Opportunities for Vietnamese firms in Cambodia, Myanmar

Mr. Meach Yady, chief of agricultural marketing at the Cambodian Department of Planning and Statistics, said his country had invested a lot in agriculture but the sector had not developed commensurately.

He was speaking at a meeting held recently in HCM City to introduce the International Exhibition and Conference on Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture, Fisheries for Cambodia and Myanmar.

Cambodia imported large quantities of fisheries products, animal feed, fruits and vegetables, dairy and other agricultural products from Vietnam, he said.

“There is great potential for investment in the agricultural and agri-business sectors. The Government is modernising logistics and infrastructure and streamlining the process to facilitate business processes.”

Vietnamese firms could invest in growing rice, cassava, maize, mung beans, vegetables, rubber, livestock and fisheries, he said.

Businesses could invest in expanding fragrant rice cultivation or rice milling targeting niche and specific markets and in the rice seed industry.

Besides, investment to produce quality inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides to increase productivity was also necessary because farmers complained about the poor quality of imported inputs and possibly fraudulent labelling by unreliable suppliers, he added.

He called on Vietnamese firms to invest in vegetable production and processing as his country imported large volumes from Vietnam.

Investment in harvesting equipment and post-harvest processes was required to reduce losses during harvest and transportation.

Many Vietnamese firms have invested in Cambodia, mostly in rubber, cassava and sugarcane, and his country wanted them to invest in more sectors, he said.

Mr. U Hnin Oo, Vice President of the Myanmar Fishery Federation, said his country wanted to boost exports of fisheries, but few of its processing facilities met EU markets.

Since Vietnam was strong in fisheries exports, his country wanted to co-operate with Vietnamese firms, he said.

Besides fisheries, livestock breeding also offered investment opportunities for Vietnamese investors, he added.

According to the Myanmar Livestock Federation, with a population of around 54.5 million and increasing income, Myanmar offers opportunities in livestock and animal feed production.

Investment in livestock production could be 100 percent foreign invested or joint ventures with local individuals or relevant Government departments or organisations.The divestment of the two subsidiaries is a must, according to FPT chairman Truong Gia Binh, as FPT targets to be a pure ICT group with rapid and sustainable growth, while many investors have expected the group to part with the trading and retail units.

The group’s trading and retail units recorded a negative growth rate with its revenue and pre-tax profit falling 9 percent and 25 percent to 23 trillion VND (1 billion USD) and 544 billion VND, respectively.

The reason for the decline in FPT’s trading and retail segment mainly came from the fall of mobile phone distribution business. Distributing iPhone products brought FPT a yearly profit of 300 billion VND between 2013 and 2015, but the profit fell 90 percent to only 34 billion VND in 2016.

The US-based tech giant Apple changed its distribution policy for Vietnam’s market by allowing local retailers such as Mobile World to directly import iPhone models.

In 2016, Microsoft, another technology company, eliminated its Lumia smart phones and relevant services, forcing FPT to cut prices for Lumia products and reduce its stockpiles of those products.

"The company will not hold the controlling stakes in the two subsidiaries after the divestments are complete," Mr. Binh said.

"The income from the divestment deal will be recorded in FPT’s earnings report after 2017," he added.

FPT planned to offload parts of its ownership in FPT Trading and FPT Retail as a whole in 2016, however, the plan did not work out as the group failed to negotiate with buyers.

Mr. Binh said that the company was amending the divestment plan. The new plan, which would separate the sale of FPT Trading from that of FPT Retail, has drawn attention from some investors.

Regarding the future of FPT Telecom, Mr. Binh said that the group might increase its stake in FPT Telecom in case the Government sells its stake in the company but the future remains uncertain.

At the annual shareholder meeting, shareholders approved the group’s plan to pay a 20 percent dividend in cash for 2016’s performance. Half of the dividend was paid in August 2016, the other will be paid in the second quarter of 2017.

Shareholders also approved the plan to pay a 20 percent dividend in cash for 2017’s performance.

In 2016, FPT recorded a combined revenue of 40.54 trillion VND, equal to the previous year’s number, and a pre-tax profit of 3 trillion VND, a yearly increase of 6 percent.

For 2017, FPT targets combined revenue of 46.6 trillion VND, a yearly increase of 15 percent from 2016, and pre-tax profit of 3.4 trillion VND, a year-on-year rise of 13 percent.

In 2017, FPT will focus its resources on the telecommunication business and penetrating the 4G market.

FPT is listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) under code FPT. The company’s shares on March 31 went up 0.4 percent to close at 47,300 VND per share.