Read more!
วันเสาร์ที่ 3 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2553
Crunch time in corruption fight
Former Hong Kong anti-graft chief Tony Kwok Man-wai at a workshop in Phnom Penh earlier this week. (Photo Supplied)Friday, 02 April 2010
Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post
KEY PROVISIONSONE month after passing its long-awaited Anticorruption Law, Cambodia is entering a make-or-break period in its fight against corruption, a veteran Hong Kong corruption fighter said this week, and the first year after the law comes into effect will be significant in determining the legislation’s ultimate success.
Law on Anticorruption
- Article 4: Exempts from prosecution any gift given “in accordance with custom or tradition”.
- Article 11: Chairman and vice-chairman of the Anticorruption Unit (ACU) to be appointed by the prime minister.
- Article 36: Empowers the ACU to punish “illicit enrichment”, the unexplained increase in an individual’s wealth.
- Article 39: Any person leaking confidential information about corruption can be punished with up to five years’ jail.
- Article 41: Complaints lodged with the ACU that lead to “useless inquiry” carry up to six months’ jail or 10 million riels in fines.
Under the law, set to come into effect in November, two new bodies will be tasked with fighting the Kingdom’s endemic levels of corruption: a National Anticorruption Commission (NAC), which will guide the country’s anti-graft policies, and an Anticorruption Unit (ACU), based at the Council of Ministers, which will carry out day-to-day investigations.
Tony Kwok Man-wai, the former deputy commissioner of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), said that Cambodia lies “at the crossroads” in its fight against graft.
“From my experience, it is most important that the ACU can have a good start for the first few months of this operation,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “This is a time when the public will be behind it. The government and the ACU should take advantage of the public support.”
Kwok, who served at the ICAC for 27 years and oversaw Hong Kong’s transition from a place of “womb to tomb” corruption to what he now calls one of the “cleanest societies” in Asia, said the first year of operation will be critical for both bodies.
“If they fail to get a good start, it will cause a lot of disappointment and the public will probably become even more cynical than before. It will be very difficult for the government and the ACU to get the proper amount of support they need again,” he said.
The law has already been criticised by some experts, who say it is merely a watered-down version of a draft formulated in 2006. According to a briefing paper on the new law put together by international corruption experts last month, a copy of which was obtained by the Post, changes to the 2006 draft included the removal of key provisions, resulting in an “overall narrowing effect” on the scope of the law. In particular, the briefing paper says an entire chapter – dealing with “large-scale specific actions” aimed at creating a “culture of intolerance” towards corruption – was removed from the 2006 draft.
Among its provisions, the redacted chapter called for the development of a “corruption-free personnel recruitment system for government”, as well as the development of a code of ethics for civil servants based on international standards. In addition, it called for the reform of election financing and greater transparency in public administration. It also recommended that a large-scale anticorruption education campaign be conducted in the country’s schools and universities. None of these provisions appear in the version of the law that was passed last month.
Other experts say the law contains provisions that are either too broad or too vaguely defined. Article 4 of the law bans the giving of gifts – as well as loans, fees, rewards or commissions – in exchange for favours, but exempts any gift that is given “in accordance with custom and tradition”.
Leslie Holmes, a professor of political science at the University of Melbourne who specialises in comparative corruption, said the wording of the article gives much leeway to the authorities.
“Few states now would accept the vague notion of ‘in accordance with custom or tradition’ – it’s far too obviously open to abuse,” he said.
He added that although many countries eschew the strict no-gift provisions adopted by Hong Kong’s ICAC in the 1970s, an increasing number have set explicit values for the gifts that are acceptable – permitting, for example, one US$100 gift per source per year. No defined value limits are listed in the final version of the Cambodian law.
The paper also raises concerns about what international experts perceive as weak whistle-blower protections, saying Article 13 of the law – which states that the ACU will maintain the confidentiality of its sources – is “a vague statement … not a robust protection of rights”.
The law also introduces a new offence (Article 41) that carries fines and jail terms of up to six months for “defamation or disinformation complaints on corruption lodged with the Anti-corruption Unit or judges, which lead to useless inquiry”.
Alan Doig, a corruption expert at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Bangkok, said that although such laws exist in other countries, most draw a distinction between malicious and well-intentioned reports.
“As it stands ... most reporting persons will not know where their allegations might lead [and] will be put off by such draconian sanctions,” he said by email.
Holmes described Article 41 as “much more clearly a disincentive to blow the whistle” than exists in most other countries, but added that giving whistle-blowers total anonymity could create a flood of ill-intentioned allegations. “There’s no easy solution to this one,” he said.
Officials at the Council of Ministers directed questions about the new law to Om Yentieng, chairman of the government-run Committee of Human Rights, who said he was too busy to speak Thursday. Sar Sambath, who has been appointed to sit on the ACU, could also not be reached for comment.
A matter of trust
Despite criticisms about specific articles, Kwok said the new law was sufficient to fight corruption – he described the inclusion of provisions about illicit enrichment (Article 36) as “particularly commendable” – provided it is backed up by the necessary resources and professionalism on the part of the ACU.
“Resources are clearly inadequate,” he said, noting that the 80 staff members earmarked so far for the ACU is far less than the 1,300 deployed in Hong Kong, which has half Cambodia’s population. He also said that although he was struck by the enthusiasm of the young officials he met at workshops last week, they lacked much-needed experience.
“They probably need a lot more professional training and resources,” he said, adding that best practice, based on Hong Kong’s ICAC, is for anticorruption budgets to be pegged at around 0.33 percent of the national budget. Most countries in the region, he added, devote around 0.01 percent.
The government “should demonstrate its political will by giving them a lot more resources”, he said.
Doig said it was unclear whether the new institutions would have the capacity to deal with the wide range of crimes listed in the law, from petty street crimes to high-level graft.
“Such an agency has to be a strategic decision, given the levels of resources and expertise it may consume,” he said, adding that the failure to think through priorities, sequence and timing, can “overload a new agency and certainly compromise its organisational confidence and maturity”.
Ultimately, however, Kwok said the law’s success will hinge not on specific articles but on whether the public believes in and supports the system.
“We should not be too concerned with this nitty-gritty, because the whole system is based on trust,” he said. “We should not criticise them before they’ve even started – we should give them a chance.”
Read more!
24 hours ... with a charcoal seller - Slide Show and Video by Nicolas Axelrod (Part 2 of 2)
24 heures avec un marchand de charbon (2/2)
Uploaded by CambodgeSoir. - Up-to-the minute news videos.
02 April 2010
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
With his trailer filled, Seun Te, a villager from Kampong Speu, travels to the neighboring cities to sell his fuel. This is a hard job that he does not like too much, but that allows him to provide for his family's needs. The multimedia show is produced by Photographer Nicolas Axelrod.
Read more!
Father searches for truth
Sam Bith (Photo: Reuters)
Chhouk RinApril 3, 2010
SEBASTIAN STRANGIO
The Age (Australia)
Off a dusty track in Trapeang Chranieng village lies a half-finished Buddhist pagoda, its unpainted walls still exposed to the mid-afternoon sun. Like many across Cambodia, the new building - as well as a nearby shrine, built in 2007 - is dedicated to the spirits of those killed in the village while it was under the control of Khmer Rouge insurgents in the 1990s.
Now a small hamlet of thatch houses, there is little to hint at Trapeang Chranieng's tumultuous past. As a Khmer Rouge camp - part of the armed group's Phnom Voar (''Vine Mountain'') stronghold - the village was the last home of Melburnian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, three tourists kidnapped when Khmer Rouge troops ambushed a Sihanoukville-bound train on July 26, 1994, killing 13 Cambodians.
Despite heated negotiations with Cambodian government officials to secure their release, the three were killed in early September as Phnom Voar came under fierce attack from government troops. When soldiers finally overran the area the following month, the bludgeoned bodies of the three men were found in a shallow grave at the foot of the hill.
At one hut, a former Khmer Rouge women's cadre recalled the "handsome" foreign men who arrived at the camp in July 1994. "When they came they were afraid at first, but after they [became at ease with] me, they always spent time with me and we talked a lot, even though I didn't understand what they said," said Keo Gnov, who cooked for the hostages during their six-week stay.
Upon their arrival, she said, Wilson, Slater and Braquet did not take well to the rice-based Khmer diet, but were able to survive on potatoes, sugar cane and coconuts that she foraged for them. The 63-year-old, now bent by years of back-breaking rural labour, giggled like a young woman when recalling an incident during their first days at the camp, when the captives scandalised local villagers by showering naked in the open. The three quickly learned to wear a cotton krama.
Although the captives were confined to the camp, they were not mistreated, Keo Gnov said, and they were largely free to walk about as they pleased. But her bright eyes dimmed when she recalled the government's frequent artillery offensives on the area, when the mood of the hostages fluctuated between relative relaxation and fear for their lives.
"When the Cambodian government soldiers opened fire, they put their arms around me and we hid in the trenches together, and at night we slept together in that wooded house," she said. "I loved them as my sons, and I saw that they loved me as their mother."
Keo Gnov said she was moved out of the area as the government forces intensified their assault on Phnom Voar and heard only several months later that the hostages had been killed. "I shed many tears when I got the news that they were killed. I wanted to help in their release, but I couldn't because the area was surrounded by Khmer Rouge and government soldiers," she said.
Fifteen years after the 1994 hostage affair, the Victorian Coroner's Court is preparing to reopen its inquest into Wilson's killing - adjourned in 2007 - after the delivery of a case file by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The "secret" file is believed to include hundreds of documents and diplomatic cables detailing the Australian government's day-by-day response to the crisis.
Alastair Gaisford, who was consul at the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh at the time of the kidnappings, says the file shows Canberra had foreknowledge of the Cambodian military's planned attack against Phnom Voar beginning in August 1994, but "did nothing" to stop it.
In an article published in The Age on February 8, he described the David Wilson case as a "a total failure" of the government's hostage policy. In particular, he said that then foreign minister Gareth Evans, who enjoyed a close personal friendship with senior Cambodian officials, particularly with co-prime ministers Norodom Ranarridh and Hun Sen, ignored the embassy's advice that he should travel to Cambodia in an effort to immediately ensure a halt to the offensive. "The Australian government already knew and approved of a Cambodian government plan for full-scale attack on the hostage mountain, which would place their lives in danger, only a week later," he wrote.
Gaisford said in an interview last month that the government-led negotiations - which were successful in negotiating the three captives' release in exchange for $US150,000 cash - crumbled under the government's subsequent military offensive. As a result, he said, two agreed releases scheduled for August 19 and 26 were aborted and led directly to the killing of the hostages at dawn on September 8.
Gaisford also cited the March 31 kidnapping of US national Melissa Himes, also by Khmer Rouge troops at Phnom Vour, as an example of the positive outcome that could have been reached in Wilson's case. After her kidnapping, then US ambassador to Cambodia, Charles "Chuck" Twining, put immediate pressure on the Cambodian government not to attack the mountain, threatening a withdrawal of promised military aid if they did not comply. Following negotiations with Family Health International, the non-government organisation that had employed her, Himes was released on May 10 for one truckload of food and building supplies costing only $US5000. All this happened, Gaisford said, despite the $US50,000 ransom payment demanded by General Nuon Paet, the head of the Phnom Voar base and commander of Khmer Rouge Division 405, for Himes' release - the same amount that would be demanded for Wilson, Slater and Braquet.
Not much remains today of the Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Voar. After the stronghold was overrun in late 1994, the remaining troops turned in their weapons and descended to the surrounding plains, returning to rural life. Chamkar Bay village, set inland from the palm-swept shores of the Gulf of Thailand, is today populated with former cadres who have taken a new turn as farmers, vendors, local government officials and cultivators of the famed Kampot pepper vine. Prak Sothy, 63, a former Khmer Rouge commander who once bore the nom de guerre Chum Nuong, still retains shades of the idealistic young man who took up then Prince Norodom Sihanouk's call to join the Khmer Rouge resistance in the mid-1970s. Dressed in a baggy military shirt and torn green trousers, Prak Sothy's former leadership role has secured him a prominent place in the community. Following the arrest in 1999 of General Nuon Paet for the killing of the hostages - and the subsequent arrest of his subordinates, Colonel Chhouk Rin and General Sam Bith - he is now the highest-ranking former cadre still living in the village.
During an interview at his home in Chamkar Bay last month, Prak Sothy confirmed that the Cambodian government's three-month siege of Phnom Voar divided the local Khmer Rouge leadership and led to the sudden, unplanned killing of the three hostages. He recalled first hearing of the killings when he arrived at the camp early in the morning after returning from the front line.
His said his wife told him that Angkar, as the Khmer Rouge "organisation" was known, had taken them to "a higher level" before she heard three shots to the west of the village. Prak Sothy, now a commune councillor, said he later learned that Nuon Paet had been in favour of a ransom exchange, but that two low-level officers - whom he identified only as Vorn and Bon - were angered by the attack and decided to execute the hostages themselves. Vorn and Bon were subsequently shot on Nuon Paet's orders, he said, for having sacrificed the $150,000 ransom payments.
You Yi, another former Khmer Rouge soldier living in Chamkar Bay, agreed that the three hostages were killed as a result of the intensifying government offensive on Phnom Voar. He added, however, that a dubious middleman had also contributed to the hostages' death by grossly misrepresenting ransom demands to their Khmer Rouge captors. "They wanted to cheat the Khmer Rouge soldiers. The victims' families agreed to give us $50,000 for each of the hostages, but [the middleman] told the Khmer Rouge soldiers the figure was only $7000. When they found out the real price, with the situation destabilised by the Cambodian government attack, they were killed," he said.
