Morning news 10-8: Manufacturing labor wages in Vietnam are less than half as cheap as in China

Labor wages in Vietnam are less than half of those in China.

In a recently published FDI report, HSBC Bank said that a number of favorable fundamentals give Vietnam a position to attract foreign direct investment that is superior to other countries in the region.

These include competitive costs and FDI support policies. Comparing labor costs in Asia, the manufacturing worker salary in Vietnam is less than half of that in China and much lower than the nearly $2,000 in Singapore or other countries in the region.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese people have a solid general education level, as shown by Vietnam's PISA survey results (a program for international student assessment that examines the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students) at a high level.

Other costs, such as the energy required to run factories, are also competitive in Vietnam, according to HSBC. When comparing electricity prices for businesses, Vietnam is lower than other countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, etc., according to HSBC.

Ho Chi Minh City reorganizes the steering committee for public housing and land arrangement.

On August 9, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee decided to sue the Steering Committee for the rearrangement and handling of state-owned real estate in Ho Chi Minh City (Steering Committee 167).

Accordingly, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai is the head of the steering committee. The head of the steering committee is responsible for managing activities, issuing operating regulations, establishing a team of experts to assist the steering committee and issuing operating regulations for the team of experts.

In addition, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Van Dung is the deputy head of the committee. Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Finance Nguyen Hoang Hai is the standing member.

In addition, the Steering Committee has 9 other members including the Deputy Chief of Office of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, City Inspectorate; Deputy Directors of the Departments of Finance, Justice, Construction, Planning - Architecture, Natural Resources and Environment, Planning and Investment.

Steering Committee 167 is responsible for performing the tasks prescribed in Decree No. 167/2017/ND-CP regulating the rearrangement and handling of public assets and Decree No. 67/2021/ND-CP on amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 167/2017/ND-CP.

Should Mid-Autumn Festival be an official holiday?

The survey results conducted by Mondelez Kinh Do Vietnam in collaboration with Nielsen IQ show that 94% of Vietnamese people want people to pay more attention to the Mid-Autumn Festival to preserve the beautiful cultural features of the Vietnamese people.

On the Mid-Autumn Festival website, there have been over 334,000 votes in favor of making the Mid-Autumn Festival an official holiday. Some employees have already taken the day off and more than 20 Vietnamese businesses support the idea.

Ho Chi Minh City continues to provide free digital signatures to people until July 31, 2025

The Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City has just sent a document to departments, districts, and units requesting to continue providing free digital signatures to people from now until July 31, 2025. Particularly, Viettel Telecommunications Corporation from now until December 31, 2024.

Accordingly, for the new digital signature issuance service, organizations providing public digital signature certification services including VNPT Ho Chi Minh City, Viettel Telecommunications Corporation, MISA Joint Stock Company, BKAV Joint Stock Company, FPT Information System Company Limited, Nacencomm Card Technology Joint Stock Company provide free of charge.

For digital signature renewal services, organizations providing public digital signature certification services including MISA Joint Stock Company, BKAV Joint Stock Company, FPT Information System Company Limited, Nacencomm Card Technology Joint Stock Company do it for free. Meanwhile, VNPT Ho Chi Minh City and Viettel Telecommunications Corporation collect fees according to the company's policy.

Previously, in mid-June 2023, the Department of Information and Communications issued an official dispatch to deploy the issuance of free digital signatures to people. To date, more than 1.5 million digital signatures have been issued.

Fined tech "unicorn" VNG for hiding information about Big V's loan

The State Securities Commission has just issued a decision to sanction administrative violations in the securities field with VNG Joint Stock Company.

Accordingly, VNG was fined VND 92.5 million for failing to disclose information that must be disclosed in certain documents such as the Board of Directors' resolution dated September 8, 2022 approving the mortgage of the company's assets to secure the debt obligations of Big V Technology Joint Stock Company (a major shareholder and related party).

This enterprise also announced the audited separate and consolidated financial statements for 2023 and the 2023 annual report late.

VNG was also fined 65 million VND for publishing information that did not fully comply with the law.

Specifically, in 2022 and 2023, VNG had transactions with a related party, Big V Technology Joint Stock Company. Accordingly, VNG used its deposit account opened at Citibank to secure a loan from its major shareholder, Big V Technology Joint Stock Company.

However, in the audited financial statements for 2022 and 2023, VNG did not fully present transactions with this related party.

The total fine imposed on VNG is nearly 160 million VND.