[Vnbiz] Vietnam services set to grow

[Viet Tran]

Thanks anh Tai!

It could be great if you could share your view about "online services" in
Viet Nam: Is it the right time now? I am considering some strategic products
and really concern about this point...

Thanks and Regards,
Viet

On Dec 12, 2007 7:54 PM, Tai Phan <k.phan007 at gmail.com> wrote:

> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Vietnam services set to grow
> *By Andy Mukherjee<http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=By+Andy+Mukherjee&sort=publicationdate&submit=Search>
> * Bloomberg News
> Published: December 12, 2007
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If you want to see what kind of businesses will work well in Vietnam,
> visit the state-owned Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Medical resources
> are so tight in this 800-bed maternity home that authorities line up six
> women in one room to deliver their babies. So acute is the space crunch in
> the wards that the corridors are used to tend to newborns.
>
> Tu Du is overcrowded because it has a good reputation; people come here
> from far-flung provinces. The hospital handled 45,000 births last year, more
> than the total in the city-state of Singapore.
>
> "More than 1.3 million babies are born in Vietnam every year. Even 20
> percent of that is a good enough market for us," said Allan Yeo, the chief
> executive officer at Thomson Medical Center, a Singapore hospital operator
> that specializes in obstetric and pediatric care.
>
> Thomson Medical is helping a Vietnamese investor, Protrade, build a
> 260-bed, resort-style hospital for women and children - complete with
> medical spa and a helipad - on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.
>
> Of late, a frenzied property market has dominated the investment scene in
> Vietnam.
>  Yet real estate in this Asian country is overheated and must be cooled by
> the authorities to preserve the competitiveness of the $61 billion economy,
> especially of nascent businesses like organized retail.
>
> Demand for services is on a much stronger wicket.
>
> One industry that is set for a massive overhaul is banking. Credit is
> still dominated by state-owned banks that will eventually transform from the
> state's tools for distributing capital to fully fledged commercial
> institutions.
>
> The process will begin with the planned 9.75 trillion dong, or $608
> million, initial share sale by the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, the
> third-biggest commercial bank in the country.
>
> The IPO by Vietcombank, as the lender is known, will set the stage for a
> strategic investor to buy a stake in the bank and help it modernize.
>
> If successful, this strategy will become a template for other banks.
>
> Telecommunications is set for a similar boom. A landmark transaction
> expected next year is the privatization of Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services,
> a state-owned asset that several large international operators may be
> interested in purchasing.
>
> Following the accession of Vietnam to the World Trade Organization this
> year, another service that's tipped to expand and be progressively more open
> to foreigners is education.
>
> In health care, the government is already encouraging foreign investment
> so that the meager resources of public hospitals can be better used to serve
> the poor.
>
> The socialist utopia of free health care broke down in Vietnam in the late
> 1980s under shortages and cost pressures; user charges were introduced in
> 1989; fuller deregulation, which came two years later, saw the state
> withdrawing from the provision of subsidized outpatient services.
>
> Of late, even inpatient care has ceased to be free: Some hospitals charge
> patients for letting them use the elevators.
>
> Still, the public health system in Vietnam is in better shape than in many
> other developing countries of Asia.
>
> Thanks to hospitals like Tu Du, it's much safer for a woman to be pregnant
> in Vietnam than in, say, Bangladesh, Pakistan or India. According to the
> World Health Organization's estimates, 85 percent of births in Vietnam are
> attended by skilled health professionals. The figure for Bangladesh is less
> than 14 percent.
>
> However, the burgeoning middle class in this nation of 85 million people
> now wants more than just access to a doctor. It's willing to pay for better
> - and more personalized - service than the overworked public health system
> can offer.
>
> That's a big opportunity for investors because some existing private
> hospitals are little more than refurbished shop houses.
>
> Yeo, of Thomson Medical, is confident that even at prices higher than the
> current rate of about $300 for a normal delivery at private Vietnamese
> hospitals, demand won't be an issue. In fact, he's building the Hanh Phuc
> hospital in a way that it can be quickly expanded.
>
> The real estate market in Vietnam has become a bazaar for speculators to
> flip units in condominiums for a quick profit.
>
> Needless to say, property developers are delighted with the long queues of
> people waiting to pay a deposit on overpriced apartments.
>
> Yet, private property is a legal and bureaucratic minefield in Vietnam
> where most land is still in the hands of the state.
>
> Investors willing to bet on the domestic economy in Vietnam are much safer
> with services businesses
>
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Viet Tran
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