Day: July 22, 2023

Many people are still trapped by online scams despite warnings from authorised agencies.

H., an accountant of a State-owned agency, said she received a message from her sister-in-law earlier this month on Facebook telling her to quickly transfer 5 million VND (211 USD).

She called to check the situation but couldn’t hear her sister-in-law clearly. She still transferred the money.

Her sister-in-law then informed her friends on Facebook that the account was hacked and the perpetrator had tried to scam people by asking to borrow money.

P.T.N in Ba Vi district of Hanoi got a call from a person claiming to be a police officer, informing her that she had violated the law and she must transfer money to serve the investigation.

After hearing the threats of the person, she followed the instructions and went to Agribank’s Ba Vi branch, to withdraw all her savings of 260 million VND (11,030 USD) to transfer to the person. Fortunately, the bank suspected wrongdoing and informed the police.

L. K., of Ho Chi Minh City, told Vietnamnet that he received a message from his close friend asking him to transfer 30 million VND (1,270 USD).

Although his friend just posted a status of the results of a football match a few minutes ago, K. still called him to make sure the message was legitimate.

When the call connected, he saw his friend on video who said “I’m listening.” K. felt secure and transferred the money.

The next day, when the friend posted on his Facebook that account was hacked, K. knew he was a victim of scammers.

Online scams on the rise

Statistics from the Authority of Information Security revealed that in the first six months of this year, online fraud in Vietnam increased by 64.78% over the same period last year and 37.82% compared to the last six months of last year.

The report focussed on 24 types of scams prevalent in Vietnam, including brand impersonation, account hacks and other combinations, the authority said.

According to Tran Quang Hung, acting deputy director of the authority, fraudsters have taken advantage of modern technologies to create sophisticated and effective fraud systems that are difficult to identify.

Groups of people that are often scammed include the elderly, children, students, and low-income workers, who have lower ability to recognise signs and acts of fraud.

Online scammers are not only located in Vietnam, but also in other countries. The rings of scammers in foreign countries also include Vietnamese.

Hung said that recently the authority discovered that fraudsters not only used one application but also used 195 different applications to trick people into installing online tax payment applications to perform online public services with tax incentives, then they will scam to get bank account numbers of users, and steal money from them.

Solutions

According to the authority, in addition to applying technology to prevent online scams, another important thing is to promote communication and dissemination of online scams to as many people as possible.

“When each citizen knows how to identify forms of fraud, they will be more vigilant,” Hung said.

Therefore, the ministry launched the campaign “Action month to disseminate identification and prevention of online fraud” between June 23 and July 23, he said.

The campaign had been widely covered in the media and on social networks to provide adequate information about online fraud to people, through video clips of popular online scams, guidance on identifying 24 types of scams, and providing a set of manuals to help citizens protect themselves and their families in cyberspace.

Recently, many people had informed relevant State agencies about forms of online fraud. It helped the agencies detect and promptly disseminate knowledge about online fraud to other people, thereby preventing online scams, he said./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The People’s Council of central Da Nang city has approved free schooling for students from kindergarten to high school in the 2023-2024 academic year with a budget of 408 billion VND (16.3 million USD).

The decision was ratified at the council’s working session earlier this week, making it the only city in Vietnam to offer free education for all students this year.

It’s the third year the central city has applied subsidies to fund education, with the goal being to ease the financial burden caused by COVID-19 in 2020-2022.

The city’s People’s Council said free education would apply to all state-owned and private schools in the city, but not to foreign-invested ones.

Each student had to pay a monthly school fee from 50,000 to 300,000 VND in previous years, but they will be offered a nine-month term free for the 2023-2024 school year.

The city’s budget will provide 316 billion VND for state-owned schools and 92 billion VND for private schools.

The central city was also the first in Vietnam to hold a pilot project on caring for babies from six to 18 months at 21 public kindergartens as preparation for the city’s social-security master plan for 2020-2025.

A number of foreign-invested kindergartens are operating in the city providing services for expats and those looking for international curriculums.

The city, in cooperation with the American Half the Sky Foundation, opened the One Sky kindergarten at the Hoa Khanh Industrial Zone, the first care centre and kindergarten for children aged from six months to six years.

The Japanese JP Holdings Group also operated the Japanese-led COHAS Da Nang, or Smile School, for children ages one to six, while Leave a Nest, an education organisation from Japan, with the Self Wing Vietnam Company, launched a project on nature research and education for students at secondary schools in the city.

At the meeting, Da Nang authorities also proposed a fund of 670 billion VND to upgrade the March 29 Park, which has long been polluted, in 2023-2026.

The park will be designed as a core green zone in the plan for a smart city by 2030./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Vietnamese Consulate General in Pakse city in Champasak province of Laos, in collaboration with the Vietnamese Association in the province, organised activities on July 20-21 to show gratitude for families of invalids, martyrs and those who rendered service to the revolution.

This was an activity held annually by the Consulate General on the occasion of the War Invalids and Martyrs’ Day (July 27).

Visiting and giving gifts to 23 families in Paksong district and Pakse city, representatives of the Consulate General expressed deep gratitude for the sacrifices and losses of invalids, martyrs and those rendering service to the nation; and at the same time affirmed that the Vietnamese Party and State always remember their sacrifices.

