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[Hurricane88]

Editorial: Doan Ngoc Hai’s ‘sword of power’ in Saigon ‘sidewalk clearing’ campaign

TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED : 02/27/2017 11:05 GMT + 7



Doan Ngoc Hai, deputy chairman of Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, has been grabbing the public’s attention over the last few days by leading officials to actively restore order on sidewalks throughout the district.

Reading news of Hai’s signature 'sidewalk reclamation' campaign, one might think that District 1’s deputy chief is either holding a ‘sword of ultimate power,’ or being backed by someone higher up the chain in order to exude such absolute determination.

However, it turns out that the ‘sword of power’ of Doan Ngoc Hai is only the long-established regulations to ensure urban order. Hai is merely the one who applies these rules, and does so with a strong will.

Many have expressed their satisfaction with what Hai has been doing during his campaign. However, there is one other question: Why do we feel happy when an official does what he is supposed to do?

Reclaiming occupied sidewalks for pedestrians – this is an inevitability. However, over the last few years such a certainty has been ‘stolen,' while the existing rules and regulations, though strict enough to deter violators, have not been properly executed.

The campaign, led by the deputy district chief, also leads to a question about ward-level authorities – where had they been before Hai and his officials began their campaign? Keeping the sidewalks and streets clean is the responsibility of these people, rather than those at district levels.

The ‘sword of power,’ or the power conferred by law, is not something granted only to Doan Ngoc Hai, or any one ward- or district-level leader in either Ho Chi Minh City or the country in general.

Every public servant has a 'sword,' but the problem is they have put it inside its sheath for too long, leading to a failure to execute powers within their jurisdiction. This inertia has become commonplace amongst many officials, something which needs to stop.

Hai has gradually been making sidewalks in District 1 more spacious, and increasing the public’s trust in the authorities by properly enforcing the law. But what’s next?

His resolve will ultimately be wasted if his campaign is not followed up by the leaders of District 1’s many wards. The same applies across all districts of the city.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper raised this question to Le Van Khoa, deputy chairman of the city’s administration, and was told that many other districts are following in the footsteps of District 1 to ‘reclaim’ their sidewalks.

Khoa also promised to hold a meeting with district-level leaders to ensure that those campaigns are resolutely mounted.

We only need the ‘sword of power’ – rules that have been in place for years without being effectively enforced – to solve Ho Chi Minh City’s crowded sidewalk problem.

The other crucial factor is that those who are granted ‘the sword’ must use it swiftly and resolutely.

[Hurricane88]

Ho Chi Minh City officials approve of 15,000ha ‘New City’ in Cu Chi

TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED : 02/26/2017 17:00 GMT + 7

Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have expressed their support for a mega-project that will include a so-called ‘New City’ and span over 15,000 hectares in the northern part upon completion.

The developer of the project in the outlying district of Cu Chi is Tuan Chau Corporation, a conglomerate based in the northern tourist city of Ha Long.

High-ranking officials in the southern metropolis have said they back the idea to implement this grand project, pending formal approval.

All this information was mentioned by the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) in its report submitted to the municipal Party Committee in late February, according to online newspaper VnExpress.

The project, named ‘New City,’ is expected to cover an area of 15,000 hectares, about 15 times the combined area of Phu My Hung New Urban Area in District 7 and Thu Thiem New Urban Area in District 2.

The mega-zone will become the new center of Ho Chi Minh City with the ability to adapt to climate change and tidal water, the developer was quoted as claiming.

It will also be home to a series of affordable housing projects and sufficient convenient services, providing local residents with abundant job opportunities and standard lifestyles.

The conglomerate has also proposed constructing a new avenue running along the Saigon River bank that will connect Cu Chi District and District 1.

With the total length of 59 kilometers, vehicles will be allowed to travel at an estimated velocity of 100km per hour, Tuan Chau said.

The distance between the two destinations will be shortened to a 30-minute ride, compared to the nearly one hour and a half journey at present.

Speaking with VnExpress on Saturday, president of HoREA Le Hoang Chau stated that city officials have just approved of the project, before adding that it reflects their long-term vision regarding municipal development.

The total capital for the project is projected to be up to trillions of dong (VND1 trillion = US$43.8 million), Chau added.

