Chuyện chưa kể 20 năm thị trường chứng khoán Việt Nam – Kỳ 1: Xây móng ‘chợ tiền’
28/07/2020 11:39 GMT+7
TTO – Hội trường lễ kỷ niệm 20 năm hoạt động thị trường chứng khoán VN khá yên ắng, bỗng tất cả đứng dậy, Thủ tướng Nguyễn Xuân Phúc bước vào trân trọng bắt tay người đàn ông lớn tuổi, TS Lê Văn Châu, người góp công lớn xây móng cho chứng khoán VN.
Bảng giao dịch điện tử chốt phiên chứng khoán đầu tiên ngày 28-7-2000 – Ảnh: T.T.DŨNG
TTO – Một lần đi trên con đường trơn trượt, ngập ngụa bùn đất, chưa kể phải lội qua 4 con suối lớn chảy xiết và hơn chục khe suối nhỏ mới tới được trường học của các em nhỏ vùng cao để quý trọng hơn từng mét đường bê tông mà công trình “Con đường em đến trường” thực hiện ở Yên Bái.
Vượt hơn 35km đường rừng, sương mù bảng lảng quanh sườn núi, chốc chốc phía xa, đám mây đen bất chợt kéo đến, ánh mắt lo lắng hiện rõ trên gương mặt đồng nghiệp dù bao năm tác nghiệp miền núi và có tiếng “tay lái lụa” chẳng khác gì trai bản. Tiếp tục đọc “Đường đến trường “nơi tận cùng” Mù Căng Chải”→
TTCT – Sự phát triển của nền sản xuất quốc gia và các doanh nghiệp tư nhân nội địa thực sự tạo ra của cải vật chất luôn đi kèm với một đòi hỏi bắt buộc: một nền công nghiệp hỗ trợ đủ mạnh. Đây cũng đã là điều được nêu rõ trong dự thảo văn kiện Đại hội Đảng XIII.
TTCT – Cách đây đúng 50 năm, vào ngày 13-9-1970, nhà kinh tế học nổi tiếng Milton Friedman tung ra bài viết với tựa đề như một tuyên ngôn cho giới kinh doanh: “Trách nhiệm xã hội của doanh nghiệp là tăng lợi nhuận”. Bài viết này đã đặt nền tảng cho những ý tưởng về một nền kinh tế thị trường tự do mà sau đó đã ảnh hưởng sâu đậm đến nhiều thế hệ doanh nhân, nhà quản lý và các chính khách. Tổng thống Mỹ Ronald Reagan và Thủ tướng Anh Margaret Thatcher được cho là đã xây dựng những chính sách kinh tế vĩ mô dựa trên ý tưởng này.
Tuy nhiên lối suy nghĩ này cũng gây ra những hệ lụy khốc liệt cho xã hội và đến nay người ta lại loay hoay tìm một nhãn quan khác.
Một tuyên ngôn của kinh tế thị trường
Năm 1970, tư tưởng “lợi nhuận là mục đích tối hậu” của Milton Friedman đã gây sốc cho nhiều người: nó trắng trợn quá, nó tham lam quá.
Tham lam là tốt. Khát vọng chung của các cổ đông chỉ là ngày càng giàu lên, và thế là tốt – Quan điểm của Milton Friedman gây sốc cho nhiều người. (Ảnh: PBS)
Welcome to our final newsletter of 2020. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and interest in our work over the year. We will return in early January and in the meantime wish you an enjoyable festive break and every success in 2021.