Representatives of the families said that they will maintain their contributions to Vietnam’s national building and development cause, and to nurturing the two countries’ relations./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Pre-tax profit growth of the whole banking industry will decelerate in 2023 and there will be a significant difference in the growth between small- and large-sized banks, experts forecast.

The Securities Joint Stock Company of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (VCBS) forecast the industry’s pre-tax profit in 2023 will grow by only about 10%, much lower than the rate of nearly 35% last year.

Besides, VCBS believed there would be a difference in profit prospects among different groups of banks and this difference would continue to be stronger in 2024. Specifically, some small-sized banks would continue to decelerate or even grow negatively in 2024 if the real estate market and the global macro situation deteriorate, which could cause credit to slow and the debt repayment ability of borrowers difficult to recover while the Government’s supporting policies expire.

Similarly, the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Joint Stock Company (HSC) forecast the average profit of a group of banks that HSC was studying would increase by only 12-15% in 2023. However, in the last six months of 2023 alone, HSC expected the bank group’s profits to increase by more than 20% over the same period last year.

According to VCBS, one of the main reasons for this deceleration comes from the difficulties of banks in recovering bad debts due to the frozen real estate market. Real estate is the main collateral for most loans of banks.

According to Pham Nhu Anh, General Director of Military Bank (MB), in the last six months of 2023 and 2024, the real estate market is expected to face many difficulties and pose potential risks. Many real estate projects are still in the process of completing legal procedures or have not completed construction and handed over apartments to homebuyers as planned. At the same time, the declining confidence of homebuyers continues to directly affect the demand for loans, the compliance with payment commitments under purchase and sale contracts with investors and loan repayment commitments with banks.

The above difficulties are forecast to directly affect the stability of the real estate market and a number of related industries such as iron and steel, building materials and construction. The uncertainty would reduce the credit quality of the banking industry, Anh said.

However, VCBS expected the bad debt ratio and provisioning level of banks would not increase dramatically in 2023 thanks to the Government’s Decree No 08/2023/ND-CP supporting the extension of corporate bonds and Circular No 02/2023/TT-NHNN allowing the restructuring of outstanding loans.

By 2024, VCBS forecast the risk of bad debt might increase again and there would be a divergence. Specifically, the group of banks with good asset quality would record bad debt and debt restructuring at a moderate level. In contrast, banks with a high proportion of loans to real estate and corporate bonds, and low coverage of bad debts might face rising bad debt risks and provision pressure in 2024.

Besides, VCBS also pointed out another factor affecting the business results of the whole banking industry. It was the decrease in non-interest income in most of the main activities of banks such as services and securities investment, over the same period last year.

In particular, income from bancassurance, which accounted for about 30% of banks’ service income, was affected by the decrease in people’s income and the inspection strengthening of the State management agencies, VCBS said, adding after the first four months of this year, new revenue through the bancassurance channel of the whole market recorded a decrease of 38% over the same period last year and the profit from insurance premiums for the whole year was forecast to decrease by 10-15%./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Indonesian Government is actively pursuing membership in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as part of its ambition to become a high-income country, according to Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto.

Airlangga pointed out that Indonesia has been a key partner of OECD for a significant period, benefiting from the organisation’s support in improving the quality of government policies and regulations. The country regularly receives OECD’s policy reviews and dissemination of global policies and best business practices.

According to the minister, Indonesia’s eligibility for OECD membership has been enhanced by its regaining of upper-middle-income status post the COVID-19 pandemic and its successful hosting of the G20 Summit last year.

The Indonesian government has launched a vision aiming to achieve high-income nation status by 2045.

Currently, Japan and the Republic of Korea are the only Asian members of the organisation./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has revealed a plan to boost its revenue from foreign tourists and the “Thais Travelling in Thailand” campaign.

As part of the recently announced “Direction for Promoting the Tourism Market in 2023”, the authority aims to gain 1.92 trillion THB (nearly 55 billion USD) from 35 million foreign tourists and another 1.08 trillion THB from the “Thais Travelling in Thailand” campaign that targets 200 million local trips.

TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the agency hopes to generate 3 trillion THB in income this year, much like the amount generated in 2019 before the outbreak of COVID-19.

However, if the international market only recovers to 94% of the pre-pandemic level, TAT will have to stimulate the domestic market to achieve its target of 3 trillion THB in revenue.

The tourism sector is currently facing several challenges, such as the global economic recession, inflation, rising interest rates, the Russia – Ukraine conflict, high oil prices leading to expensive airfares, and most importantly, international flights having resumed only 70%.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand estimates that international flight numbers will recover a bit more in the fourth quarter of 2024 and should return to 100% in 2025, Yuthasak said.

TAT estimates Thailand can expect 25.8 million foreigners to take short-haul fights next year, including 12.48 million tourists from East Asia, 10.51 million from ASEAN countries, 2.1 million from South Asia, and 787,000 from Oceania.

Meanwhile, the Southeast Asian country is expected to draw 9.2 million visitors from long-haul markets like Europe, Africa, Central and North America./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency