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An artist’s impression of Samsung Electronics’ research and development center in Tay Ho District, Hanoi. Photo courtesy of Samsung.

The former is expected to be completed in 2022 and employ 3,000 engineers.

The South Korean giant also has other R&D centers in Vietnam to research into mobile devices, household electrical appliances, artificial intelligence, and data analysis.

The Qualcomm R&D center opened in June last year in Hanoi with four laboratories for developing wireless technologies (4G, 5G) and camera technologies and boosting the performance of mobile device batteries. It has around 50 engineers, all of them Vietnamese.

The Samsung facility will develop smartphones for the Southeast Asian market and software for Australia, New Zealand and Europe, and serve as a 5G network testing hub.

Others have also chosen Vietnam to set up R&D centers, including ride-hailing company Grab (in HCMC), South Korean tech giant LG Electronics (Hanoi and Da Nang) and Japan’s Toshiba and Panasonic (Hanoi).

Samsung also has 11 labs in Vietnamese universities to conduct collaborative education programs and enable students to take part in research into mobile phone technologies.

Many students have gone on to become researchers at the company.

Vu Thanh Thang, vice chairman of cybersecurity firm BKAV, said the trend of tech giants setting up R&D centers in Vietnam shows the country “has the ability to take part in high value-added activities in the global value chain.”

Vietnam is now in a golden demographic period with 45 percent of its population being under 30 years of age, which is attractive to global companies, he said.

But this trend is causing difficulties to local tech companies since they have to compete with global giants to attract talent, he pointed out.

He suggested that instead they should proactively train their own R&D engineers.

The road traffic plan, with a vision extended to 2050, envisages that from 2021 to 2025, 31 new expressways with a total estimated investment of VND483.848 trillion ($20.967 billion) are placed on the anvil. These will include 14 component projects on the north-south road link.

These new expressways, built in all regions of the country, will connect with over 10 north-south expressway projects that are already being implemented, linking the Huu Nghi border gate of Lang Son Province in the north to the southernmost province of Ca Mau.

Among the 17 other expressways, five are planned in the north, three in the central and the Central Highlands regions and nine in areas around HCMC and the Mekong Delta.

Another 11 expressways are proposed for the 2026 – 2030 period.

Four of these will be in the north, three in the central and Central Highlands regions, and four in the south.

The total investment of the expressway projects planned for the 2026 – 2030 period is about VND340,620 billion ($14.760 billion).

According to the draft plan, the country will have about 5,000 km of expressways in operation by 2030.

The transport ministry has proposed to the National Assembly that the nation allocates 4-5 percent of GDP for investment in transport infrastructure for the 2021 – 2030 period.

Minister Nguyen Van The stressed at a weekend meeting that planning should focus on sustainability and the goal of connecting all provinces and cities.

Camellia Flosculora,  a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae is found at Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park in the central highlands Lâm Đồng Province by a group of Vietnamese and international scientists and researchers. — Photo courtesy of Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park

LÂM ĐỒNG — Four new species of camellia (a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae) and Begonia (a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family of Begoniaceae) – have been found in Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park in Lâm Đồng Province by a group of Vietnamese and international scientists and researchers.

Dr Lê Văn Hương, director of the park, told Việt Nam News that reports of the new four plants – including two camellia species ( Camellia Flosculora and Camellia bidoupensis ) and two begonia species ( begonia hongiaoensis and begonia lamdongiana ) – have been recently published by Phytotaxa (a botany journal); Brittonia (a peer-reviewed botanical journal) and International Camellia Society .

Camellia bidoupensis, a camellia species, is reported as a new species found at Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park. — Photo courtesy of Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park

Hương said the discoveries were thanks to the great efforts made by researchers and scientists during field surveys at the park.

He said the results once again prove the rich biodiversity of the park and the importance of international co-operation in research on finding new species.

The four new species were found at the park during field surveys by scientists from the Southern Institute of Ecology, the Đà Lạt University, the VNU University of Science, Dr Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Centre (KBCC), a non-governmental organisation for tropical plant conservation in Taiwan, and the park in the 2018-20 period.

Several new or newly recorded species were found in recent investigations in the park under the ‘Botanical survey in Lang Biang Plateau’, that helped increase the inventory of botanical diversity of Việt Nam.

At least 90 begonia species were reported in Việt Nam, and only three Begonia species had been found in Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park .

Begonia hongiaoensis (a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family of Begoniaceae) was recently reported as a new species found in Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park. Photo courtesy of Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park

It is clear that this is an underestimation because over three begonias have been recorded based on field surveys. Due to the vast land area of the forest, more new begonias could be expected once more areas within the National Park are explored botanically, reports said.

Begonia lamdongiana is a new species that was found by group of Vietnamese and international scientists and researchers in Lâm Đồng Province. — Photo courtesy of Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park

The Bidoup-Núi Bà National Park, which covers roughly 70,000 hectares, 91 per cent of which is primary forest, is rich in flora and fauna.

About 2,075 species of flora – one-sixth of Việt Nam’s total – have been found here, while 301 bird species (30 per cent of all birds in the country) have also been spotted.

Hương said the newest camellia (Polyspora huongiana), discovered in 2012 by biologists from both Việt Nam and the Royal Botanic Garden Australia, was named after him for his scientific contributions to conservation.

The park has been co-operating with the World Bank (WB), the Asia Development Bank (ADB), JICA, USAID, and the German International Co-operation Agency (GIZ) in different programmes focusing on the research and protection of flora and fauna and has supported sustainable livelihoods for ethnic groups. —VNS

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.