Vietnamese diet tea

A year on since the Covid-19 pandemic first began Vietnamese are taking more control of their health and finance, driving greater interest in fitness and well-being along with insurance and retirement planning. — Photo courtesy of Manulife

HCM CITY — A year on since the Covid-19 pandemic first began Vietnamese are taking more control of their health and finance, driving greater interest in fitness and well-being along with insurance and retirement planning, as Asia looks to the longer-term impact of the disease, according to new research from Manulife.

The latest version of the ‘Manulife Asia Care Survey’ takes a closer look into customers’ concerns, priorities and aspirations, polling 4,000 people across the region who either own insurance or intend to buy it in the next six months, including around 520 in Việt Nam.

Nearly all (95 per cent) of those who worry most about Covid have made an effort on a personal level to improve their overall health, mostly through more regular exercise (58 per cent) and improved diet (54 per cent).

In Việt Nam, all the respondents said they had taken action to help them manage Covid, with 72 per cent saying this included doing more regular exercise. More people in Hà Nội (85 per cent) do more regular exercise than in HCM City (73 per cent).

Almost everyone is self-monitoring health, and Vietnamese pay the most attention to the number of steps walked (44 per cent) among the four emerging markets covered in the survey, against a regional average of 38 per cent.

Three out of five (60 per cent) of Vietnamese also own fitness wearables, well above the regional average of 46 per cent.

A large majority of Vietnamese (79 per cent) also said retirement planning has become more important since Covid-19 started, below the Philippines (90 per cent), Indonesia (88 per cent) and Malaysia (83 per cent) but higher than all the developed markets.

The regional average is 73 per cent.

This high level of interest in retirement ties in with their concerns about personal wealth.

In Việt Nam, more than half (52 per cent) thought their personal wealth would decline as a result of Covid-19. The rate was only higher in Hong Kong (58 per cent) and Singapore (55 per cent).

Aligned with taking better control of health and finance is an interest to buy new insurance.

In Việt Nam, a remarkable nine out of ten (91 per cent) said they intend to buy new insurance in the next six months, higher than anywhere else in the region. The regional average is 71 per cent.

The Vietnamese respondents were most interested in life, hospitalisation, accident and critical illness cover.

Three quarters (75 per cent) of Vietnamese respondents, again more than anywhere else in the region, said they prefer to manage their policies through digital means such as mobile apps, including for claims and payment.

The survey found that 71 per cent of them had spoken to an agent about purchasing insurance, well above the regional average of 64 per cent, with only Hong Kong (77 per cent) and mainland China (76 per cent) scoring higher.

“Vietnamese insurance customers are seeking more digital touchpoints that are safe, simple and convenient,” Sang Lee, CEO of Manulife Vietnam, said.

“While those digital habits are here for the long term, a good many still like to speak to their agents. This underscores the importance of our omnichannel approach, one that fully integrates digital, while maximising our human qualities of empathy, trust and a holistic understanding of our customers’ needs.” — VNS

Vietnamese athletics’ top-spot ambition for the upcoming regional Games is posed with significant challenges as, throughout 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hindered Vietnamese athletes from participating in any overseas training courses as well as international competitions. Entering 2021, amidst the complicated evolution of the disease, international track and field tournaments have remained halted without confirmed dates for return, while it remains unknown when the sending of athletes for overseas training will resume. On mass media, Vietnam’s athletics arch-rivals Thailand have also constantly affirmed their determination to reclaim the lost position. Given that fact, the host country of the 31 ^st SEA Games will have to exert much greater efforts if they wish to defend their regional reign.

Last year, as a result of the two COVID-19 outbreaks, Vietnamese athletics only managed to organise two official domestic tournaments, the Speed Cup (Ho Chi Minh City, June) and the National Championships (Hanoi, November). The inability to train and compete overseas significantly affected the performance of athletes. In previous years, most of the national teams chose to train abroad to improve their profession and performance. In fact, practising in the countries with advanced sport levels brings athletes greater excitement and helps them further improve themselves in terms of both psychology and fitness compared to training at home. By engaging in overseas training camps and competitions, Vietnamese athletes will be able to break their limits to reach new heights. Meanwhile, at the present time, due to the pandemic, athletes in most of the events in which Vietnam is capable of securing a Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 berth have yet to achieve the performance indicators as expected. For example, Vietnam currently ranks 17 ^th in the world regarding the 4x400m relay event and stands a chance to make the top 16 teams qualifying for the 2020 Olympics if international performance is improved in 2021. Even so, athletics is not a key sport of Vietnam in the Olympic arena and the real focus of the track and field department in 2021 is on the 31 ^st SEA Games.

Nguyen Thi Oanh breaks the 17-year-old national record in the women’s 10,000m run event at the 2020 National Athletics Championships.

Looking towards the regional Games later this year, Vietnam athletics is completely confident in realising the goal of defending its reign thanks to a team of prominent athletes, such as Le Tu Chinh, who smashed her way to five gold medals at the 2020 National Championships – with two individual titles in the 100m and 200m dash and three team gold medals in the women’s 4x100m, women’s 4x200m and mixed 4x400m disciplines, recording an especially notable time of 11.43 seconds in the 100m distance. Tu Chinh took gold in this event at the 30 ^th SEA Games with 11.54 seconds, 0.14 seconds far from her personal best (11.40 seconds). Another SEA Games 2019 champion, Nguyen Thi Oanh, also scored four gold medals at the National Championships last year and established a new national record in the women’s 10,000m run with a time of 34:08.54, breaking the 17-year-old record set by Doan Nu Truc Van in 2003 (34:48.28). In the men’s medium-distance categories, Duong Van Thai, who won eight SEA Games gold medals, was surprisingly surpassed by 20-year-old Tran Van Dang. Dang’s performance will surely create a big motivation for Duong Van Thai to exert greater efforts at the upcoming 31 ^st SEA Games.

