Vietnam Financial News

Russia will likely open its first liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal on the Pacific Ocean coast with joint investments from China by the end of 2025, two industry sources said on Wednesday. Last week, Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) struck an agreement with Chinese petrochemical company Haiwei to finance the marine terminal in Russia's Far East to ship LPG. It did not provide the timings for the project completion.

Alphabet had announced in October last year that it will make Google Pixel smartphones in India. It's the only large global smartphone brand that was missing from the make-in-India drive in smartphones. Dixon's Pixel capacity will be 100,000 units per month with 25-30% to be exported as it makes a fresh attempt to gain market share in India, the world's second largest smartphone market. The Pixel 8 model accounts for almost 80% of all Pixels sold in India, executives said.

Bell 212 helicopter carrying Iran's president and foreign minister crashed on Sunday, according to Iranian state media, as it flew through mountains in heavy fog. The civilian version of the ubiquitous Vietnam War-era UH-1N «Twin Huey,» they are in wide use globally by both governments and private operators:

(Bloomberg) — Over the past few years, Vietnam’s anti-graft drive has taken down a slew of top Communist Party leaders, including presidents, deputy prime ministers and Politburo members. But that hasn’t stopped foreign investors from pouring in cash. 

South Korean police have arrested 34 people in a raid on a suspected crypto-powered drugs smuggling ring, officers announced on May 16.

Travel Trends 2024: Breaking Boundaries, said Indian outbound travel to Vietnam skyrocketed by 248% compared to 2019 levels, followed by the US and Japan, with growth rates of 59% and 53%, respectively. These figures, compiled for the January-March 2024 period, also indicate a significant shift in traveler preferences. The emerging trends hold promise for the travel sector, considering that India is expected to see nearly 20 million more people entering the middle class over the next five years, it added.

China will allow visa-free entry for foreign tour groups that come to the country via cruise ships in a further bid to attract international visitors and boost its sluggish inbound travel market. Overseas tour groups on cruise boats will be able to enter and stay in China without a visa for up to 15 days, according to the National Immigration Administration. The new policy will be effective from May 15. Tour groups can enter China from 13 ports including Shanghai, Qingdao, Dalian and Haikou, Mao Xu, a senior official with the immigration administration, said at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday. Qualifying tour groups need to be received and handled by domestic travel agencies and will be allowed to travel to coastal provinces as well as the capital, Beijing, while they are in China, Mao said.

Myanmar ruling junta’s decision to opt for Russia for building a Dawei deep seaport on the country’s east coast has riled China which was also eyeing to construct the port located close to the Thailand border. The Myanmar junta is keen for Russians to invest in the port project along with a special economic zone including an oil refinery, ET has learnt.

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AM/NS) India, a prominent steel manufacturer with an integrated steel plant at Hazira in Gujarat. “The apprehension is that other mills from FTA countries and China may also get a renewal of their licences for exporting to India," analysts at market intelligence & consulting firm BigMint said, adding that this was a worrisome factor for Indian mills. AM/NS’s Dhar added that with India now available as an option, Vietnamese steelmakers will see the country as a lucrative avenue to dump excess production.

A major fire broke out in a vast shopping complex in the Polish capital that housed some 1,400 shops and service outlets

James Harris Simons, founder of Renaissance Technologies, was a pioneer of quantitative investing (QI) across asset classes. While he was less famous than some of his peers like Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, he was equally, if not more, successful in investing, outperforming markets with an amazing level of consistency. The popular statistic floating around is that $1,000 in his signature Medallion Fund — known for its consistent gains and only accessible to Renaissance's owners and employees — in 1988 would be worth $42 mn today, compared to $40,000 if invested in S&P 500 and $1,52,000 in Berkshire Hathaway shares over the same period. Today, Renaissance manages $106 bn in assets. As estimated by Forbes, Simons' net worth equates to $31 bn. Simons was a leading philanthropist who gave away billions during his lifetime to support medical and science research and teaching. His journey had been exciting and intriguing. A maths genius, he was only 23 when he received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, aside from teaching at prestigious universities, he worked as a breaker of Soviet codes at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a position he held until he had divergent views on the Vietnam War.

₹176 ($2.1) per day, last updated in 2017, is one of the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region, surpassed by China’s $11.9, Vietnam $6.5 and even Bangladesh’s $3.7. Brazil’s minimum wage of $47 per day is closer to the figure in developed economies like Australia ($14.8 per hour), the UK ($14.1) and the US ($7.2). While India’s minimum wage remains unchanged, the government routinely updates its dearness allowance (DA) for central government employees.

Cotton Association of India (CAI) on Saturday estimated cotton exports to rise about 27 per cent to 28 lakh bales during 2023-24 crop year ending September. In 2022-23 crop season (October-September), cotton exports were at 22 lakh bales, CAI said. One bale is equal to 170 kilogram.

NEW DELHI : Radihika Khanijo is busy planning vacations this summer for a few uber wealthy clients to a destination that hadn’t been on her luxury travel firm’s radar ever before: South Korea. The Asian country is suddenly on the map of Indian travellers, says the founder of Welgrow Travel, and part of the reason is its easy visa process. “South Korea is seeing a big rise in travel demand from discerning travellers.

Tim Cook and Satya Nadella, who last month embarked on their biggest tours across Southeast Asia in years. The investments they pledged are set to help turn the region into a major battleground between the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in future frontiers such as artificial intelligence and the cloud. The region’s growing workforce is making it a viable alternative to China as a center of talent to support companies’ global operations.

tariff concessions under its proposed free trade agreement (FTA) talks with the five-member Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Engineering goods, electronics and agriculture are expected to benefit from the agreement and the government asked the industry to identify restrictions, if any, that they face in the five members of the EAEU including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. «The two sides have met and discussed initiating formal talks for the pact,» an official said, adding that in the light of this development, inputs have been sought from industry on barriers and products in which the country wants to achieve self-reliance. New Delhi's concerns stem from the fact that India's exports to the union in April-January FY24 were $3.7 billion while imports were $51.7 billion due to crude oil imports from Russia. Moreover, the bloc has signed free trade pacts with China, Vietnam, Serbia and Iran, which could impact Indian industry's competitive position in any of the EAEU markets.

Jim Simons, a mathematician who founded the most successful quantitative hedge fund of all time, passed away on Friday in New York City, his foundation announced on its website.

Police in Vietnam say they have arrested a senior official of the country’s labor ministry for “deliberately disclosing state secrets.”

Warning: This story contains graphic and disturbing descriptions. Discretion is strongly advised. 

Vietnam’s anti-corruption drive, which the ruling Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong likened to a “blazing furnace," is running hot. This year alone, two of the four pillars of power, including the chairman of the parliament and the country’s president, left their posts amid graft allegations. Last month, Truong My Lan, a real estate tycoon and Vietnam’s richest woman, was sentenced to death for her role in a $12 billion fraud case that involved Saigon Commercial Bank, one of its largest lenders.

New Delhi: India on Monday permitted export of 14,000 million tonnes of non-basmati white rice to Mauritius, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification. “The export of 14,000 MT of Non-Basmati White Rice to Mauritius has been permitted through National Cooperative Exports Limited (NCEL),” the DGFT said. In July 2023, the government had prohibited the export of non-basmati white rice but it had said exports would be allowed on the basis of permission granted to other countries to meet their food security needs and based on requests from those countries.