Interest rates

After Da Nang reopened public beaches and allowed restaurants and catering services to serve customers on the spot on June 9, many luxury resorts and hotels in the districts of Hai Chau, Bac My Phu and Ngu Hanh Son, home to long, sandy beaches, started offering room rate discounts from 35 to 75 percent to lure more tourists to the city.

On online booking platforms like Agoda and Booking, room rates at five-star Muong Thanh Luxury Hotel on Vo Nguyen Giap District near My Khe Beach were reduced by 60 percent to VND860,000 ($37.47) per night, while the cost at four-star Sala Da Nang Beach hotel in Son Tra District is now VND550,000 per room.

Rates at four-star A La Carte Da Nang Beach hotel in Son Tra District cost from VND696,000 a night and at the five-star Hilton Danang hotel in Hai Chau District VND1.3 million.

Five-star Furama Resort Danang in Vo Nguyen Giap District is offering discounts of up to 88 percent for all types of rooms, with two-bedroom pool villas costing only VND5.2 million a night, said to be the cheapest in the past six months.

Naman Retreat Resort in Ngu Hanh Son District has the lowest room rate at VND2.5 million a night while four-star Melia Resort also offers a discount of up to 64 percent with room rates starting from VND1.6 million a night.

Hotels in the lower segment or homestay facilities have also followed the trend, offering discounts of up to 70 percent with prices ranging from VND300,000-500,000 a night.

Khanh Quynh, who specializes in selling combo packages, said due to the complicated pandemic situation in many localities, especially Ho Chi Minh City, the demand for room bookings in Da Nang is not very high.

Cao Tri Dung, chairman of Da Nang Tourism Association, told VnExpress International that based on statistics from travel companies and businesses, about 20-30 percent of visitors have canceled their tours to the city since the country’s new outbreak resurfaced in late April.

During the ongoing coronavirus wave, Da Nang has recorded 158 domestic infections, prompting city authorities to shut down public beaches and suspend non-essential services on May 3.

Infectiologist explains possibility of Covid-19 illness after full vaccination

However, according to the infectious disease specialist, vaccination is of great important strategy in the fight against coronavirus pandemic.

By Thanh An – Translated by Anh Quan

Pham Chi Nhu, co-founder and CEO of Coolmate

Established in February 2019, the Coolmate startup specialises in selling “Made in Vietnam” apparel products directly to end-users. The startup aims to generate VND139 billion ($6 million) in revenue in 2021 after posting a revenue of VND39 billion ($1.7 million) last year.

STIC Investment is an investment fund based in Korea that manages nearly $1.4 billion in capital and has invested in more than 450 companies in Asia. STIC Investment is an early investor of Tiki, Grab, and Jo2Yoy. Prior to Coolmate, STIC has most recently poured $2 million in EcoTruck, a logistics startup.

Coolmate will use the fresh funds to develop its key areas of operation, including expanding its product portfolio to serve the demand for men’s clothing and focus on materials to bring unique experiences to customers. Also, it will invest in technology to take autonomy of its sales, operation, and customer care.

Part of the fund will be invested in human resources to improve team capacity. Meanwhile, it will expand new business models such as Print-on-Demand and Subscription packages.

In 2020, Coolmate secured seed round investment from 500 Startups Vietnam.

The representative of Coolmate said that at the time of the pre-A round its revenue has exceeded last year’s results. The startup also maintains a growth rate of 15-20 per cent per month and aims to stage an initial public offering in 2025.

By Thanh Van

When the state divested capital from Sabeco, many Vietnamese enterprises wanted to acquire it, but no Vietnamese corporation qualified to enter the final list.

Small and weak

Human resources of private enterprises are also weak. Many managers of Vietnamese private enterprises only graduated from high school, started a business career from a household or moved up as an employee in state-owned enterprises.

According to a recent survey by the VCCI, up to 55.63% of the bosses of small and medium businesses have an intermediate or lower level of education. As for the workforce, up to 75% have not received any technical or professional training.

Regarding the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), according to a survey, up to 70% of small and medium enterprises in the EU said they would benefit immediately, while 30% said they would benefit from this agreement after 3-5 years. For Vietnam, small and medium-sized businesses face the risk of not catching up with this opportunity.

Experts say that the business environment in Vietnam is still unfavorable. The most pressing issue is discrimination. According to a recent VCCI survey, 39.5% of private enterprises said that local officials still prioritize attracting foreign investment and state-owned enterprises rather than developing the private sector.

According to VCCI, barriers to the development of private enterprises include the legal burden, access to finance and land, lack of transparency, and informal costs. These factors have improved year by year, but have not really contributed to creating international-scale enterprises.