According to experts, in order to top the 31 ^st SEA Games track and field medal tally, Vietnamese athletes will need to secure 17-19 gold medals in a total of 47 events. In the previous Games, the Vietnamese athletics team won 16 golds, four clear of Thailand and five more than that of the Philippines. Thanks to its effective control of COVID-19, Vietnamese athletics is making better preparations for this year’s Games compared to many other countries in the region which are being raged by the pandemic. From the beginning of 2021, coaches and athletes will enjoy a diet costing VND320,000 each per day during their training time at the national team level, which will increase to VND480,000 for a maximum of 90 days prior to official competition. With thorough preparations in the past year as well as in the coming time, athletics and football are the two departments which have been assigned with the biggest tasks and are the most likely to finalise the goal of winning the overall championship title at the 31 ^st SEA Games later this year.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (right) had a meeting with Nguyen Ha Dong in 2015

In 2015, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, paid a working visit to Vietnam and had a meeting with Nguyen Ha Dong, the creator of Flappy Bird, a game with a record high number of downloads. The meeting took place at a street tea shop, lasting 30 minutes.

At a later meeting with Vietnamese CEOs during the visit, he said that Vietnam had caught the attention of international businesses and that businesses need to grab the opportunity and reform themselves continuously.

During the one-hour talk, the CEO stressed that the way to success is to focus on the domestic market. Succeeding there first will allow Vietnam’s businesses to reach out to the international market.

Saul Singer, the author of “Start-Up Nation”, told the press during a visit to HCM City, that the city was filled with an entrepreneurial atmosphere.

He said people were doing certain types of business on every sidewalk, at every corner, and on every street.

Nguyen Tuan Anh, former CEO of Grab Vietnam, has mentioned how the idea about Grabbike, a motorbike ride-hailing service, came to him.

“In 2015, I saw the flow of motorbikes trailing each day into the city (HCMC) center, about half of them had empty seats behind. I believe that it is wasteful if one person uses a motorbike. This causes traffic jams. Why don’t I develop Grabbike after developing GrabCar,” he said.

Some startups focus too much on spending money to lure more users and expand market share, while forgetting to make money. This leads to financial problems. A startup that is good at spending money but bad at making money is compared to an ‘addict’ who has to sell shares to raise funds.

Grabbike has been developing well beyond expectations. Almost everyone owns a motorbike and they can become Grabbike drivers to earn money. This is an opportunity for students who want to earn extra money, or unemployed workers. Just one year after Grabbike was launched, the project had attracted tens of thousands of drivers in Hanoi and HCMC.

Many traditional taxi motorbike drivers have also become Grabbike partners because they can get more work and earn more money.

For Nguyen Hoang Trung, the founder and CEO of Lozi, developed a platform that allows people to easily find eatery houses online.

Trung said he could grab the great opportunity as there was no such app at that moment.

Lozi, a platform ranking restaurants, eateries and food, was launched, followed by Loship, a company specializing in providing e-commerce services and delivering goods within one hour.

“When running Lozi, we realized that establishing Loship was inevitable. Startups need to advance forward and improve instead of staying in the same place,” Trung explained.

According to Trung, when starting up, most founders tend to focus on creating products with high quality and believe that only good products will attract customers.

However, it is necessary to understand customers first and then create products that can help solve their problems.

He said entrepreneurs need to be ready to change and adapt to new circumstances. They need to set up targets, observe the market, embrace opportunities, and make quick decisions when necessary.

Startup founders also need to work hard with no day off. Once you take a rest, rivals will surpass you.

Pursuing philosophy of street rice vendors

Nguyen Huu An, the Vietnam Startup Wheel 2018 Champion, once thought that to start a business, one needed to have good ideas, attract many users, and call for large capital.

But now he thinks more simply. Setting oneself up in business means providing good services, solutions, and products to customers; paying full salaries to workers; and making a profit and developing companies.

Some startups focus too much on spending money to lure more users and expand market share, while forgetting to make money. This leads to financial problems. A startup that is good at spending money but bad at making money is compared to an ‘addict’ who has to sell shares to raise funds.

An believes these startups are vulnerable during Covid-19. When they use up all the money from previous fundraising rounds, they will have to try to call for new capital. Meanwhile, it is more difficult to call for capital during the pandemic. Once they cannot find new capital sources, they will die.

“I find some startups are even worse than female steamed glutinous rice sellers,” he said.

A seller spends 10 dong to make steamed glutinous rice and she collects at least 11 dong from the rice sale so as to have money and continue making the rice for sale the following days.

But many startups take losses continuously and many have disappeared.

“While many startups have had to leave the market, the steamed glutinous rice seller is still prosperous. I think her know-how is delicious glutinous rice and positive cash flow,” he said.

The 2020 E-Conomy SEA Report reported that VNPay has officially become the second Vietnamese technology unicorn, or startup valued at $1 billion or higher. The first one is VNG. The country aims to have five unicorns by 2025 and 10 by 2030.

Thu Ky