Last month, lawyers for Colonel Rin, the former regimental commander in Division 405, said their client would soon seek a royal pardon for his role in the killings, on the grounds of ill health. Both men said they sympathised with Chhouk Rin, who was handed a life sentence in 2002 for leading the train ambush that netted Wilson, Slater and Braquet.
"Chhouk Rin only arrested the three of them; he did not kill them. After he joined with the government he tried to negotiate their release," said Prak Sothy. While his efforts came too late to save the hostages, Prak Sothy said Chhouk Rin should be released as a token of goodwill.
As the government in Victoria prepares to reconvene its inquest after a three-year hiatus, Peter Wilson, David's father, expressed hopes the process might finally shed light on his son's death at Phnom Voar. Wilson said he did not level all the blame at the local Khmer Rouge; instead, pointing the finger at the political machinations of the Cambodian and Australian governments. "Politically, the Australian government was not willing to go in hard enough to do something about Hun Sen."
Despite 15 years of trying to obtain documents through freedom-of-information laws, he said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was still withholding large sections of the Wilson case file. "They don't want it to come out for many reasons - some maybe are justifiable, but others could be just to protect themselves from what they failed to do."
But following a February request from the Coroner's Court for 157 pages of top-secret documents to be released by the government, he said the full story may now be told. "It's the truth that we want," Wilson said. "David and his friends could have been saved."
Sebastian Strangio is a journalist on The Phnom Penh Post.
Now a small hamlet of thatch houses, there is little to hint at Trapeang Chranieng's tumultuous past. As a Khmer Rouge camp - part of the armed group's Phnom Voar (''Vine Mountain'') stronghold - the village was the last home of Melburnian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, three tourists kidnapped when Khmer Rouge troops ambushed a Sihanoukville-bound train on July 26, 1994, killing 13 Cambodians.
Despite heated negotiations with Cambodian government officials to secure their release, the three were killed in early September as Phnom Voar came under fierce attack from government troops. When soldiers finally overran the area the following month, the bludgeoned bodies of the three men were found in a shallow grave at the foot of the hill.
At one hut, a former Khmer Rouge women's cadre recalled the "handsome" foreign men who arrived at the camp in July 1994. "When they came they were afraid at first, but after they [became at ease with] me, they always spent time with me and we talked a lot, even though I didn't understand what they said," said Keo Gnov, who cooked for the hostages during their six-week stay.
Upon their arrival, she said, Wilson, Slater and Braquet did not take well to the rice-based Khmer diet, but were able to survive on potatoes, sugar cane and coconuts that she foraged for them. The 63-year-old, now bent by years of back-breaking rural labour, giggled like a young woman when recalling an incident during their first days at the camp, when the captives scandalised local villagers by showering naked in the open. The three quickly learned to wear a cotton krama.
Although the captives were confined to the camp, they were not mistreated, Keo Gnov said, and they were largely free to walk about as they pleased. But her bright eyes dimmed when she recalled the government's frequent artillery offensives on the area, when the mood of the hostages fluctuated between relative relaxation and fear for their lives.
"When the Cambodian government soldiers opened fire, they put their arms around me and we hid in the trenches together, and at night we slept together in that wooded house," she said. "I loved them as my sons, and I saw that they loved me as their mother."
Keo Gnov said she was moved out of the area as the government forces intensified their assault on Phnom Voar and heard only several months later that the hostages had been killed. "I shed many tears when I got the news that they were killed. I wanted to help in their release, but I couldn't because the area was surrounded by Khmer Rouge and government soldiers," she said.
Fifteen years after the 1994 hostage affair, the Victorian Coroner's Court is preparing to reopen its inquest into Wilson's killing - adjourned in 2007 - after the delivery of a case file by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The "secret" file is believed to include hundreds of documents and diplomatic cables detailing the Australian government's day-by-day response to the crisis.
Alastair Gaisford, who was consul at the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh at the time of the kidnappings, says the file shows Canberra had foreknowledge of the Cambodian military's planned attack against Phnom Voar beginning in August 1994, but "did nothing" to stop it.
In an article published in The Age on February 8, he described the David Wilson case as a "a total failure" of the government's hostage policy. In particular, he said that then foreign minister Gareth Evans, who enjoyed a close personal friendship with senior Cambodian officials, particularly with co-prime ministers Norodom Ranarridh and Hun Sen, ignored the embassy's advice that he should travel to Cambodia in an effort to immediately ensure a halt to the offensive. "The Australian government already knew and approved of a Cambodian government plan for full-scale attack on the hostage mountain, which would place their lives in danger, only a week later," he wrote.
Gaisford said in an interview last month that the government-led negotiations - which were successful in negotiating the three captives' release in exchange for $US150,000 cash - crumbled under the government's subsequent military offensive. As a result, he said, two agreed releases scheduled for August 19 and 26 were aborted and led directly to the killing of the hostages at dawn on September 8.
Gaisford also cited the March 31 kidnapping of US national Melissa Himes, also by Khmer Rouge troops at Phnom Vour, as an example of the positive outcome that could have been reached in Wilson's case. After her kidnapping, then US ambassador to Cambodia, Charles "Chuck" Twining, put immediate pressure on the Cambodian government not to attack the mountain, threatening a withdrawal of promised military aid if they did not comply. Following negotiations with Family Health International, the non-government organisation that had employed her, Himes was released on May 10 for one truckload of food and building supplies costing only $US5000. All this happened, Gaisford said, despite the $US50,000 ransom payment demanded by General Nuon Paet, the head of the Phnom Voar base and commander of Khmer Rouge Division 405, for Himes' release - the same amount that would be demanded for Wilson, Slater and Braquet.
Not much remains today of the Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Voar. After the stronghold was overrun in late 1994, the remaining troops turned in their weapons and descended to the surrounding plains, returning to rural life. Chamkar Bay village, set inland from the palm-swept shores of the Gulf of Thailand, is today populated with former cadres who have taken a new turn as farmers, vendors, local government officials and cultivators of the famed Kampot pepper vine. Prak Sothy, 63, a former Khmer Rouge commander who once bore the nom de guerre Chum Nuong, still retains shades of the idealistic young man who took up then Prince Norodom Sihanouk's call to join the Khmer Rouge resistance in the mid-1970s. Dressed in a baggy military shirt and torn green trousers, Prak Sothy's former leadership role has secured him a prominent place in the community. Following the arrest in 1999 of General Nuon Paet for the killing of the hostages - and the subsequent arrest of his subordinates, Colonel Chhouk Rin and General Sam Bith - he is now the highest-ranking former cadre still living in the village.
During an interview at his home in Chamkar Bay last month, Prak Sothy confirmed that the Cambodian government's three-month siege of Phnom Voar divided the local Khmer Rouge leadership and led to the sudden, unplanned killing of the three hostages. He recalled first hearing of the killings when he arrived at the camp early in the morning after returning from the front line.
His said his wife told him that Angkar, as the Khmer Rouge "organisation" was known, had taken them to "a higher level" before she heard three shots to the west of the village. Prak Sothy, now a commune councillor, said he later learned that Nuon Paet had been in favour of a ransom exchange, but that two low-level officers - whom he identified only as Vorn and Bon - were angered by the attack and decided to execute the hostages themselves. Vorn and Bon were subsequently shot on Nuon Paet's orders, he said, for having sacrificed the $150,000 ransom payments.
You Yi, another former Khmer Rouge soldier living in Chamkar Bay, agreed that the three hostages were killed as a result of the intensifying government offensive on Phnom Voar. He added, however, that a dubious middleman had also contributed to the hostages' death by grossly misrepresenting ransom demands to their Khmer Rouge captors. "They wanted to cheat the Khmer Rouge soldiers. The victims' families agreed to give us $50,000 for each of the hostages, but [the middleman] told the Khmer Rouge soldiers the figure was only $7000. When they found out the real price, with the situation destabilised by the Cambodian government attack, they were killed," he said.
Last month, lawyers for Colonel Rin, the former regimental commander in Division 405, said their client would soon seek a royal pardon for his role in the killings, on the grounds of ill health. Both men said they sympathised with Chhouk Rin, who was handed a life sentence in 2002 for leading the train ambush that netted Wilson, Slater and Braquet.
"Chhouk Rin only arrested the three of them; he did not kill them. After he joined with the government he tried to negotiate their release," said Prak Sothy. While his efforts came too late to save the hostages, Prak Sothy said Chhouk Rin should be released as a token of goodwill.
As the government in Victoria prepares to reconvene its inquest after a three-year hiatus, Peter Wilson, David's father, expressed hopes the process might finally shed light on his son's death at Phnom Voar. Wilson said he did not level all the blame at the local Khmer Rouge; instead, pointing the finger at the political machinations of the Cambodian and Australian governments. "Politically, the Australian government was not willing to go in hard enough to do something about Hun Sen."
Despite 15 years of trying to obtain documents through freedom-of-information laws, he said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was still withholding large sections of the Wilson case file. "They don't want it to come out for many reasons - some maybe are justifiable, but others could be just to protect themselves from what they failed to do."
