Transportation Costs and Risk Exposure

Foreign entity is allowed to set up branch office in Vietnam to conduct business activities according to the law.

The branch of a foreign business entity in Vietnam (referred as “The Branch”) means a subsidiary unit of the foreign business entity, established in accordance with the law of Vietnam in order to enter into contracts in Vietnam and conduct activities being the purchase and sale of goods and other commercial activities consistent with its license for establishment in accordance with the law of Vietnam and any international treaty to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member.

The Branch will need to apply and obtain the establishment license; and have a seal bearing the name of the Branch.

The Branch is permitted to conduct activities being the purchase and sale of goods and other commercial activities consistent with its license for establishment in accordance with the law of Vietnam and any international treaty to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member.

It should be noted that the liability of the Branch is the liability of the foreign entity. The business activity of the Branch has to be consistent with the business activity of the foreign entity. The Branch has to has office address.

Therefore the investor should consider its investment strategy when setting up its Branch in Vietnam.

On April 14th, 2021, representatives of Da Nang city had an online meeting with representatives of Tangier city (Morocco) on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries (1961-2021).

At the meeting, representatives of Da Nang city shared the characteristics, potentials and similarities in the field in the development orientation of two cities, by this meeting, the two cities will continue to promote cooperation in a number of areas such as tourism, transportation, and trade. In addition, Da Nang is implementing the goal of both coping with epidemics, socio-economic development, promoting the image of the city as a safe destination for investors and tourists.

Specifically, in the field of tourism, is is encouraged cooperation between tourism and travel businesses. At the same time, parties are suggested to coordinate to organize tourism product survey teams, to connect tourism of the two cities; promote, advertise and introduce the image of Da Nang to Moroccan citizens.

In the transport sector, Da Nang side hopes that Tangier will support Da Nang in calling for businesses and investors of Tangier to invest in a PPP component (public-private partnership) of Lien Chieu port project to cooperate. Besides, invest in logistics centers according to the approved planning and support investment in marinas, inland water ports.

In the field of trade, the side of Da Nang city proposed the two parties to exchange and provide information on trade fair and prestigious events of the city; information on import and export enterprises; trade policy mechanism, etc. for imported goods to support trade connection, promote goods export – import.

Besides, two cities will support enterprises to research, learn and access each other’s goods market; connect businesses in the raw material supply chain to boost exports of potentially complementary products, coordinate in organizing or assisting enterprises to survey the market, creating conditions for all parties to arrange stalls or send goods for introduction at their local product introduction centers.

Bases on the proposals of Da Nang, the representative of Tangier city shared, Tangier is a locality with infrastructure for tourism and transportation. Tangier wants the two cities to concretize ideas of cooperation to connect tourism. At the same time, to create favorable conditions and optimize strengths to develop fields that both cities are interested in. In addition, the representative of Tangier city hopes that apart from the aforementioned fields, the two cities will be able to cooperate in the fields of technology, environment and sustainable development.

By the meeting, the two parties also expected that in the coming time, with the efforts of cooperation and economic development, investors from Tangier will make investment in Da Nang, to apply for investment certificate, to set up company, in order to make the most of the incentives investment in Da Nang, in order to reap its economic benefits.

LG, Panasonic or Foxconn – Apple suppliers… are planning to set up factory in Vietnam to expand investment, production chains in Vietnam after Covid-19.

According to a 6-month industrial production report by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, some of the world’s big technology corporations are planning to shift production and investment chains to Vietnam. Vietnam is facing a great opportunity to welcome this wave of investment.

Among the big names mentioned by the Ministry include: LG, Panasonic, Foxconn – Apple component suppliers… Among that, LG had transferred the entire production line from Korea to Hai Phong.

In addition to LG, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Panasonic Vietnam is also preparing to receive a production line of refrigerators and vertical door washing machines with high capacity from Thailand, in early September. Apple has also increased production of 3 – 4 million of AirPods in the second quarter, equivalent to nearly one third of its AirPods worldwide output through Foxconn.

Currently, Foxconn has a factory located in Bac Giang and proposed the Government to build 3 social housing projects in the Northern of Vietnam, next to its industrial parks with a total investment of over 7,400 billion VND.

Three Foxconn social housing projects are planned to be built in Bac Ninh, Bac Giang and Vinh Phuc. In particular, the project in Viet Yen district, Bac Giang province has the largest scale with 16.7 hectares, with an investment of 3,422 billion VND (about 150 million USD). The other two projects in Que Vo district, Bac Ninh province – scale 6.3 ha, invested 2,925 billion VND (more than 125 million USD) and in Vinh Phuc – scale 9.9 ha, invested more than 1,000 billion VND.

Vietnam’s disease control is highly regarded by the international community and is an important driving force to attract more foreign investment after Covid-19. The capital investment and expansion of production chains of multinational corporations in the electronics sector have helped the industry record a good growth in the first half of the year, though affected by the disease.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the index of industrial production of electronic products, computers and optical products in June increased by 29.3% over May and by 21.7% over the same period last year.

In the first half of the year, production of this industry increased by nearly 10% over the same period, 6% higher than the first 6 months of 2019.

In terms of export value, computers, electronic products and components reached nearly 19.3 billion USD, increase by over 24%; phones and accessories of about 21.5 billion USD. It is expected that in the last 6 months of the year, the electronics industry will still be greatly affected by the complicated disease situation which is likely to reduce the demand for electronic products in the US and European markets.

Samsung’s global sales and output are forecast to decline due to the overall impact of the epidemic on electronics in general. Samsung Vietnam is also expected to reduce its export target to about 45.5 billion USD in 2020, compared with 51.4 billion USD in 2019.

On May 12th, 2021, the representative of Da Nang city had a webinar with representatives of Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore on economic development, which the seminar was attended by nearly 200 companies from different industry whom are potential investors from Singapore, interested in setting up company in Vietnam.

During the seminar, the representative of Da Nang city introduced the investment and business environment, and preferential policies and investment opportunities of Da Nang city in the fields of high technology, information technology, high-quality services (health, education, logistics). The seminar received the sharing of experience when investing in Da Nang as well as the support of the city government from one of the largest Singaporean investors in Da Nang, and financial solutions when investing in Vietnam from some Singapore experts.

The representative from Singapore Business Federation highly appreciated the potential of the city’s business investment environment and proposed Da Nang city to establish the Da Nang Information Center (Da Nang Desk) located at the Vietnam Connection Center at the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) to connect Da Nang with Singapore companies.

Da Nang City is inviting Singaporean investors and businesses with financial and technological capabilities to learn about the business investment environment and cooperation opportunities in the city. The representative of Da Nang City highly appreciated the proposal to set up Da Nang Information Center in Singapore and assigned the Investment Promotion and Support Committee to propose a model, serving as a bridge to support the environment and business investment opportunities of Da Nang to Singaporean enterprises in particular and international in general; thereby further promoting the investment cooperation relationship between Da Nang and Singapore in the coming time.

Singapore is one of Vietnam’s most important trade and investment partners. In 2020, despite being affected by Covid-19, Singapore invested in 248 projects in Vietnam with a total capital of nearly 9 billion USD, making it the leading country in foreign investment in Vietnam. Accumulated to the end of 2020, Singapore is the 3rd largest foreign direct investor in Vietnam after Korea and Japan with a total of 2,629 projects and a total registered capital of more than 56.5 billion USD. In 2020, the total two-way turnover between Vietnam and Singapore reach over 6.7 billion USD, of which the export value of Vietnam’s goods will reach 3 billion USD and the import value will reach USD 3.7 billion.

Singapore is one of the key markets for investment attraction of Da Nang, currently the city has 28 Singapore FDI projects with a total registered capital of more than 838.4 million USD, ranking 2nd in the list of more than 50 countries and regions, territory, accounting for about 22% of total registered investment capital.

Da Nang City hopes that many investors from Singapore will invest in Da Nang to help the city achieve its goal of becoming the largest financial center in Vietnam. And the Singaporean investors can enjoy the best incentives from the city to get the best return on their investment from establishing company through foreign direct investment or making investment through M&A with local company. However, it is always important to undertake background check, search the reputation of the local company, local director and have full assessment on the business and financial risks in cooperating with local partners.

With the partnership with Biwase, JFE Engineering hopes to gain more orders, including projects to expand Biwase’s existing plants and construct waste treatment plants.

JFE Engineering Japan has just spent 900 million yen (8.6 million USD) to invest in Vietnam. The Company purchase 3.87% stake in Binh Duong Water and Environment Joint Stock Company (Biwase).

This is one of the steps of JFE Engineering to tap into the demand for water treatment facilities in Vietnam.

JFE Engineering has participated in a tender to build two wastewater treatment plants in Vietnam. Both factories use Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) capital.

According to Nikkei Asia, with the cooperation with Biwase – the unit that are operating 8 water treatment plants and one waste treatment plant in Binh Duong province, JFE Engineering hopes to have more orders, including projects to expand Biwase’s existing factories and construct waste treatment and recycling plants.

JFE Engineering plans to recruit local engineers and salespeople to increase its staff in Vietnam by 10 more per year.

JFE Engineering hopes to increase annual sales in the Vietnamese market to 10 billion yen over the next 10 years from 2 billion yen in fiscal 2019.

It is important to find and work with a capable and long-term partner to build confidence doing business in a safely and effectively way for all parties, and avoid potential risks. In order to be guaranteed their legitimate rights and interests, individuals and organizations conducting business need to have a clear understanding of their partner before cooperating, in order to start their business cooperation most effectively.

In cooperation with a partner lawfully established in Vietnam, individuals and enterprises could find out information that has been registered at the competent state agencies. Accordingly, information about the owner, legal representative, business lines, head office address, tax code, charter capital, founding shareholder, business registration certificate, corporate history of the last three to five years, the latest business registration information, etc. could be checked on the National business registration information system. The registered information is the official information, valuable to determine the authority, position and responsibility of organizations and individuals if there is a mistake in the operation.

In addition, to find out if an individual is an owner, manager or capital contributor of one or more enterprises in Vietnam, organizations and individuals can also check the information registered in the National business registration information system. If an individual owns, manages, or contribute capital to any business lawfully established in Vietnam within 3 years, it will be recorded. This is the information which helps the organization and individual to verify the truth of information provided by their partner.

In addition, information related to the protection of trademarks of enterprises that have been protected in Vietnam, enterprises and individuals can also be found on the website of NOIP before cooperating.

The information that has been registered at the competent authority, these are basic and public information, so businesses and individuals can search. However, in the course of operation, a number of enterprises have been carrying out illegal activities that are not recorded on the registered information. Therefore, fact checking or finding out at other sources of information for an enterprise is essential to avoid cooperating with a party who is not capable of doing business.

Many businesses and individuals neglect their partner information before signing contracts. During the implementation of the contract, these partners were not able to continue to perform the contract, leading to many negative impacts on the business of the business. In addition, there are partners that commit fraud, provide inaccurate information, in order to appropriate assets of businesses and individuals through the signing of sales contracts. This makes businesses and individuals take a lot of time and effort to reclaim lost assets, affecting their business.

Searching the information of the partners before cooperating is very essential when doing business in any case so that businesses and individuals can cooperate in a long term.Cooperation with a good partner can help businesses and individuals achieve economic benefits, save time and costs in business, thereby bringing the best profit for themselves.