Samsung aims to sell 1 mln Galaxy Tabs by year's end

South Korea's Samsung Electronics launched its tablet computer in the domestic market and said it aims to sell more than a million of the Galaxy Tabs worldwide by the end of this year.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics launched its tablet computer in the domestic market and said it aims to sell more than a million of the Galaxy Tabs worldwide by the end of this year.

J.K. Shin, president of the company's mobile business, on Thursday said the firm plans to offer the Galaxy Tab in various sizes next year as it scrambles to challenge Apple's iPad in the rapidly-growing tablet PC market.

"We have received a very good market response in countries in Southeast Asia and Europe.... I estimate we will be able to sell more than a million units worldwide by the end of this year," Shin told reporters.

The Galaxy Tab has a seven-inch (18-centimetre) touch screen -- smaller than the iPad's nearly 10-inch display -- and will be available for South Korean consumers next week via SK Telecom, the country's largest wireless operator.

"You can literally use it by holding it in one hand or put it into the inside pocket of your suit," Shin said, putting the device into his pocket during a press conference.

The Galaxy Tab will make its debut in Korea before the iPad -- the iPad's sole distributor KT Corp has said it plans to launch the device locally later this month.

Samsung Electronics has already introduced its first tablet computer in countries like Germany and the United States after Apple rolled out its iPad internationally in January.

The Galaxy Tab, powered by Google's Android software and featuring cameras front and back, can make phone and video calls, while the iPad has no camera or built-in phone.

The new device also allows users to access websites based on Adobe System's Flash, unlike Apple, which blocks the widely-used multimedia platform on its devices.

Global computer and handset makers have scurried to respond to the roaring success of Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Tablet PCs feature bigger screens than smartphones and have no keyboards, instead employing touch screens or stylus pens.

The global tablet PC market is expected to expand to 30 million units next year from 13 million this year, according to industry data.

Samsung is also competing with Apple in the smartphone market. It launched its Galaxy S model domestically in June, seven months after Apple's iPhone hit South Korea.

Shin said the company aims to sell over 20 million Galaxy S units globally this year and to double that next year.

Vietnamese products make a foray in rural market

The announcement of a Vietnamese product distribution map in Tra Vinh is seen as a drastic change in plans by businesses producing high quality Vietnamese products to corner the rural market.

After finalising the first phase of 50 trade fairs to promote high-quality Vietnamese products in rural areas, the Business Support Analyst (BSA) Centre in HCM City has worked together with local agencies to implement the second phase by drawing a distribution map for Vietnamese products.

The BSA and the High-Quality Vietnamese Product Business Association held a fair to bring Vietnamese products to rural areas in Cang Long district, Tra Vinh province from October 15-17.

This fair was first launched by the BSA in each locality to gain accurate market information, then the BSA collaborated with the provincial Department of Industry and Trade and the Industrial Promotion Centre to survey the actual market situation of 250 retail outlets and agents in eight provincial administrative units. It also surveyed 410 local people in Tra Vinh City and the three districts of Tra Cu, Chau Thanh and Duyen Hai as well as 500 people from rural households in Tra Vinh province.

All data collected from the survey was analysed by market experts to draw a distribution map to bring quality Vietnamese goods to rural areas in Cang Long.

A Vietnamese product festival was held recently in Cang Long district with a variety of activities and progarmmes to present gifts to the poor, train small traders in sales skills, guide farmers on the proper use of fertiliser and provide free medical treatment and for local people.

On the occasion, the BSA officially announced the product distribution map in Tra Vinh as a useful tool for businesses and managers.

The survey results show that only 15 percent of people always buy Vietnamese products while 24 percent never do and 61 percent buy them occasionally. Many people say they like to buy quality products at reasonable prices. 34 percent of consumers like Vietnamese products because of the prices and 24 percent think that they are high quality, while 50 percent prefer imported products because of high quality and 10 percent buy them out of habit.

BSA director Vu Kim Hanh said that the distribution map for Vietnamese products makes it possible for Vietnamese consumers to have a free choice of goods on sale.

It is based on the results of research about retailers, origins of imported products, favourite Vietnamese products, supply of Vietnamese and imported goods, and information about distribution networks, inflows of products, storage systems, evaluations of specific markets and advice for businesses hoping to penetrate the markets.

Supporting businesses to expand markets

“Bringing Vietnamese products to rural areas” and creating “a product distribution map in Tra Vinh” are important parts of the plan for Vietnamese companies being afoot to conquer the rural market. The project aims to provide essential information and advice for businesses to develop solid network and help them learn about how to distribute Vietnamese products properly in different localities, Ms Hanh said.

She added that the important goal of bringing Vietnamese products to rural areas is to approach rural consumers, not just sell products. Businesses need to know rural consumer taste and purchasing power in order to improve quality of products and services and maintain a foothold in the rural markets. This is the most effective way that’s worth a try.

The map is just 1/63 of a national map of the distribution of high quality Vietnamese products. It cannot represent all domestic products, production and trading. The State should create an overall distribution map of Vietnamese products as a standard tool for economic growth.

Dairy industry held captive by import reliance

Vietnam’s dairy market is dominated by imported products. The development of dairy farming in the country has been slow and lags behind consumption growth, an official said.

Vietnam’s dairy market is dominated by imported products.

The situation of having both raw materials and finished products provided by international suppliers makes it difficult to control prices of dairy products in the domestic market, experts say.

Do Kim Tuyen, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Plan and Finance Division, told Thanh Nien Weekly that Vietnamese dairy producers had been trying to gain a larger part of the pie for many years, but had only managed the current 20 percent.

Tuyen said it was difficult for Vietnamese producers to find suppliers of raw materials in the country after investing in increased capacity to meet growing demand.

The development of dairy farming in the country has been slow and lags behind consumption growth, he said.

Raf Somers, chief technical advisor of the Vietnam Belgium Dairy Project, said the retail price of liquid milk in Vietnam was the top of the world with the highest at US$1.4 per liter last year. The 2.8-million euro project, financed by the Belgian government, aimed to improve dairy farming in Vietnam. It ended in February.

About 115,000 cows were raised in Vietnam last year, yielding 280,000 tons of milk in a country with a population of 86 million people. Tuyen compared this with the Netherlands, which has a population of more than 16 million people, raising five million cows.

Vietnam’s per capita milk consumption is estimated at 15 kilograms compared to the Asian average of 35 kilograms, according to the ministry. The United Nation’s Food Agriculture Organization says that globally, the annual consumption of milk is around 102.6 kilograms per person.

This shows the very high potential for dairy producers in Vietnam, said Jan Bles, managing director of FrieslandCampina Vietnam.

Bles said the market was growing but it was not easy for dairy firms to increase their capacity if they depended only on local suppliers for raw materials.

He said the firm has to supply its factories with 75 percent of imported materials. What the firm worried most about was the quality of milk that it collected directly from Vietnamese farms, which are mainly small-sized, not using advanced, more hygienic farming techniques, he said.

30-40 percent

FrieslandCampina, formerly known as Dutch Lady in Vietnam, is the first foreign investor in the country’s dairy industry in the last 15 years. It has invested $125 million in two factories in Ha Nam and Binh Duong provinces in the north and south of the country respectively.

Bles said Vietnam needs big farms to raise cows on a large scale and produce a stable volume of milk to supply processing factories.

But the country lacked large areas of grass to feed cattle, said Tuyen, adding dairy farming was underdeveloped in Vietnam where little machinery was used in raising and milking cows.

He said the country’s dairy industry aimed to increase capacity to meet 30 to 40 percent of domestic demand for raw materials by 2020. For this, 500,000 cows would be needed to produce more than a million tons of milk.

Nguyen Phuoc Trung, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department, said the municipality would develop high tech agricultural areas for dairy farming in Cu Chi and Hoc Mon districts with support from the Israeli government.

The city targets high quality, not quantity, in the dairy industry, said Trung. The plan is to reduce the herd to 75,000 cows in 2020 and 70,000 cows in 2025 from the current 78,000, he added.

Meanwhile, local firm TH Milk is set to become the country’s biggest dairy farm, raising 9,000 cows in the central province of Nghe An. The cows were imported from New Zealand. The $148 million firm has said it would increase its herd to 10,000 cows by the end of this year and 40,000 cows in another couple of years.

Vinamilk, the country’s largest dairy producer, has also imported 350 cows from Australia to its farm in the same province, increasing its herd to 1,200.

Last month, FrieslandCampina announced a $10 million expansion in its factory in Binh Duong Province, and that it is also considering an investment in the central region.

All this is happening even as the government tightens control over production and trading in dairy products.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry was quoted by a local newspaper as saying dairy companies have hiked their prices by 3 to 10 percent every two to three months this year.

The government has asked businesses trading in children’s formula to register their sales prices with authorities starting this month.

The Ministry of Finance has named 150 companies that must register their prices with the authorities, including major foreign-owned dairy firms like FrieslandCampina, Nestlé, Mead Johnson, Meiji and 3A Pharma, the official distributor of Abbott brand products in Vietnam.

The General Statistics Office said the country imported $551 million worth of milk and milk products in the first nine months of this year, up 49.2 percent from the same period last year.

Vietnam’s IT market needs a new breakthrough

Although the information technology market in Vietnam is developing rapidly, it has not made any major breakthroughs and few domestic consumers want to choose Vietnamese brand names.

Pham Thien Nghe, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Electronic Industries Association (VEIA) says that some Vietnamese IT businesses have not paid enough attention to creating their own individual trademarks. In addition, Vietnam’s IT products now have to compete with foreign ones in terms of price and quality.

In fact, IT products such as lap tops with Vietnamese trademarks such as FPT Elead, V-Open, CMS are built with almost all the components imported from abroad and assembled in Vietnam. In terms of quality, Vietnamese products are just as good as any product from Taiwan. However, in terms of price, on average Vietnamese computers are VND1 million cheaper.

Mr Nghe says that the difference in due to import taxes. Some components were removed from the import list this year. However, computer assembly plants have to pay for the difference in import tax between “components, electronics components, and a set of computer”.

For example, due to the globalization of computer manufacturing, almost all major computer producers have branches in China and can receive a certificate of origin (C/O form E) to enjoy a preferential import tax of zero percent under the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA). While Vietnam’s computer manufacturers have to pay an import tax of 3 percent for computer components. This means that the import tax for ready built computer is lower compared to the components.

In addition, Mr Nghe says that Vietnamese products have not produced popular designs and solutions for applications. He added that Vietnam’s IT businesses should not only pay attention to manufacturing but also to distribution networks and services.

It is necessary to invest in developing new designs, solutions for applications and building up trademarks. Taiwan’s IT industry has developed strongly and has been a major global IT market for several years thanks to these investments. For example, from a sector with simple production process, Taiwan’s IT sector has become a global industry which specializes in providing services and materials as well as conducting Research and Development (R & D) with the world’s leading IT brand names.

Ngo Van Vi, General Director of the Tan Binh Electronics Joint Stock Company says that almost all Vietnamese businesses have not paid enough attention to domestic policies or invested in supporting industries and R & D. Therefore, it is essential to develop R&D to establish Vietnamese trademarks. Mr Nghe suggested that the State pour investment into the Vietnam Institute of Software and Digital Content Industry (NISCI) for R & D to support businesses.

In addition, to help domestic businesses improve their competitive edge, the VEIA proposed 5 percent VAT imposed on domestic electronic products and 10 percent on imported computers. This would help domestic products in the home market.

Fractious G20 set to confront trade imbalances

The United States looked set to win G20 backing Saturday to tackle groaning trade imbalances as the world's biggest industrial nations vowed to avoid tit-for-tat currency devaluations.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attends the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Gyeongju on October 22, 2010.

But after all-night talks among senior officials in South Korea, amid fears of a global "currency war", a draft G20 text reported by Dow Jones Newswires did not set specific targets on trade for the United States, China and others.

In the draft statement, Group of 20 finance ministers would agree to refrain from "competitive" currency devaluations, and aim for "market-determined exchange rates", an official told Dow Jones.

The G20 would commit to "pursue a full range of policies conducive to reducing excessive imbalances" and "maintaining current-account imbalances at sustainable levels", according to the reported statement.

The International Monetary Fund would win greater power to oversee G20 commitments, through reports that investigate how a country's economic policies can damage major trading partners.

The draft had won widespread backing from advanced economies, while Chinese officials "left the room comfortable enough" with the language, the official told Dow Jones as the ministers prepared to end their meeting Saturday evening.

Two years after the start of the world's worst financial crisis since the 1930s, fears are mounting that major debtors such as the United States and big exporters such as China could relapse into crippling trade protectionism.

South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-Hyun had urged his G20 guests to exploit their collective heft on currency disputes, IMF reform and ensuring mega-banks can no longer imperil the world economy.

