V-League round ends in violence, coach sacked

Hai Phong Cement goalie Quang Huy (R) and defender Aniekan (L) in a fight after their V-League 4th round match

Vietnam’s top-flight football league closed last weekend with a fight between two Hai Phong teammates and the sudden sacking of Ninh Binh’s head coach.

After talk of tough measures, the Hai Phong Cement Football Club has taken lenient measures against two players for having attacked each other after a 2-2 draw against Vissai Ninh Binh on Sunday.

No suspension was issued against goalie Quang Huy and defender Aniekan, but each player was docked half of his monthly salary for the off-field fight.

Hai Phong Cement FC said this was an “appropriate” measure because there was timely intervention to prevent more serious consequences, The Thao & Van Hoa Newspaper on Thursday cited a club report to the organizing board of V-League as saying.

Quang Huy’s monthly salary is nearly VND30 million (US$1,600) and Aniekan’s is about $7,000.

In its report, Hai Phong also suggested V-League organizers let it handle the case instead of the organizing board’s disciplinary body, but the proposal was rejected.

The fight between Quang Huy and Aniekan broke out at the Ninh Binh Stadium a few minutes after the match. Goalie Quang Huy reportedly started the fight after defender Aniekan, irked at a reproachful gesture against him for failing to block Ninh Binh striker Gustavo’s shot in the final minutes to level the scores at 2-2.

“Both players were unhappy after the scores were equaled in the final minute. But they should restrain themselves no matter what. Especially when Huy is also a national player,” said Nguyen Huu Bang, deputy head of V-League organizing board, who witnessed the incident.

After the incident, Hai Phong head coach Vuong Tien Dung had said: “Their shameful behavior has sullied the club’s image. Hai Phong Cement will issue strict measures against both.”

Nguyen Hai Huong, head of V-League’s disciplinary section, also said there would be strict measures against the, noting that the “rules don’t allow any fight among footballers, including those of the same team.”

In another incident in the same match, Ninh Binh’s Rafael was substituted soon after he almost scored an unexpected goal for his team. He was immediately involved in a quarrel with the team’s Singaporean coach Lim Lee Huat.

Ninh Binh’s Mangaging Director Tran Tien Dai had to stop the quarrel and both Rafael and Huat were later fined an unspecified amount by the club.

Agent becomes coach

After the match, Vissai Ninh Binh FC announced it was sacking head coach Huat and assigning managing director Dai, a well-known football agent, to hold the position temporarily.

“I used to trust in Coach Lim but all my expectations were broken,” said Ninh Binh chairman Hoang Manh Tuong.

“Ninh Binh played without any sharp tactics and was too weak at the midfield. Each player played on his own (without passing). The loss to Dong Thap int the 3^rd round and the draw with Hai Phong were the result of serious tactical mistakes.

“We have spent a lot of money to buy good players but Lim’s coaching has been no different than spoiling the team. The players have complained to me that Lim’s coaching was ineffective and exhausting and he often yelled at them unreasonably.

“It could be too late if we don’t let him go now,” he said.

Truong convened a meeting at 1:30am on March 9 and assigned Dai to be the acting head coach. Earlier at the meeting, the club mulled assigning the task to former national player Hong Son or assistant coach Pham Nhu Thuan.

Dai, who is more famous as a football agent than as a coach, said he had no choice but to accept the role.

“The club chairman asked me to find a coach but it was extremely hard to find one out right away,” said Dai, who had introduced coach Huat to the club.

“I will temporarily instruct the team in the coming rounds and can only think [about a new coach] later. I used to be an assistant coach for the national U-20 team but it was several years ago. Now I am only accustomed to the job of a football agent,” he said.

Dai also said he was negotiating with a Brazilian physical training coach for Ninh Binh and that the club had assigned Huat to coach the club’s younger team.

Source: Thanh Nien, Agencies

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Bauxite project owner pledges strict workers management

Construction at Tan Rai Bauxite Project in Lam Dong Province

The investor of Vietnam’s second alumina plant has pledged to better manage foreign workers to make sure it does not repeat an episode in which illegal laborers were found at the first one last year.

“We will manage them under a foreign worker management regulation issued [by the company] recently,” said Bui Quang Tien, general director of Nhan Co Alumina Joint Stock Company, which broke ground on the plant in the Central Highlands on February 28.