New white paper: Digital trade in the Asia-Pacific
Deborah Elms 22 December 2020
As we move into 2021, what are the key issues facing digital trade in Asia? The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted global trade and upended many longstanding business models. Firms are rapidly shifting to develop or expand digital capabilities to manage highly altered supply and demand pressures. Despite the growing importance of digital trade, the ability of governments to tackle a range of issues of relevance to managing the online environment still lags behind the speed of innovation for firms. Effective and efficient regulatory policies can support continuing economic growth in the digital economy. Given the overwhelming importance of small firms to every country in Asia, failure to create supportive policies will impede the region’s attempt to advance sustainable and inclusive development. This new paper from the Hinrich Foundation – the first in a series of six reports on digital trade in the Asia-Pacific authored by Dr Deborah Elms, Executive Director at the Asian Trade Centre – identifies eight issues that governments and firms across the region will need to tackle to reap the full benefits of the digital opportunity.
In this short podcast our Director of Research, Dr Andrew Staples, invites Dr Deborah Elms to provide an overview of paper and to highlight the importance of the RCEP agreement for digital trade in Asia.
INTERVIEW WITH RESEARCH FELLOW Hinrich Foundation Research Fellow, Alex Capri, discusses his latest paper with Dr Staples. Released last week, Techno-nationalism and corporate governance examines how the US-China tech cold war has politicized the business environment for multinationals and the implications for corporate governance. Techno-nationalism, he observes, now requires firms to evaluate or restructure their cross-border operations to reduce risks.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT While 2020 proved to be challenging for all of us, it was also a productive year for our research fellows. Please find below a selection of our most read articles and papers on the key issues impacting global trade in 2020 including the coronavirus pandemic, geopolitical tensions and the US-China trade war, the emergence of “techno-nationalism,” the US presidential election and the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The United States has designated Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators for allegedly meddling in foreign exchange markets, sparking disputes with two trading partners.
The countries were labeled as such Wednesday in a U.S. Treasury Department annual report aimed at stopping countries from manipulating their currencies to achieve unfair trade advantages.
It is the first time the U.S. has branded another country as a currency manipulator since August 2019, when China was given the label while engaged in tense trade talks with the U.S.
Washington dropped the designation in January after the two countries reached trade agreements, but Beijing’s yuan has remained on the Treasury Department’s list of currencies it is watching.
The report said Switzerland and Vietnam were the only countries that met all three criteria for being labeled a currency manipulator, a move that leads to negotiations over the next year. If agreements are not reached, the U.S. can impose economic sanctions on the two countries.
Other countries on the watchlist are India, Italy, Korea, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.
The report is the last one the Trump administration will produce, leaving it to President-elect Joe Biden’s treasury secretary to decide whether to maintain the designations.
But a senior Treasury official said that Biden’s nominee, Janet Yellen, had not yet been informed of the designations and that the decisions rest with the Trump administration, according to The New York Times.
The report, which covers market activity from July 2019 to June 2020, was released during a coronavirus pandemic that has weakened the global economy this year and triggered volatility in foreign exchange markets.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on October 2 launched two investigations of Vietnam under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, including one into alleged currency undervaluation. The president has repeatedly complained about Vietnam’s large trade surplus with the United States, and the USTR action is one of several launched by the administration targeting Vietnam’s currency practices. But the administration has also touted the growing security partnership with Vietnam, which shares U.S. anxieties about China, and the trade actions could run counter to the broader strategic alignment between Hanoi and Washington.
Q1: What is Section 301 and why is Vietnam being investigated?
The national airline of Vietnam finally saw “the light at the end of the tunnel” when the National Assembly agreed with the Government’s proposal for solutions to help Vietnam Airlines overcome difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the resolution of the 10th session, the 14th National Assembly approved two options. Firstly, the State Bank of Vietnam refinances and extends no more than two times for credit institutions (excluding those under special control) to allow Vietnam Airlines to borrow additional capital to serve production and business activities.
A Vietnam Airlines flight from Alaska brought Vietnamese citizens back to their home country in May. Photo: Ted Stevens Anchorage Airport, Alaska
At the same time, Vietnam Airlines is allowed to offer additional shares to existing shareholders to increase its charter capital. The Government will assign the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) to buy shares in Vietnam Airlines on behalf of the Government under the right to buy shares of state shareholders in the mode of transfer of rights to buy. This investment is rated in Group A projects.