History demanded that the group build "a new post-crisis international economic order", he told the meeting Friday, looking ahead to a November 11-12 summit in Seoul of G20 leaders including the US and Chinese presidents.

At the weekend talks, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged nations running big current-account surpluses to change their exchange-rate policies. He did not name the nations but China seemed the clear target.

He suggested that countries should aim to reduce surpluses or deficits to a targeted share of gross domestic product in the coming years. Officials said Geithner's target would be four percent of GDP by 2015.

China's current account surplus stood at 4.9 percent of GDP in the first half, and targeting the surplus would be an indirect way for Washington to cajole Beijing into letting its currency appreciate.

But other major exporters such as Germany would also be affected by the Geithner plan, and are already unhappy at being asked to remedy failings in the global financial system that were exposed by a US-generated crisis.

The draft text reportedly made no mention of numerical targets for the current account, which Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda had said were "not realistic".

The US suggestion for binding targets ran into broad opposition at the G20, delegates said, with Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan expressing wariness about a "one-size-fits-all" approach.

Germany insisted that its own current account surplus would be treated as part of the European Union's overall balance, and not separately, a source said.

But the G20, which rose to summit-level prominence during the 2008-09 crisis, was under pressure from the financial markets not to leave South Korea empty-handed ahead of the leaders' meeting in three weeks.

With a super-loose US monetary policy weakening the dollar, G20 economies including Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia have intervened in recent weeks to curb an alarming rise in their currencies.

But for the United States, which is in the throes of election season, China's firm grip on the yuan's value is the root of the problem. Critics say that policy gives China's export machine an unfair edge.

"I think there's a recognition that this currency issue has to be addressed," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday.

"If it's not, then we know from history the path that we end up going down, which is not good for any of us," he said.

Vietnam to open up booming express delivery market

As part of its accession plans in the World Trade Organisation, Vietnam has committed to liberalising the express delivery market to level the playing field for both local and foreign express delivery companies.

Vietnam plans to open its market in 2012 to allow joint-ventures to be made with 51 percent foreign investment capital or to establish wholly-foreign companies in the next five years, according to Paul Needham, chief editor of CEP-Research, the first internet portal specialised on the courier, express and postal market.

The country's revenue in express delivery has grown steadily from 50 million USD in 2007 to around 200 million USD in 2010. In urban areas where the abundance of enterprises means express delivery is in high demand, expenditure is estimated to reach between 10-100 million VND per unit (512-5,120 USD).

According to Ho Chi Minh City 's Department of Planning and Investment, the increasing number of businesses joining in express delivery service are not yet accounted for.

Big domestic and foreign companies including VNPost Express, Saigon Post, Viettel, and multi-nationals like TNT, DHL, FedEx and UPS are operating in a joint-venture model.

These companies are more powerful in technology and finance than the remaining small-scale companies in the country.

Meanwhile, companies with domestic prestige like Tin Thanh, Netco, Nasco, Hop Nhat, 247 Express and 365 Express account for 20 percent of the market share.

The domestic companies are experienced with long-term development from three to 10 years; however, they are unable to compete with foreign express delivery companies who have powerful international networks.

The country's exports are expected to reach 8.8 percent in 2010 and the swift movement of goods both domestically and internationally is key to facilitating and enhancing economic growth that will generate more opportunities for express delivery services.

The four leading express delivery companies, DHL, TNT, FedEx and UPS, have expanded their network in Southeast Asia in order to get a firm foothold in this market.

They have invested in their network, equipment and services as well as expanded their aviation network in Singapore , Indonesia , Malaysia , Thailand and recently Vietnam – a newly emerging market.

International express delivery companies have entered the logistics services market, which has been growing quickly in Vietnam .

Onno Boots, regional managing director of TNT Southeast Asia and India , said " Vietnam has tremendous growth potential and occupies a strategic position in Asian trade being so close to China ."

In Southeast Asia and Vietnam , TNT has been expanding its network and service in a unique way. It has focused its efforts on developing a cost efficient road network service that links seven countries and 127 cities across Southeast Asia and China , including Vietnam – a total distance of more than 7,650km.

Its unique road network is linked to its air network, thereby enabling customers to choose from a wider variety of transports that suit their needs – by air, road or a combination of both.

Today, TNT has launched an expanded and newly-designed integrated air and road hub located at ICD My Dinh, Hanoi , to handle soaring freight volumes.