete with Grab. The union, named G7 Taxi, has been able to undercut the fares of Grab, at least over short distances, and it may be looking to bring still more players into its group.
G7 was formed in October by Thanh Cong, Ba Sao, and Sao Hanoi. Together, they have about 3,000 cars, accounting for around 20 percent of taxis in the Hanoi area.
The G7 base fare is VND9,900 (43 U.S. cents) for the first one km, while Grab charges VND20,000 (86 U.S. cents) for the first two km.
The entrance of the new brand is expected to increase competition between traditional taxis and raid hailing firms like Grab.
Earlier, Nguyen Cong Hung, chairman of the Hanoi Taxi Association, had said: “Traditional taxis, each with their own app, are now trying to compete with Grab. But we are divided, therefore we need to unite.”
Before Thanh Cong, Ba Sao, and Sao Hanoi teamed up, annual sales at the three companies had declined by 10-15 percent on average over the past few years.
The number of taxi companies in Hanoi has also fallen down to 70 taxi now, from 115 in 2010.
Joining the fight
The taxi trio is not alone in pushing back against the ride-hailing industry.
In March, southern taxi firms ComfortDelgro Savico and Vinataxi had merged with the same purpose.
Vinataxi, the third largest taxi firm in HCMC, was confident the merger would increase its growth six-fold this year.
Mai Linh, Vietnam’s No. 1 taxi operator, has developed a smartphone app similar to that of Grab. Meanwhile, second-ranked Vinasun has launched a ride-hailing service using Facebook’s Messenger app, enabling customers to hail cars and make complaints and requests directly, much like Grab.
But Grab, the dominant player in the ride-hailing business in Vietnam, is also working on strategies to compete better with local taxi firms.
Several months ago, it introduced Grab for Business in Vietnam, a service that helps a company track the trips its employees make to limit unnecessary trips and control expenses.
Grab is also deploying various policies to attract drivers by offering bonuses and opening stops with free wifi and coffee.
AuMake International Limited has joined forces with JD Worldwide, a division of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, to create a new omnichannel platform for Australian and New Zealand brands to reach Chinese customers. The strategic agreement, which was signed in Sydney on Tuesday, will see JD combine its online and logistics capability in China with AuMake’s retail store and brand building capabilities in Australia.
The partnership mirrors a similar agreement between Alibaba’s Tmall and Chemist Warehouse, the companies noted in a statement.
The agreement builds on the booming daigou industry in Australia and New Zealand, where personal shoppers, often Chinese students or tourists, buy and ship products on behalf of family, friends and other clients in China.
AuMake over the past two years has expanded its chain of retail stores catering to daigou shoppers with relevant products and services.
Under the agreement, AuMake will become JD’s exclusive retail store partner in Australia and New Zealand and connect existing and future store customers to its online flagship on JD’s cross-border platform, JD Worldwide.
JD, under the agreement, will fully support AuMake’s online flagship, with an initial sales target of 10 million RMB ($2 million) per month, and provide access to its warehouse and dispatch logistics network in China.
The companies will also work together to incubate and develop new brands to be exclusively sold on the JD Worldwide platform and in AuMake retail stores.
AuMake executive chairman Keong Chan called the agreement a “company-changing event”.
“This is a company changing event for AuMake and confirms the value that we have created so far via our retail store distribution network in Sydney,” he said.
“Under this collaboration with JD Worldwide, AuMake will now be able to reach hundreds of millions of customers in China with new brands and products, including brands and products owned by AuMake.”
Keong added that he believes AuMake and JD together can fundamentally change the way in which Australian and New Zealand products reach the Chinese market.
Kakao’s carpooling service was introduced Friday for beta testing and will be officially rolled out Dec. 17. The start of the service comes after months of battling fierce opposition from local taxi services. They staged a strike on Oct. 18, two days after the IT company started accepting applications from carpool drivers.
With the beta service, the Kakao T mobile app, a platform for all of Kakao’s mobility services from taxi hailing to navigation, was upgraded to enable the “Carpool” button on its main screen. The beta service will not be accessible to everybody.
“The beta service is aimed at increasing the stability of the technology and collecting opinions,” Kakao said in a statement. “For that reason, it will only be offered to some users.”
The selection of testers will be random and independent of age and location. Anyone upgrading the Kakao T app Friday will see the new “Carpool” button, but only the selected users will be able to input words in the destination box. Those who weren’t selected will see an image with the words “This service will launch soon.”
