The Vietnamese government is to sell its stakes in companies ranging from a dairy giant to an insurance firm in a move worth up to US$3 billion, state media said yesterday, boosting the communist nation’s privatization drive.
Growth in the Southeast Asian country has been bucking the trend in the region, with GDP rising by 6.81 percent in the third quarter, backed by strong exports and the service sector.
Vietnam is in the process of easing business regulations as part of its long-running privatization drive and the newly announced plans are to remove its hold over several major companies.
The Thanh Nien newspaper yesterday said the government would “obtain up to US$3 billion by pulling out capital from 10 enterprises” including dairy giant Vinamilk, the leading Bao Minh Insurance Corp and FPT Telecom.
The majority of the US$3 billion would come from Vinamilk — the most successful dairy company in Vietnam — according to the state-run publication, which cited a decision signed last week by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh.
Senior economist Le Dang Doanh told reporters that the sales “will help accelerate the process of privatization of public enterprises.”
He added that the government plans to privatize up to 429 enterprises this year, but appears to be running behind schedule.
Despite its racing economy, Vietnam remains dominated by huge and often sclerotic state-owned enterprises.
In a move to open up to overseas investment, Vietnam in June said it is to end restrictions limiting foreigners from owning more than 49 percent of locally listed companies.
The timeline of the government’s withdrawal from these 10 companies is not yet clear.
Vinamilk was valued at US$5 billion last year and reported annual growth of 22 percent last year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy