Business Beat
HCM City will collect fees for industrial waste water discharge; or more accurately, it will levy a fee on all businesses who do not meet environmental protection standards. The fee rises in proportion with the amount of waste water produced and its toxicity. one local newspaper calculated that a pig farm with 5,000 pigs with a monthly discharge of 7,500cu.m will have to pay VND2.1 million. A textile company with a monthly waste water discharge of 36,000cu.m will have to add VND4.6 million into their production costs. The fees will be collected every six months.The scheme is expected to be enacted next year after the city presents the issue to the year-end meeting of the people’s council. People hope the money collected will help clean up the environment. More importantly, businesses have to make a choice: either pay dearly for polluting the environment, or invest in a waste water treatment system of their own.
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Two major newspapers in HCM City suddenly found out to their frustration that their names have been usurped, at least in cyberspace. Both Tuoi Tre and Thanh Nien have announced that www.tuoitre.com and www.baothanhnien.com are not their creations, despite the fact that cyber squatters use their mastheads on the top of the sites. Most Vietnamese companies have had their names stolen on the Internet and some have been offered a chance to buy back their domain names. Thanh Nien says it won’t be blackmailed, and confirms that it will use a ".vn" suffix if it goes online.
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Last week, the ownership of the Sai Gon Timepiece Enterprise was officially transferred to its 27-strong workforce. This is the first time in HCM City that a State-owned factory has been handed over to its workers, as part of a drive to diversify SOE ownership. Equitisation is the most common form, as reassignment of ownership is complicated.
The enterprise was valued at VND4.26 billion; VND1.4 billion in State-owned assets was divided into 14,080 shares distributed among the workers according to seniority. The most senior worker was given 1,480 shares; the worker with the least seniority was given 40 shares. Of course, the assignment comes with certain responsibility and restrictions. Although they are entitled to dividends, the workers cannot sell their shares in the first three years and after this period, share sales are subject to a 30 per cent repayment of initial value to the State.
Workers have to make a pledge not to lease, sell or dissolve the enterprise for at least the next three years. They also have to promise not to sell, lease or use the most valuable assets in any other business deals not related to their industry.
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Life insurance companies have the highest number of turnovers in terms of agents, or "insurance consultants." Just one-third newly recruited agents survive longer than a year, while the rest quit after persuading a few friends and relatives to sign up. This situation has given birth to the phenomenon of "orphaned contracts." These are contracts negotiated by agents who have quit, leaving their clients out in the cold. Of course, insurance companies assign the contracts to another consultant or a specialised department, but clients complain they receive no added value services as promised.
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Advertisers who want to post their ads on local websites will have to get permission from the Ministry of Culture and Information if a draft regulation prepared by the ministry gets the go-ahead. The requirement is part of a draft decree regulating the implementation of the Advertising Ordinance. This requirement could hamper the development of good websites in Viet Nam. Just a few websites here attract advertisers and developers have to spend big to achieve and maintain interest. They look to advertisers as a means to recoup their investment, but the proposed regulations might upset their plans. Last week, Business Beat also reported that local businesses that want to frequently update their websites must also obtain a licence.
According to the latest regulations posted on the Internet, the Ministry of Culture and Information requires organisations and businesses to obtain a licence before they can post information online or create a website. Out of some 2,500 websites in Viet Nam, only 50 have got some sort of licence from the ministry. Websites run by individuals do not need a licence.
VNS
