Business Beat
Two important recent decisions by the Ministry of Health are sure to create ripples in the advertising industry.First, the ministry has decided to prohibit ads using endorsements from medical associations, which means pharmaceutical advertisements can no longer resort to hyperbole like "recommended by such and such medical society."
The ban extends to the use of medical symbols, exhibition awards and, importantly, inconclusive medical research results in ads.
The decision has also been made to ban the use of gifts to influence doctors, an unethical practice of pharmaceutical companies to persuade them to prescribe certain medicines.
However, people point out that the latter will be hard to monitor.
In a related development, HCM City has decided to ban the use of hoardings for advertising, for at least six months, from July 20. The city’s streets have always been full of hoardings, 80 per cent of them without permits, many of them continuing to hang for months after the end of a campaign, till they wither away.
This has almost made the ban a fait accompli for restoring some kind of order in this area considering the layer after layer of these hoardings in some street corners.
***
Despite its recent battering against other major currencies like the euro and yen, the dollar remains the foreign currency of choice in Viet Nam.
According to a survey by the State Bank in Ha Noi of jewellery and motorbike shops, 92 per cent of them accepted the greenback regularly with more than half having over 10 such transactions a day.
The use of dollars is predominant in housing and big-ticket transactions with the trend in recent years being one of individuals preferring dollars and businesses refraining from relying too much on them. Observers say that the underground economy, which accounts for a significant part of the national economy, is greased by dollars.
So while the world is concerned with the dollar losing ground against the euro, people say this provides a good chance for Viet Nam to adjust the value of the dong, which is some 25-30 per cent overvalued.
The poor export performance in the first six months prompts such thinking after the dong shed a mere 1.26 per cent in the period against the dollar. In its latest report, the State Bank has said that such low depreciation does nothing for the export of major items like rice, coffee, crude oil, fisheries, garments and footwear.
However, one can be certain of this: despite its performance elsewhere, the greenback will continue its gradual appreciation against the dong.
***
The Viet Nam Computerworld Expo in HCM City provides an opportunity for hardware and software vendors to showcase their products.
However, despite the high awareness among local companies about the good things information technology can do to their business, they are at a loss as to where to start.
When they come to the so-called corporate solutions providers, what they get are recommendations of hardware and software to use. In fact, most solutions providers rely on selling hardware to make a quick buck and the more they can sell, the bigger their profits.
It is no wonder then that businesses usually face this headache – the system that they have just spent huge money to install, is declared obsolete by other IT companies.
The need for independent consultants who can pinpoint the IT needs of businesses and provide feasible solutions is huge. one can envisage that soon, the most successful IT companies will, therefore, not be hardware or software vendors. They will be those offering independent consultancy without bias, and with a knowledge of both information technology and the world of business.
Vietnam News
