Hanoi (VNA) – Work on the Hung Ha bridge spanning the Hong (Red) River and road connecting to Hanoi–Hai Phong and Cau Gie–Ninh Binh highways will start on December 27, said Nguyen Xuan Lam, deputy general director of Project Management Unit No. 1 under the Ministry of Transport. The 2km bridge is part of the 6km transport project, which links northern Hung Yen and Ha Nam provinces. The four-lane bridge is designed for vehicles to travel at 80 kilometres per hour. The project has a total investment of 2.87 trillion VND (135.7 million USD), including 117million USD loaned from the Republic of Korea’s Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF). The project…
Local beer players face foreign firms
Hanoi (VNA) – The local beer market is set to face tough competition due to a rising number of foreign brewers moving into the market after Vietnam joins the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), experts said. Under the TPP agreement, Vietnam’s imported beer tax from member countries will be reduced from 35 percent to 0 percent. As a result, imported beer will flood Vietnam. Both international and local players are expected to step up marketing activities, new product developments as well as expanding distribution networks. Sabeco is the biggest Vietnamese beer maker, with a 46-percent market share. The Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco) accounts for 17.3 percent of…
Visa issues five million cards after 20 years in Vietnam
HCM City (VNA) – Twenty years after coming to Vietnam, Visa has announced it has crossed the five million card mark in the country. “Vietnam is one of the fastest growing markets for Visa across the globe. We’ve made some fantastic progress in growing electronic payments here in the past 20 years, but there’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Sean Preston, the company’s country manager for Vietnam. This year the company achieved strong growth in Vietnam despite a downturn in global economic conditions, with the total payment volume through Visa cards growing by 44 percent. Preston said his company would continue to expand in Vietnam in…