[snipeshot08]

Originally Posted by smallplayer

alamak!!
kena caught.
but also bring so much...dangerous la
later vb all reach inside...then grab the wrong thing
then I will be soo sad.

hows the ktv gers stock ah?
I miss the hair saloons leh. the massage..the tcss...the massage...and the hug with a promise to meet after work

Si meh???? U sad???? U be happy like fark......

Just saw your "lao xiang hao" 2 days ago, she recognised me also haiz...... actually was trying to be incognito there as dowan my other VB to know but kena caught......

Cheerios......SS08 ^_^

[snipeshot08]

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

haha...this I read but to go Nam Dinh to eat that is another question...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_%C4%90%E1%BB%8Bnh

anyway I dun eat beef...^^

All the way we are talking about range of prices of Pho in wetnam leh but never discuss about going there or anywhere to eat leh.....

Like that siao liao imagine we discuss about range of car or apartment prices means must buy liao......

Just saw yesterday the Pho in Pho24 got 29K a bowl, so that S$12 still can get 6 bowls & some change left

Cheerios.....SS08 ^_^

[snipeshot08]

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

Haha...I dun believe this stupid comments...a prank my foot...
__________________________________________

Vietnam confirms citizenship of suspect in Kim Jong Nam murder

By Viet Anh February 26, 2017 | 12:00 am GMT+7

Her father Doan Van Thanh, a war veteran, told VnExpress that his daughter has led a “withdrawn life”. She left Nam Dinh for Hanoi a decade ago to get some pharmaceutical training..

Wow so choon we were just tokking about that Pho shop in Nam Dinh nia nia.....

Cheerios....SS08 ^_^

[snipeshot08]

Originally Posted by Hurricane88

Editorial: Doan Ngoc Hai’s ‘sword of power’ in Saigon ‘sidewalk clearing’ campaign

TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED : 02/27/2017 11:05 GMT + 7

Reading news of Hai’s signature 'sidewalk reclamation' campaign, one might think that District 1’s deputy chief is either holding a ‘sword of ultimate power,’ or being backed by someone higher up the chain in order to exude such absolute determination.

Sounds like the olden days of chinese dynasties emperors awarding "Shang Guan Bao Jian" or "Mian Shi Jing Pai" to those upright officials

Cheerios........SS08 ^_^

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Just saw your "lao xiang hao" 2 days ago, she recognised me also haiz...... actually was trying to be incognito there as dowan my other VB to know but kena caught......

Cheerios......SS08 ^_^

Wah now u hv how many vb...

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

All the way we are talking about range of prices of Pho in wetnam leh but never discuss about going there or anywhere to eat leh.....

Like that siao liao imagine we discuss about range of car or apartment prices means must buy liao......

Just saw yesterday the Pho in Pho24 got 29K a bowl, so that S$12 still can get 6 bowls & some change left

Cheerios.....SS08 ^_^

Si meh!! So u happy like fark...

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Wow so choon we were just tokking about that Pho shop in Nam Dinh nia nia.....

Cheerios....SS08 ^_^

Nam dinh province virtually has nothing and rely on gahmen handouts...so vb sure leave to work in cities..

[Hurricane88]

Originally Posted by snipeshot08

Sounds like the olden days of chinese dynasties emperors awarding "Shang Guan Bao Jian" or "Mian Shi Jing Pai" to those upright officials

Cheerios........SS08 ^_^

Si meh sound like...actually was...

[Hurricane88]

VietJet stock jumps 20 pct on debut - exchange

By Reuters/My Pham February 28, 2017 | 11:33 am GMT+7

That's the maximum jump allowed for stock price on its debut day by Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange.

Vietnam's biggest private airline, jumped by the maximum 20 percent limit in early trading on debut on Tuesday to hit 108,000 dong ($4.74), data from Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange showed.

The budget airline's stocks rose from a starting price of 90,000 dong per share. A combined 103 shares were traded by 0233GMT, the data showed.

The bourse allows the stock price to move a maximum of 20 percent up or down from the starting price on its debut day.

On February 13, Reuters reported Vietnamese budget airline Vietjet Aviation VJC.HM would list on the domestic Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange on February 28 at a starting price of 90,000 dong ($3.97) per share.

The price announced by Vietjet would put the capitalization of Vietnam's biggest private airline at $1.19 billion.

The airline had intended to list overseas by last year, but the plan was put on ice. Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and a Morgan Stanley investment fund are among 26 foreign investors which recently bought a stake in VietJet.