The base fare is set at 3,000 won ($2.68) for the first 2 kilometers (1.24 miles), the same as for regular taxis. After that point, the fare will increase proportional to the driving time and distance. The company did not disclose details, but a spokesman said the cost will be equivalent to around 70 to 80 percent of regular taxi fares.
Kakao’s carpool drivers are allowed to offer carpooling services twice a day at any time of the day. The twice-a-day rule is due to the domestic law that limits carpooling to commuting purposes. More than 50,000 drivers who met Kakao’s requirements have been selected so far.
A government-led task force composed of lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party, public officials and taxi companies met Friday to discuss carpooling. Executives from Kakao Mobility, the affiliate in charge of the IT company’s transportation services, decided to launch the same day,
Kakao acquired the Luxi carpooling app in February and completed preparations for its service later in the year.
The official launch was postponed previously as the task force failed to reach an agreement on the service’s details, including the fare and limits on use. During a task force meeting held Thursday, some government officials opposed Kakao’s request to release the service that same day, demanding more time to find common ground.
Korea has been a difficult place for carpooling. Uber closed down its service in 2014, and Seoul’s local government questioned the legality of carpooling app Poolus in 2017.
A new Vietnam-based airline set up by Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia and a local company is expected to fly by next August. Tran Trong Kien, CEO of Hanoi-based resort ooperator Thien Minh Group, AirAsia’s partner, said that applications for aviation licenses would be made next February and likely obtained in six months.
Vietnam will become the newest market for AirAsia, the largest low-cost carrier in Southeast Asia, which has affiliates in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Kien said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had expressed support for the airline, which has yet to be named.
The airline plans to deploy five or six Airbus SE A320 and A321 aircraft on domestic and regional routes, and expand the fleet to 30 within three years, he added.
Last week Thien Minh Group signed a memorandum of understanding with AirAsia for setting up the new airline with a capital of VND1 trillion ($44 million).
AirAsia will hold a 30 percent stake in it, and Thien Minh, 70 percent.
The new airline would be a direct competitor to Vietnam’s budget carriers Vietjet Aviation and Jetstar Pacific, according to industry insiders.
Vietnam Airlines is currently the biggest airline in terms of passengers carried.
Bamboo Airways, owned by private corporation FLC, last month received a license and expects to make its maiden flight on December 29. It is allowed to operate 10 aircraft on domestic and international routes.
There are five carriers in Vietnam: Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Bamboo Airways, Jetstar Pacific and VASCO. Vietnam Airlines owns VASCO and has a 70 percent stake in Jetstar Pacific.
Vietnam received 14.12 million foreigners in the first 11 months of the year, up 21.3 per cent year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office. Eighty percent of foreign tourists arrive by air.
Vietnam’s aviation market has averaged 17.4 percentage growth in the past decade, far higher than the 7.9 percent rate for the Asia-Pacific, according to the International Air Transport Association.
AirAsia almost struck a deal with Vietjet, but in 2010 the deal collapsed.
South Koreans are spending more at Chinese online stores, according to credit-card spending data. Purchase records from November 1-26, compiled by the big data centre at Shinhan Card, showed a 9.8 per cent increase from last year in the value of goods bought from overseas internet sites. The number of transactions was up 16.6 per cent year on year.
Chinese online stores outperformed rivals from other countries. AliExpress took 9.5 per cent of the purchases, up from 6 per cent in 2016 and 6.1 per cent last year. It ranked second after Amazon’s 16.3 per cent.
Taobao, another Chinese Internet shopping site, grew from 2.3 per cent in 2016 to 3.3 per cent last year and to 4.4 per cent this year, raising it to the third most-used overseas online marketplace. Alibaba made it to the top 10 for the first time this year with 1 per cent.
The shift is stark when comparing the purchases during Black Friday in the US and Singles Day in China. This year, overseas shopping during Singles Day rose 35 per cent. Black Friday purchases stopped at a 9 per cent gain.
Data showed 70.8 per cent of purchases during Singles’ Day were for goods priced up to 50,000 won (US$44.32). Shoppers in their 30s and 40s remained the biggest clients, but the number of those in their 20s increased 1.9 percentage points from last year.
Saigon leads Vietnam in real estate interest, drawing 300 million internet searches in the last 12 months. According to a report recently issued by Batdongsan.com.vn, one of the biggest property portals in Vietnam, Hanoi is the second most searched city when users look up real estate at 170 million searches.
