Declining oil prices

Portrait de Mademoiselle Phương by painter Mai Trung Thứ. Photo sothebys.com

HÀ NỘI  An oil painting on canvas entitled Portrait de Mademoiselle Phương (Portrait of Mademoiselle Phương) by painter Mai Trung Thứ has sold at an auction for the highest price paid for Vietnamese art.

Offered in the auction Beyond Legends: Modern Art Evening Sale of Sotheby’s Hong Kong, the painting was sold for a record price of US$3.1 million on Sunday.

With a guide price of $500,000, the price of the painting eventually reached $2.573 million. After taxes and fees were added, the price totalled $3.1 million.

This is more than double the previous highest valued auction sale which the painting Khỏa Thân (Nude) by Lê Phổ, which sold for $1.4 million.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Phương was painted by Mai Trung Thứ (1906-1980) in 1930, when he was an art teacher at Lycée Français de Hue (a French High School in Huế).

Mai Trung Thứ is pictured in 1964

As one of the first artists who graduated from the first course of the Fine Arts College of Indochina, or Ecole des Beaux-Art de l’Indochine, in Hà Nội he was classified as one of the four most renowned Vietnamese artists based in France, together with Lê Phổ, Vũ Cao Đàm and Lê Lưu.

His reputation was closely associated with silk paintings on the subjects of women, children and everyday life, showcasing typical Asian culture in the early 20th century. This painting, beautifully rendered in the oil medium, is exceptionally rare as the artist devoted himself to painting on silk for most of his career.

According to Sotheby’s description, “a monumental, yet remarkably tender and intimate, Mai Trung Thứ’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Phương stands as the most significant and largest painting by the artist to be offered at auction… Poignantly, the beguiling portrait also captures Mai Thứ’s deep admiration of its sitter, a noble lady rumoured to be the artist’s love interest”.

The painting was first exhibited at the Fine Arts College of Indochina in 1930, before travelling to Paris to attend the prestigious 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition, announcing the painter’s entrance into the European art world.

“Mai Thứ’s Portrait de Mademoiselle Phương is one of the most significant and recognisable masterpieces in Vietnamese art history, often likened to Lê Phổ’s L’age heaureux (The Happy Age). Capturing the lyrical and romantic qualities typical of the early oil paintings of the École’s students, both works were well-received at the 1931 Exposition,” wrote Sotheby’s on its website.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Phương was also featured in the iconic film The Scent of the Green Papaya, a Vietnamese-language film directed by Trần Anh Hùng in France in 1993.

According to Sotheby’s, the painting is from the Madame Dothi Dumonteil Collection.

Art researcher Ngô Kim Khôi said that the portrait is often called the “Mona Lisa of Việt Nam”, presented in simple colours.

“It is its simplicity that creates pure and gentle beauty that could go straight into the soul with the lightest steps. From Phương, a beauty is radiant from her sitting posture, her eyes that contain hundreds of words that she wishes to say and move viewers’ hearts. The painting’s history is just as beautiful as she was, born to step onto the stage of fame,” he said. VNS

There are more than 51,000 tons of unsalable shallots in Vinh Chau Town of Soc Trang Province. (Photo: SGGP)

Many farmers in Vinh Chau Town face difficulties because of the record low price of shallots. (Photo: SGGP)

Mr. Ma Chi Tho, Head of the Economics Department of Vinh Chau Town, said that because shallots originating from China and Thailand were sold on the market at only VND3,000 per kilogram, so domestically-grown shallots also declined. Besides, due to the complicated situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, shallots could not be exported in the past months. Previously, Vinh Chau shallots were mainly exported to China.

Mr. Thach Nua, 52, a farmer in Vinh Hai Commune in Vinh Chau Town, said that his family had planted 1.5 hectares of shallots and finished harvesting nearly a month ago. However, because the price of shallots was too low, his family had to stockpile about 60 tons of shallots to wait for the price to go up. With the current average price of VND6,000-VND9,000, farmers suffer heavy losses, with an average loss of nearly VND10 million per 1,000 square meters of shallots. Currently, the prices of seeds, fertilizers, and plant protection drugs are quite high, so the prices of shallots at the fields must be from VND15,000 per kilogram upwards for farmers to earn profits.

Not only Mr. Thach Nua’s family, but many other shallot farmers in Vinh Chau also face difficulties because of the record low price of shallots. Many families cannot afford to start a new shallot crop and do not have warehouses to store shallots, or they have to sell shallots at low prices because they must pay for fertilizers and plant protection drugs.

Mr. Ngo Hung said that besides focusing on carrying out solutions to find a market for shallots, the Party Committee of Vinh Chau Town has agreed to call for support of local officials to “rescue” shallots, contributing to helping shallot farmers to overcome the current difficult situation.

By Tuan Quang – Translated by Thanh Nha

Sharp increases in capital contributions and share purchase

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), there were 1,321 valid projects invested in by Vietnamese enterprises abroad with a total registered capital of US$20.6 billion by the end of 2019. The disbursement of the investment capital was US$9.49 billion by the end of the same year.

Vietnamese enterprises have invested in 78 countries and territories across the world with the largest investments poured into Laos, Russia, Cambodia, Venezuela, and Myanmar. Enterprises invested in 18 key industries and sectors with the biggest capital running in the oil and gas industry, accounting for 38.4% of the total offshore investment capital.

About 15.3% of the investment capital was poured into agricultural, forestry and fishery sector while 12.8% of the capital was invested in telecommunications and information technology and 7.2% of the capital went into the hydroelectricity sector.

The number of small and medium-sized projects run by the private sector has increased over the years while the number of large-scale projects run by State-owned enterprises in the areas of oil and gas exploration and extraction, telecommunications, industrial crops and hydroelectricity has fallen sharply.

The volume of investment capital transferred abroad has tended to decrease since the 2015-2017 period due to a plummet in the number of large projects.

According to the MPI, accumulated profits transferred to Vietnam from abroad was approximately US$3 billion while the profit retained for reinvestment was about US$363.4 million. Nearly 10,000 Vietnamese workers have been sent abroad to work.

In addition, Vietnamese enterprises have established a significant amount of assets abroad including factories and production facilities worth billions of US dollars. These are favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to expand their overseas investment and business activities in a context of deeper international economic integration.

Notably, investment abroad in 2019 was entirely implemented by the private sector with no projects conducted by State-owned enterprises. More and more large private corporations and domestic joint stock companies have invested in developed countries in order to expand their market and affirm their brands such as Vingroup, Vietjet, Thaco, T&T, Vinamilk, FPT, and others.

Investment forms are also diverse with an increasing number of investment projects in the form of capital contributions and share purchase in foreign enterprises.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said that there are Vietnamese enterprises that have spent US$3-5 million to buy shares of foreign enterprises that are now valued in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Major global changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a wave of mergers and acquisitions through capital contributions and share purchase at potential companies for very cheap prices. Vietnamese enterprises need to have big aspirations to participate in this market segment to accelerate the process of reaching out to the world and bringing greater value into the country.

To date, five Vietnamese enterprises have invested abroad with registered capital of over US$1 billion each including the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam), Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel), Vietnam Rubber Group, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, and Long Thanh Golf Investment and Trading JSC.

Besides these impressive achievements, there remain inadequacies including legal risks, international lawsuits and disputes, slow progress of projects, and ineffective implementation of projects, among others.

According to experts, the change in the investment tendency of Vietnamese enterprises in recent years has been market-oriented and consistent with the process of trade and investment liberalisation and international economic integration.

There is large room and great potential in international markets, thus, the most important thing for offshore investment is to perfect mechanisms and policies and create more favourable conditions for private enterprises to easily invest their resources abroad in order to transfer the profits to Vietnam. Meanwhile, enterprises need to improve their governance capacity, their ability to grasp the market and sufficiently strong cash flows.

The amended Law on Investment which will take effect on January 1, 2021 has completed policies on investment abroad regarding clear updates of cases prohibited from investment abroad, conditions accompanied with investment abroad, lending abroad, reporting the process of State management agencies related to investment abroad, the use of profits from overseas projects to contribute to other projects abroad, and others.

To prevent risks in offshore investment activities, the MPI has proposed the Government assign relevant agencies to review and evaluate investment trends abroad in the areas of real estate and the investments of foreign investors in Vietnam abroad in order to devise timely solutions to problems arising.

In addition, Vietnam should boost negotiations and early signing of investment promotion and protection agreements with countries receiving large investment from Vietnam or with Vietnam’s potential partners to create a legal framework for safe and effective investment abroad.

The masterpiece was sold at Sotheby’s Auction House in Hong Kong last Sunday, but the identity of the buyer is not known.

It had been valued at $900,000-$1.2 million. At the auction, the reserve price was $500,000, but the bids kept rising until it went past $2.5 million, and cost $3.1 million after tax and fees.

‘Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong’ by Mai Trung Thu. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.

The previous record of $1.36 million was held by Le Pho’s ‘ Young Girl With Peonies ’ last year.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong is a 135.5×71 cm oil on canvas work done in 1930, which the auction house described as “…this masterpiece, beautifully rendered in the oil medium, is exceptionally rare as the artist devoted himself to painting in silk for most of his career.

“The beguiling portrait also captures Mai Thu’s deep admiration of its sitter, a noble lady rumored to be the artist’s love interest. Encapsulating his affections for Ms. Phuong, this work is special within Mai Thu’s oeuvre, as there are only two known works painted of this subject.”

The work was first exhibited at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi in 1930 and then at the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris.

It was previously owned by Dothi Dumonteil, a Vietnamese woman who migrated to France as a child, and her husband Pierre Dumonteil, an art collector, until recently .

It appeared in the award-winning 1993 Vietnamese film, ‘The Scent of Green Papaya,’ directed by Tran Anh Hung, which went on to become Vietnam’s first ever entry for the foreign-language Oscar Award in 1994.

Thu was a famous modern art painter in the early years of the 20th century. He lived and worked most of his life in France.

Associated with silk paintings of women, children and everyday life in Vietnam, he was named along with Vu Cao Dam, Le Thi Luu and Le Pho as the four most prominent artists of the golden age of Vietnamese modern art.

Disbursement during the period also declined by 5.1% to US$11.35 billion, as shown by data as of August 20.

There were nearly 1,800 new foreign-invested projects in the January-August period, with total capital pledges of US$9.73 billion, with the largest project being a natural gas in Bac Lieu Province worth US$4 billion.

The past eight months also saw foreign investors pledge an additional US$4.87 billion to existing projects and another US$4.93 billion in capital contributions.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, exports by the foreign sector, including crude oil exports, fell by 4.5% to US$113.3 billion, accounting for 65.1% of Vietnam’s export revenue.

Their imports also dropped by 5.3% to US$90.8 billion, meaning the sector recorded a trade surplus of over US$22 billion.

Manufacturing remained the most attractive to foreign investors, receiving US$9.3 billion, followed by power generation and distribution with US$4 billion and property trading with US$2.87 billion.

Singapore, the Republic of Korea and China were the three largest investors with respective capital pledges of US$6.54 billion, US$2.97 billion and US$1.75 billion.

With the natural gas project, Bac Lieu Province was the largest FDI recipient during the first eight months of 2020, followed by Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which received US$2.86 billion and US$2.62 billion, respectively.