Company CEO Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the nation's first female billionaire, is the biggest shareholder.

The CAPA Center for Aviation has said that VietJet, which currently commands 40 percent of Vietnam's domestic market, will likely surpass flag carrier Vietnam Airlines this year as the nation's top domestic carrier.

VietJet currently operates about 60 routes both locally and internationally, and expects to have a fleet of 200 aircraft by 2023. It had ordered billions worth of jets from both Airbus and Boeing in recent years.

Its 2016 net profit jumped 96 percent annually to VND2.29 trillion on rising revenue, the filing showed, while its CEO Thao told Reuters the bottom line is expected to climb 30 percent this year.

[Hurricane88]

In Vietnam, Uber drivers whine about firm’s unfair division of revenue

TUOI TRE NEWS
UPDATED : 02/27/2017 18:02 GMT + 7

While Vietnamese authorities are criticized for not taxing Uber enough, local Uber drivers are complaining about having between 15 and 25 percent of their earnings end up in the company’s pocket.

Uber’s initial vision was to provide a technological solution for car and motorbike owners to utilize their vehicles and earn an extra living.

However, as the business model was adopted throughout Vietnam, it quickly became a full-time job for the unemployed, who were willing to buy a new vehicle on cheap loans just to get into the business.

For every ride, Uber bags between 15 and 25 percent of the fare charged to customers depending on different times, according to Duy, a former public employee who took up Uber driving when his company became unprofitable.

“[Uber] basically just provides an application and sets up a network, so they are getting too big a share of the pie,” Duy said. “A ten-percent commission rate would be more acceptable.”

Uber driver Nguyen Duc Trong said he had seen improvements in his income since becoming a driver two months ago, but the high commission taken by the company was undermining the hard work of its drivers.

“We are entitled to no insurance program, be it medical or social insurance, whereas traditional taxi drivers are provided with such protection,” Trong explained. “If there was an insurance program, many [Uber] drivers would be willing to accept a higher commission rate in exchange for those benefits.”

In total, the application’s Netherlands-based parent firm Uber B.V. and its partnered drivers pay a three percent tax on their revenue, approximately ten times lower than the tax imposed on traditional taxi companies, according to Ta Long Hy, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Taxi Association.

Nguyen Thai Son, a former official at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tax Bureau, admitted that local taxation authorities had been overwhelmed by the business model, and that it would look further into Uber’s other markets to decide on a better tax policy for the company.

Meanwhile, one senior tax expert who asked not to be named said that Uber B.V. was operating as a transportation company while declaring itself a technology firm.

Whenever customers pay for their ride using bank cards, the full sum is transferred directly into Uber B.V.’s account in the Netherlands before the company reimburses its drivers in regular payments, the expert explained.

If passengers opt for cash payment, the amount is immediately deducted from the driver’s Uber credits before they are repaid their share in the same way.

According to the expert, if Uber B.V. was merely a provider of technology solutions, the money customers pay should have been split according to the agreed rate of commission at the time of payment.

“Why aren’t Uber drivers receiving their 80-percent share of the revenue immediately rather than waiting for the money to be transferred abroad before returning to Vietnam?” the expert asked. “We can see that Uber B.V. is paying its drivers as if they were its employees [without performing its duties as an employer].”

The fact that Uber B.V. is in control of all the revenue also means that it is free to change the rules at any time without the consent of its drivers or approval from Vietnamese authorities, the expert added.

[Hurricane88]

Buyers rush to purchase first Japanese apartments in Phu My Hung

By Truong Sanh February 28, 2017 | 08:00 am GMT+7

Many prospective foreign buyers, 30 percent of whom are Japanese, attended the ceremony held to kick off sales of the luxury apartments in Ho Chi Minh City.
Sponsored

Hundreds of potential buyers flocked to Ho Chi Minh City for a ceremony held to kick off sales at the Grande, Phu My Hung's first Japanese apartments.

Prestigious real estate developer Phu My Hung collaborated with three distinguished Japanese partners to develop the project – namely, Daiwa House Group, Nomura Real Estate Group and Sumitomo Forestry Group.

Together, the three companies represent half of Japan's real estate market.

continue reading here
http://e.vnexpress.net/news/business...g-3547070.html

[Hurricane88]

Mass fight breaks out at Samsung plant in northern Vietnam

By Phuong Son February 28, 2017 | 05:53 pm GMT+7

A witness said a male worker was caught into a fight with guards at the plant.