The two cities are followed by central Da Nang City, southern Bien Hoa Town, northern Hai Phong City, central Nha Trang Town, and Vung Tau Town and Can Tho City in the south in terms of popularity.
Overall, the leading position of Saigon real estate is predicted to continue to remain the same because its housing market is still seeing a lot of actions.
Consumer data collected from Internet queries also showed the level of interest given to real estate in each specific area.
Saigon attracted the highest level of interest, at 41.8 percent of recorded consumers, the largest in Vietnam, while Hanoi had 29.7 percent. Central Khanh Hoa Province, Da Nang, and southern provinces of Dong Nai and Binh Duong recorded modest numbers, fluctuating between 3 to 4.5 percent. Interest is measured by saved searches, favorites and number of queries.
The report also reveals that budget and midrange apartments in Saigon and Hanoi, which are priced between VND20-30 million ($860.47 – $1,290) per square meter, with an area of around 60-70 square meters are the type of high-rise apartments that attracts the most attention from Internet users.
Meanwhile, in regards to content posted on the website of this organisation, foundation land (land serving as the foundation for housing projects to be built on) tops the board in the number of posts published, at 1.2 million posts.
The land is also the most indulgent hunting with nearly 120 million searches, showing the habit of clinging to land, ownership of real estate in the territory of the Vietnamese, said the report.
In addition, separate houses attached to land are also highly sought after, at nearly 120 million searchers. This shows the Vietnamese consumers’ preference to own land, or possess properties attached to land, according to the report.
Taiwanese dumpling chain Din Tai Fung has opened in Covent Garden, London. The new 8000sqft Din Tai Fung London eatery is the franchise’s 153rd globally, and is the first of at least two outlets planned for the city. A second store is planned for Centre Point next year.
The Din Tai Fung London store has been launched by Taster Food UK in partnership with Singapore-based BreadTalk Group.
BreadTalk Group CEO Henry Chu said: “The group will leverage on our experience of operating Din Tai Fung in Singapore and Thailand, and the strength of our overseas partners to continue the tradition of delivering an authentic Taiwanese dining experience to Londoners.”
Brand founder and chairman George Quek commented that there is potential to open 20 Din Tai Fung outlets in Britain, serving as a starting point for further expansion into Europe.
Din Tai Fung has already opened in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, the US and the UAE. It was recognised by the New York Times in 1993 as one of the world’s top 10 restaurants.
With office rents rising constantly for several years, HCMC has moved into the top 20 Asia-Pacific office rent markets. Grade-A office rents in Ho Chi Minh City have reached a five-year peak of $936 per square meter a year, according to property service firm JLL. The HCMC market has come under the spotlight in a premium office rent report for the Asia-Pacific region just released by the US-based global company.
The report said that HCMC, an emerging market, saw annual gross premium office rents rising to $635 per square meter, a year-on-year increase of nearly seven percent, placing the city in the list of top 20 office rent markets in the Asia-Pacific region.
It highlighted the case one unnamed building in the inner city, where a record rent level of $936 per square meter a year was registered, a peak unseen for many years.
JLL assumes that the HCMC office market is heating up with increasing investment inflow from many multinational firms.
The US firm added that the total supply of office space in HCMC has increased to two million square meters, a five-fold hike compared to Bangkok. The scarcity of premium office space in HCMC has constantly pushed up rents.
Financial corporations are willing to pay for high-end office space in HCMC, while banking and financial firms were keen on premium office space, topping the list of 72 key tenant categories.
Meanwhile, JLL said in the Global Premium Office Rent Tracker Q4 2018 that Ho Chi Minh City and Manila, the two more affordable cities in Southeast Asia, are attracting significant corporate interest, along with European cities like Amsterdam, Berlin and Warsaw.
The firm said that growth in occupation costs is likely to slow down in 2019 as new supply comes through; however, while rental growth is expected to decelerate, there are very few major markets where a downward correction is projected for 2019. In fact, the delivery of new premium buildings will set fresh rental benchmarks in several markets, it predicts.
Total occupancy costs are calculated by combining the net effective rent with additional costs, including service charges and taxes.
JLL’s Global Premium Office Rent Tracker 2018 compares occupancy costs for premium office buildings across the world’s leading real estate markets. This fourth edition includes 72 office submarkets across 61 cities.
The report includes the key elements of occupancy costs – net effective rent, service charges and government tax on rent – all standardized to enable true international comparisons.