But following a February request from the Coroner's Court for 157 pages of top-secret documents to be released by the government, he said the full story may now be told. "It's the truth that we want," Wilson said. "David and his friends could have been saved."
Sebastian Strangio is a journalist on The Phnom Penh Post.
Read more!
Billionaire's private jet a symbol for Vietnam's emerging entrepreneurs
April 3, 2010
Bloomberg
There is still money to be made in one of Asia's fastest growing economies, write Yoolim Lee and Beth Thomas.
Nguyen Thanh Trung brings Vietnam's only privately owned plane level at 24,000 feet over the Central Highlands towns of Pleiku and Dalat before swinging right and bringing the eight-seat Beechcraft King Air 350 in for a smooth landing at Ho Chi Minh City airport.
Trung is familiar with the landscape: 35 years ago he was a Vietcong agent and fighter pilot who recalls dropping two bombs on the headquarters of the American-aligned southern regime in the city then known as Saigon, one of the last skirmishes before the end of his country's civil war.
Today Trung, 62, is on a mission that symbolises his country's transformation: he is the personal pilot for Doan Nguyen Duc, an entrepreneur who is one of Vietnam's richest men.
Duc, 46, estimates his empire, which includes the country's biggest listed property company, gave him a personal wealth of 28.4 trillion dong ($1.63 billion) at the end of last year. Trung says: ''Duc owning a private jet is very good for Vietnam's economy; it shows that Vietnamese people can also be successful like businessmen in other countries. This is a time for dynamic entrepreneurs.''
But foreign investors in Vietnam are experiencing a bumpier ride than Duc and his pilot are. Indochina Capital Advisors last year decided to liquidate a London-listed Vietnam equity fund that had lost 50 per cent of its value. In November the San Francisco-based hedge fund company Passport Capital demanded the return of uninvested cash from a fund that had bought Vietnamese and Cambodian property.
The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange's benchmark VN Index, Asia's best performer in 2006, plunged 66 per cent in 2008 as inflation followed by global recession destroyed confidence in Vietnamese investments. The index rose 57 per cent last year. It was up 2.1 per cent this year eight days ago.
Investors who have the stomach to stay in Vietnam are quietly bullish. It is possible to make money in this land of 86 million people provided you are willing to ignore the market froth, says Mark Mobius, the chairman of Templeton Asset Management, which had $24 million invested in Vietnam in February.
''Investors should see the real value of specific investments without being driven by pure sentiment,'' he says. ''The private sector continues to grow and has become more important to the development of the economy.''
That new realism follows a decade of unbridled enthusiasm for Vietnam. After the shift to a more market-oriented economy in 1986, foreign direct investment commitments in Vietnam went from zero to$60.3 billion by 2008, almost three times Vietnam's foreign exchange reserves at the end of that year.
Gross domestic product grew 7.2 per cent a year on average from 2000 to 2009, making Vietnam the fastest growing economy in Asia after China and Cambodia, according to the International Monetary Fund. The government forecasts GDP growth of 6.5 per cent this year.
''Vietnam was viewed as the final frontier of Asia,'' says Son Nam Nguyen, the managing partner of Vietnam Capital Partners. He advised global investors on more than $30 billion in financing as the former head of Citigroup Inc's investment bank in Vietnam. ''No one wanted to miss out on the next China.''
However, some investors grew tired of the roller coaster. Shareholders of the Indochina Capital Vietnam equity fund voted to shut it down in September after its net asset value had plunged to $243 million by June 30, from $500 million in March 2007.
Passport Capital, which held a 13 per cent stake in the property fund JSM Indochina Capital, won the backing of shareholders to replace three of the directors of the London-listed fund and begin the return of uninvested cash.
From its inception in June 2007 JSM Indochina, listed on London's Alternative Investment Market, had fallen 70 per cent by November 18 2008.
''Historically, because of bad experiences with inflation and currency depreciation, people are very quick to lose confidence,'' says Manu Bhaskaran, a Singapore-based partner and the head of economic research at Centennial Group Holdings, which provides advice on emerging markets.
Duc, the tycoon with the private plane, has become a symbol of Vietnam's emerging class of Western-style entrepreneurs.
When he bought the Beechcraft there was no luxury-goods tax on such purchases. He has since ordered an $18 million Embraer Legacy 500 jet from Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica that will be delivered in 2012.
This time Duc will have to pay a $5.4 million new levy on the deal.
''They had to set the tax level for private jets after I bought the jet,'' he says with a smile.
With that, Duc departs for the war-era Rex Hotel in central Ho Chi Minh City, where Vietnam's most prominent capitalist keeps a suite in the building that was used as a US military media centre during the US fight against communism.
Nguyen Thanh Trung brings Vietnam's only privately owned plane level at 24,000 feet over the Central Highlands towns of Pleiku and Dalat before swinging right and bringing the eight-seat Beechcraft King Air 350 in for a smooth landing at Ho Chi Minh City airport.
Trung is familiar with the landscape: 35 years ago he was a Vietcong agent and fighter pilot who recalls dropping two bombs on the headquarters of the American-aligned southern regime in the city then known as Saigon, one of the last skirmishes before the end of his country's civil war.
Today Trung, 62, is on a mission that symbolises his country's transformation: he is the personal pilot for Doan Nguyen Duc, an entrepreneur who is one of Vietnam's richest men.
Duc, 46, estimates his empire, which includes the country's biggest listed property company, gave him a personal wealth of 28.4 trillion dong ($1.63 billion) at the end of last year. Trung says: ''Duc owning a private jet is very good for Vietnam's economy; it shows that Vietnamese people can also be successful like businessmen in other countries. This is a time for dynamic entrepreneurs.''
But foreign investors in Vietnam are experiencing a bumpier ride than Duc and his pilot are. Indochina Capital Advisors last year decided to liquidate a London-listed Vietnam equity fund that had lost 50 per cent of its value. In November the San Francisco-based hedge fund company Passport Capital demanded the return of uninvested cash from a fund that had bought Vietnamese and Cambodian property.
The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange's benchmark VN Index, Asia's best performer in 2006, plunged 66 per cent in 2008 as inflation followed by global recession destroyed confidence in Vietnamese investments. The index rose 57 per cent last year. It was up 2.1 per cent this year eight days ago.
Investors who have the stomach to stay in Vietnam are quietly bullish. It is possible to make money in this land of 86 million people provided you are willing to ignore the market froth, says Mark Mobius, the chairman of Templeton Asset Management, which had $24 million invested in Vietnam in February.
''Investors should see the real value of specific investments without being driven by pure sentiment,'' he says. ''The private sector continues to grow and has become more important to the development of the economy.''
That new realism follows a decade of unbridled enthusiasm for Vietnam. After the shift to a more market-oriented economy in 1986, foreign direct investment commitments in Vietnam went from zero to$60.3 billion by 2008, almost three times Vietnam's foreign exchange reserves at the end of that year.
Gross domestic product grew 7.2 per cent a year on average from 2000 to 2009, making Vietnam the fastest growing economy in Asia after China and Cambodia, according to the International Monetary Fund. The government forecasts GDP growth of 6.5 per cent this year.
''Vietnam was viewed as the final frontier of Asia,'' says Son Nam Nguyen, the managing partner of Vietnam Capital Partners. He advised global investors on more than $30 billion in financing as the former head of Citigroup Inc's investment bank in Vietnam. ''No one wanted to miss out on the next China.''
However, some investors grew tired of the roller coaster. Shareholders of the Indochina Capital Vietnam equity fund voted to shut it down in September after its net asset value had plunged to $243 million by June 30, from $500 million in March 2007.
Passport Capital, which held a 13 per cent stake in the property fund JSM Indochina Capital, won the backing of shareholders to replace three of the directors of the London-listed fund and begin the return of uninvested cash.
From its inception in June 2007 JSM Indochina, listed on London's Alternative Investment Market, had fallen 70 per cent by November 18 2008.
''Historically, because of bad experiences with inflation and currency depreciation, people are very quick to lose confidence,'' says Manu Bhaskaran, a Singapore-based partner and the head of economic research at Centennial Group Holdings, which provides advice on emerging markets.
Duc, the tycoon with the private plane, has become a symbol of Vietnam's emerging class of Western-style entrepreneurs.
When he bought the Beechcraft there was no luxury-goods tax on such purchases. He has since ordered an $18 million Embraer Legacy 500 jet from Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica that will be delivered in 2012.
This time Duc will have to pay a $5.4 million new levy on the deal.
''They had to set the tax level for private jets after I bought the jet,'' he says with a smile.
With that, Duc departs for the war-era Rex Hotel in central Ho Chi Minh City, where Vietnam's most prominent capitalist keeps a suite in the building that was used as a US military media centre during the US fight against communism.
Read more!
Traffic Deaths Doubled in Five Years: Officials
(Photo: DAP news)By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
02 April 2010
Cambodia’s economy lost nearly $250 million to traffic accidents in 2009, officials said Friday, calling traffic fatalities a second “disaster” behind HIV and AIDs.
More than 1,700 people died in road accidents in 2009, a number twice as high as five years ago, Toch Chan Kosal, secretary of state for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, told reporters Friday.
The number of total reported accidents last year was 21,519, killing 1,717 people and seriously injuring another 7,022, he said, releasing study figures.
Handicap International said the accidents cost Cambodia $248 million.
“The lost money is a greater amount than we had guessed, as the Cambodian government is working hard to reduce poverty,” Toch Chan Kosal said. “We have not reduced the effects of traffic accidents.”
“The number of deaths in traffic accidents continues to increase, year to year, without stopping,” he said.
Accidents were caused by vehicles traveling at high speeds and limited knowledge among drivers, Jeroen Stol, president of Handicap International, said.
Statistics suggest that accidents are getting deadlier. A joint study by Handicap International and the government found that in 2008, the number of wounded fell 17 percent, but the number of fatal accidents rose 4 percent.
However, the study also showed that the number of accidents measured per 10,000 vehicles was decreasing, from 15.1 in 2008 to 12.3 in 2009. The government has established a national policy to reduce the numbers of accidents, victims and deaths and is aiming for a target of 7 deaths per 10,000 vehicles this year.
Nearly 80 percent of head injuries belonged to motorcycle drivers, and about 90 percent of all accidents were caused by drivers violating speed limits, drunk driving or illegally passing.
More than 1,700 people died in road accidents in 2009, a number twice as high as five years ago, Toch Chan Kosal, secretary of state for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, told reporters Friday.
The number of total reported accidents last year was 21,519, killing 1,717 people and seriously injuring another 7,022, he said, releasing study figures.
Handicap International said the accidents cost Cambodia $248 million.
“The lost money is a greater amount than we had guessed, as the Cambodian government is working hard to reduce poverty,” Toch Chan Kosal said. “We have not reduced the effects of traffic accidents.”
“The number of deaths in traffic accidents continues to increase, year to year, without stopping,” he said.
Accidents were caused by vehicles traveling at high speeds and limited knowledge among drivers, Jeroen Stol, president of Handicap International, said.
Statistics suggest that accidents are getting deadlier. A joint study by Handicap International and the government found that in 2008, the number of wounded fell 17 percent, but the number of fatal accidents rose 4 percent.
However, the study also showed that the number of accidents measured per 10,000 vehicles was decreasing, from 15.1 in 2008 to 12.3 in 2009. The government has established a national policy to reduce the numbers of accidents, victims and deaths and is aiming for a target of 7 deaths per 10,000 vehicles this year.
Nearly 80 percent of head injuries belonged to motorcycle drivers, and about 90 percent of all accidents were caused by drivers violating speed limits, drunk driving or illegally passing.
Read more!
Collision between a Cambodia-flag cargo ship and a S.Korean fishing boat searching missing sailors
S.Korea Navy loses contact with fishing boat searching missing sailors
SEOUL, April 2 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Coast Guard lost contact late Friday with a fishing boat conducting search operation for missing sailors of a sunken warship in the Yellow Sea. The Coast Guard said it was feared sunken, according to Seoul 's Yonhap News Agency.
The Coast Guard said it received a signal of distress sent by the 100-ton fishing boat at around 20:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT) .
A search and rescue mission was launched by the Coast Guard and the Navy immediately after receiving the distress call, but they have yet found the ship, reports said.
The ship, with 9 crew members onboard, might have sunken as the rescue group only spotted a belf of oil in the area, according to the Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard suspected that the boat "Kumyang 98" went down after it collided with a passing-by Cambodia-flag cargo ship, while returning from the search operation for 46 missing sailors of the Navy ship "Cheonan" that sank last Friday night near the South Korean island of Baekryeongdo off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula due to an unexplained explosion, reports said.
The Coast Guard and the Navy currently are pursuing the cargo ship.
The Coast Guard said it received a signal of distress sent by the 100-ton fishing boat at around 20:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT) .
A search and rescue mission was launched by the Coast Guard and the Navy immediately after receiving the distress call, but they have yet found the ship, reports said.
The ship, with 9 crew members onboard, might have sunken as the rescue group only spotted a belf of oil in the area, according to the Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard suspected that the boat "Kumyang 98" went down after it collided with a passing-by Cambodia-flag cargo ship, while returning from the search operation for 46 missing sailors of the Navy ship "Cheonan" that sank last Friday night near the South Korean island of Baekryeongdo off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula due to an unexplained explosion, reports said.
The Coast Guard and the Navy currently are pursuing the cargo ship.
Read more!
สมัครสมาชิก:
บทความ (Atom)