A protest involving hundreds of construction workers broke out at a Vietnamese plant run by electronics giant Samsung in the northern province of Bac Ninh on Tuesday, after clashes with guards at the plant.

Police from Yen Phong District said violence broke out at Samsung Display, a screen production unit of the South Korean company.

An eyewitness told VnExpress that the conflict started after a male worker of around 40 years old was pushed from behind and fell out of the line while waiting to clock in with other workers at the gate after lunch at around 1 p.m.

“The guards pulled him into their room and there was a fight. Many other workers were angry and chased after the guards.”

Police cleared the crowd after a couple hours but more than 10 officers stayed to prevent further clashes.

A representative from Samsung Vietnam said there was no conflict between the company and its Vietnamese workers.

"It was a complete misunderstanding between guards and construction workers when security check into the construction site took longer than expected," the source said.

The source said that one of the guards was injured and all the workers are fine.

Samsung Display has recently received a license to invest $2.5 billion in Vietnam, boosting its total investment in the country to $6.5 billion. The extra funding will increase the plant's capacity to 220 million products a year from 180 million now, Vietnam Television reported last week.

Samsung was Vietnam's biggest exporter last year. The company earned $39.9 billion in revenue from shipping electronics, up 10 percent against 2015 and contributing 23 percent to Vietnam’s total export revenue.

[Hurricane88]

Vietnam's Feb coffee exports boil to 3-yr high with lower crop f'cast in Brazil

By VnExpress, Reuters February 28, 2017 | 03:38 pm GMT+7

The government estimates February shipments reached 130,000 tons, up 9 percent from the same month in 2016.

Vietnam exported an estimated 130,000 tons of coffee in February, a three-year high, the government said on Tuesday, as roasters built up stocks after top producer Brazil forecast a smaller harvest for the 2017/2018 season.

February's estimated shipments, equivalent to 2.17 million 60-kilogram bags, represent a rise of 9 percent from the same month last year, the government's General Statistics Office said in its monthly report, and were also up from the 97,000 tons shipped in February 2015.

The February volume brought the country's total coffee exports since October 2016 at the start of the current 2016/2017 crop year to 650,000 tons, up 2 percent from a year ago, based on government data. The crop year runs through September 2017.

The country's increased overseas coffee sales follow a global uptrend, under which the world's exports for the October-December period rose 8.3 percent from a year ago to 29.8 million bags, based on data from the London-based International Coffee Organization (ICO).

Conab, the Brazilian's crop supply agency, has forecast Brazil's output will fall around 10 percent to between 43.65 million and 47.5 million bags in the upcoming 2017/18 crop year, the ICO said in its January report released earlier this month.

"Large export volumes and the high levels of stocks in consuming countries seem likely to put pressure on price levels," the ICO report said.

Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer and exporter. It produced a record arabica coffee crop last year, while the output of its robusta, locally referred to as conilon, fell to the lowest since 2004 after two years of droughts in the main producing state Espirito Santo.

The Brazilian government estimates current volumes at around 2 million bags, which processors say is not enough to cover even two months of demand, Reuters has reported.

On February 20, Brazil's Agriculture Ministry said it was seeking permission to import 1 million bags of robusta, with shipments likely to come from top producer Vietnam.

But two days later, Brazil's President Michel Temer suspended robusta coffee imports, pushing down the futures prices of the variety by more than 1 percent, or $28 a ton.

Robusta prices in Vietnam, which closely follow London's futures market, have also edged down after a brief pickup, easing around 1 percent to VND45,600 ($2.0) per kilogram in Dak Lak, the country's top coffee growing province, dealers in the province said.

However, Dak Lak prices have risen 28 percent so far in the current crop year.

In January alone, robusta prices hit 108.32 U.S. cents/lb, the highest monthly level since September 2011, the ICO report said.

"This increase can mainly be attributed to supply shortages stemming from a small conilon crop in Brazil and reduced crop forecasts for Vietnam and Indonesia," it said.

Vietnam is projected to harvest 26.7 million bags in the 2016/17 season, down about 8 percent from the previous year due to dry conditions brought by the El Nino weather phenomenon, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report last December.

The USDA also forecast Indonesia’s 2016/2017 output will fall 21 percent to 10.0 million bags, citing severe drought in most of the growing regions.