He said there were an estimated 600-700 Chinese laborers working for Chinese contractor China Aluminum International Engineering Co. (Chalieco) at the site.

He also said the company was not overly concerned with the foreign worker issue. “We have learned from the experiences at Tan Rai [the other plant] where foreign workers had not been well managed right from the beginning,” he added.

Tien was referring to the illegal Chinese workers found last year at Tan Rai Alumina Plant in Lam Dong Province.

Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that Lam Dong Province planned to fine six Chinese contractors who were partners with Chalieco in the construction of the alumina plant in Tan Rai in the Central Highlands.

There were 570 Chinese working for six Chinese contractors at the Tan Rai project.

However, the contractors had made only 250 applications for work permits for foreign workers with local authorities.

Uncertainty

Experts have also raised concerns that the red mud generated by extracting the alumina from the bauxite ore would pollute the local environment.

When asked about the issue by Tuoi Tre, Tien said the red mud would be dumped in a 100-hectare valley. He admitted that the landfill site would not be totally safe.

The bauxite mine in Nhan Co in Dak Nong Province has 270 million tons of reserves. Bauxite is refined into alumina, which is then smelted into aluminum metal.

The state-run Vietnam National Coal and Minerals Industries Group said last year it expected its first mine in Lam Dong Province to start production as early as August this year and produce 650,000 tons of alumina annually by late 2011.

Vietnam has 5.4 billion tons of bauxite reserves, the world’s largest after Guinea and Australia, according to a US Geological Survey report published last year.

Source: Thanh Nien, Agencies

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Workers quit factories for more cushy jobs, labor shortage ensues

Three women wait for an ATM near a recruitment poster in Hanoi that says 'urgent recruitment for female workers.'

After the Tet holidays, Tran Thi Phuong from northern Nam Dinh Province did not return to the Hanoi-based garment firm where she had worked for several years.

The 28-year-old woman has found a new job at a mobile phone shop in the capital.

“I have to work more hours every day but my income is higher and the work is less hard,” she said.

Phuong is one of many migrant workers who did not return to their jobs in big cities after Tet (Lunar New Year) and instead sought jobs in their hometowns or simply better conditions and salaries with other employers in the city.

At Truong Kieu Company, a machine producer in Hanoi, just over half of its employees have returned since Tet.

“I am not sure whether the workers have given up their jobs or not. However, we are very worried about the current number of workers. The employee shortage may slash our production progress,” said company director Truong Van Thong.

Like Truong Kieu, many firms in the city now face a scarcity of workers, especially manual laborers. They are intensely recruiting workers, and in Hanoi’s industrial parks, job vacancy announcements are posted everywhere – on company gates, trees and electric poles – but most have gone unanswered.

Most of the enterprises want to employ people, mainly females, for work in factories that produce garments, woodwork, footwear, steel and electronic products. At the Thang Long Industrial Park, which houses mostly foreign-invested firms, some 20 enterprises have announced new recruitment campaigns seeking hundreds of employees each.

A staff member at the Hanoi Industrial Parks and Processing Zones Management Board said firms in the industrial parks need to employ some 10,000 laborers this year. But the staff member, who wished to go unnamed, was not optimistic about the possibility of meeting the demand.

The situation is the same in Dong Nai Province, which neighbors Ho Chi Minh City. Lam Duy Tin, vice director of the province’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said firms in his locality have not fully reported the number of workers giving up their jobs after Tet, nor have they released information on their post-Tet manpower needs.

He said some laborers from the central province of Quang Ngai did not return to firms in Dong Nai, and instead had sought new jobs near home at the Dung Quat Economic Zone, where the Dung Quat Oil Refinery is based. He also said workers from the north-central provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh had gone to Laos to work with hopes of higher incomes.

The resignations have made garment, footwear, and electronic companies struggle for workers even as they receive rising numbers of orders after Tet.

According to the [Dong Nai] province’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, firms in the locality need some 70,000 new employees this year, 75 percent of them for garment and footwear enterprises.

Dang Thanh Quang, head of the Labor Office at Bac Ninh Province’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said most laborers at Bac Ninh firms were local residents, or those coming from neighboring provinces, so companies there had not lost so many workers to jobs elsewhere.