Today, in developed countries, the private sector often contributes over 85% of GDP, which is the foundation to ensure the strong development of the economy. Any rich and powerful country has a team of powerful entrepreneurs and businesses. It is the leading corporations and private companies in industrialized countries that play the leading role in turning the country into economic powers.

According to experts, to become a developed country by 2045, Vietnam’s minimum income per capita must reach at least $20,000 per year. With a current per capita income of about $3,000/year, Vietnam must achieve a GDP growth rate of 7.5-8% per year for the next 25 consecutive years. This goal cannot be realized without the important contributions of private enterprises.

Experts also said that it is necessary to further reform the business environment to reach a fair treatment between private and FDI enterprises and state-owned enterprises.

Implementing transparent and effective policies; supporting the development of small and medium enterprises, expanding market participation and promoting fair competition; supporting innovation, technology modernization and human resource development … are extremely important solutions, to create a team of strong private enterprises. Then, Vietnam can become a developed country by 2045.

Tran Thuy

Hanoimoi’s Weekend interviews architect Doan Ky Thanh, who is one of Hanoi Creative City’s founders.

Architect Doan Ky Thanh.

How do you assess the creative industry in Vietnam?

The creative industry has prevailed in the world for a long time, while in Vietnam this concept is still quite new. In fact, the creative industry is not something that is far away. What people imagine is turned into a product through their hands. It is creative industry.

But to be creative it is necessary to create an environment for creativity to grow and develop. That environment requires transparency in intellectual property rights. Certain creators must be protected for the products they create. That is the motivation to encourage and acknowledge the efforts and talent of creative people.

The creative industry has been showing its great contribution to the GDP of nations. In developed countries, the creative industry even accounts for the largest proportion. Innovative industries in countries such as Japan or Singapore contribute greatly and have high growth rates.

The creative industry only appeared in Vietnam recently. Compared to other countries in the region, we have been delayed by one step.

Recently, the Ha Noi Committee’s Commission’s for Publicity and Education organised a workshop to assess and re-examine the benefits of creative spaces in urban areas and the role of creative activities in socio-economic development.

This recognition shows the changing perception of managers about the role of creative spaces in socio-economic development and their contribution to the creative industry.

What is the most important thing for creators?

It is tolerance. In the office of Hanoi Creative City, we put the word “tolerant” at the highest level to remind our colleagues that to be creative, there must be tolerance to accept the ‘new’. Only tolerance makes people accept the difference of others. Then the difference and tolerance will be the cornerstone of creativity.

So where should we start?

The first thing that can be done right now is to create hubs that connect resources together.

The Vietnamese game Flappy Bird was very successful. To be like that people need to create, write music, graphics, sales and marketing, communications, etc. There must be a lot of capacity to be together to create a product that can convince the market.

For that, first, there must be creative hubs, infrastructure, which are hubs for people to share with each other.

This is very suitable for the knowledge economy that our country and the world are pursuing. Sharing resources, opportunities or legal issues and governance will create an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

A business that starts will cost a lot but if it joins hubs it can reduce costs and spend resources investing in innovation and development.

Hanoi should create creative hubs. It can be seen that the benefits of innovative hubs are to connect the resources that inspire society and those who inspire creativity, attract tourism, and promote trade and production.

All these are socially beneficial when people; tourists and the youth in particular enjoy and consume innovative products. It also contributes to the economy. These hubs will create many other opportunities.

What role does traditional cultural heritage play in creative hub development?

In fact, creators always consider cultural heritage as an asset, an inspiration, and a material to create from.

Selling products is just a normal business. We need to sell cultural products and sell “joy”. To sell cultural products people must know how to exploit and use culture appropriately.

So what role does the creative hub play in developing the creative industry?

The art district is a place where young people have a place to play, enjoy art and interact with artists. Hanoi does not have such art districts.

Art districts are where artists show, experiment and commercialise their art products and bring them to the public faster and more efficiently.

Hoan Kiem District seems to form a creative hub with cultural heritage spaces such as book streets, walking streets or mural streets.

In addition to creating creative spaces and cultural spaces, these creative hubs also contribute to preserving heritage spaces and developing tourism.

Hanoi used to have Zone 9. It once attracted many tourists. Tourists could watch, drinking coffee, buying some items and painting and watching artists work.

In your opinion how should we connect traditional culture to youth?

Many artists around the world and in Vietnam have done that. There needs to be creative hubs or art districts to have space for the creators show their artworks.

Young people today do not have or have very few opportunities to access and transform traditional values. They don’t see and they are not inspired to get to know and like traditional culture.

I believe that if there are spaces for artists to perform surely young people will love traditional culture. VNS

Bao Khanh