However, laborers often leave for other jobs with higher salaries at the province’s many craft villages and bigger manufacturers are thus still facing a labor shortage. Many firms need to hire thousands of laborers, Quang said.

Enterprises have lowered their employment requirements in an effort to recruit, he said. “Workers only need to have graduated junior high school, instead of high school as before.”

However, the most important factor in attracting employees is a proper salary, said Quang.

Nguyen Dinh Trong from Hanoi’s Ha Dong District has just given up his job at a construction firm. “Nobody wants to change jobs frequently. However, the most important thing to workers like me is the income. I will keep working only if the salary is enough to live on,” he said.

“However, many firms do not want to raise salaries even though prices are increasing.”

Reported by Bao Van

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Vietnam money: rates ease on ample funds, bank competition

Vietnamese dong lending rates softened over the past week as banks competed to lure borrowers and fund surpluses grew, bankers said.

On Monday, the overnight rate had dropped to 7.25 percent from 7.35 percent a week ago and the six-month rate had fallen to 11.85 percent from 11.98 percent, Reuters data on fixings of interbank offered rates showed.

Rates were also lower on loans from two weeks to three months, while nine-month and 12-month rates remained unchanged.

Ample funds at banks began stimulating lending this month, Monday's Tuoi Tre newspaper cited a central bank report as saying.

The newspaper, run by Ho Chi Minh City's branch of the Communist Youth League, quoted Asia Commercial Bank Chief Executive Ly Xuan Hai as saying Vietnam's fifth-largest lender by assets had a surplus of VND30 trillion ($1.57 billion).

He said ACB could offer competitive, negotiable rates for medium- and long-term loans at 15-16.5 percent, below the 17-18 percent rates available on the market but still beyond what bankers said businesses could afford.

In late February, the central bank widened the scope of bank loans that could be offered at negotiable interest rates to include areas such as production, business, services and investment for development.

Previously, all loan rates were capped at 1.5 times the central bank's benchmark base rate, which has been at 8 percent since the start of December.

Several bankers and economists have urged banking authorities to scrap the base rate to help banks expand loans and fuel economic growth.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said the current interest rate policy was hindering business development.

"The interest rate must ensure that banks mobilize money and lend to enterprises more easily," Dung was quoted by the Monday edition of the official Vietnam Investment Review weekly as telling a business meeting last week in Hanoi.

He urged the central bank to collect business recommendations to change its rate policy, while continuing to ensure high inflation will not return, the weekly said.

The central bank should maintain a flexible policy on interest rates that is based on market mechanisms, economist Vu Dinh Anh, from the Finance Ministry-run Institute for Price and Market Science Studies, wrote in a note.

In 2010 the central bank should still "use the base rate as a decisive tool to control overall credit, the banking credit market and the interbank market", Anh said in the note published by the daily Nhan Dan on Monday.

Source: Reuters

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ANZ seeks buyer for 10 pct stake in Vietnam bank

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd is looking for a buyer for its 10 percent stake in Vietnam's Sacombank, an executive at the Vietnamese bank said, becoming the first foreign bank to sell its stake in a domestic lender.

The move follows ANZ's Vietnamese unit obtaining permission to operate as a fully foreign-owned bank in October 2008. ANZ is one of 10 foreign banks to have bought shares in Vietnamese lenders.

Sacombank has worked with ANZ on the issue, the Vietnamese bank's chairman Dang Van Thanh said in a statement issued after its annual shareholder meeting on Monday. He added that ANZ was looking for a buyer for its stake.

Thanh did not say who might buy the stake, but local media reported that a Singaporean bank could be picked, though it did not mention names.

United Overseas Bank holds 15 percent of Phuong Nam Bank, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd owns 15 percent of VPBank.

Shareholders approved Sacombank's targets for this year to raise total assets by almost half to VND146 trillion ($7.65 billion), registered capital by 37 percent to VND9.18 trillion and annual gross profit by 26 percent to VND2.4 trillion.

Sacombank, also known as Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, has also targeted annual credit growth of 45 percent to around VND87 trillion and aims to increase deposits by 50 percent to VND129 trillion.

Sacombank has said its gross profit jumped 35 percent to $15.7 million in the first two months of this year.

Source: Reuters

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