Workers make fillets of catfish at a factory in the southern city of Can Tho. (Photo: Kham)
“Thanks to the successful COVID-19 containment, Vietnam’s growth would be among the highest in the world”, Era Dabla Norris, mission chief to Vietnam and division chief in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific department, was quoted as saying at the end of the team’s virtual mission to Vietnam from October 15 to November 13.
Vietnam is shaping up as Southeast Asia’s single economic success story in the coronavirus era, maintaining steady positive growth as other economies struggle to recover, said Nikkei Asia in a recent journal.
With more goods going out of Vietnam, big container ships have begun stopping there directly, cutting transport costs and time for exporters. (Photo: Reuters)
By Nguyen Quy November 17, 2020 | 07:58 am GMT+7 vnexpressWomen practice aerobics to beats coming off a smartphone at a Covid-19 quarantine camp in Lao Cai Province, northern Vietnam, February 17, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.
Vietnam has moved up 12 places to 73rd out of 167 economies in a global prosperity ranking, ahead of several Asian peers.
With an overall score of 58.3 points, Vietnam ranked 13th out of 29 economies in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Prosperity Index 2020 published Monday by London-based think tank Legatum Institute.
TĐH: There are many intangible benefits from foreign direct investments (FDI) – employment and jobs for the local population, increased education, increased professional skills, better law enforcement and legal process, better working and living conditions in general for the locality… Not just taxes. Tax is a small part of the benefit package. If we need to lower/exempt taxes to compete, then let’s do that to compete. If the entire gang of Asia or Southeast Asia countries agree not to use taxes to compete, then that is “an agreement not to compete,” in a national scene that would constitute a violation of antitrust (anti-competition) law, harmful to consumers and to the economy. The economic principle should not be different in the international scene. (But of course, we need to compete both in business environment and in financial benefits such as taxation and land lease).
By Dat Nguyen, Quynh Trang November 16, 2020 | 08:07 am GMT+7 vietnamnetWorkers seen in a foreign-invested air conditioner manufacturing plant in the northern province of Hung Yen in December 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Vien Thong.
Competing for foreign investment with tax incentives will end up hitting governments’ revenues and be a lose-lose situation for all ASEAN members, experts warn.
The average corporate income tax rate in Southeast Asia has fallen from 25.1 percent in 2010 to 21.7 percent this year, showing that countries are competing with one another in a “race to the bottom” by offering aggressive tax incentives to foreign multinationals, a recent report by Oxfam, a global organization working on poverty alleviation, and its partners said.
The public debt to GDP ratio has been controlled well and has decreased in recent years. But the public debt repayment to budget revenue ratio has steadily increased because of many due debts.
Debt repayment obligatio
The government estimates that the public debt will be about 56.8 percent of GDP by the end of 2020; the government’s debt will be 50.8 percent; the government’s direct debt repayment obligation to state budget revenue ratio will be 24.1 percent; and the national foreign debt, 47.9 percent of GDP.
The government is taking a cautious view in setting its development goals for 2021, which is understandable due to lingering risks from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Vietnamese National Assembly (NA)’s year-end meeting, scheduled to last for more than three weeks from October 20 to November 17, will focus on reviewing socio-economic development in 2020 and decide important matters related to socio-economic issues and the state budget for the next year.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam’s GDP is estimated to grow at 2.0-3.0% in 2020 versus a target of 6.8% for the year.
This would result in the GDP growth rate averaging 5.9% over the 2016-2020 period, which falls short of the 5-year period target of 6.5-7.0%. Per capita GDP is estimated at US$2,750 in 2020, which also misses the target of US$3,200-3,500 by 2020.
Quy mô đầu tư công trung hạn giai đoạn 2021-2025 tăng hơn 37% so với giai đoạn 2016-2020, tương đương 2,75 triệu tỷ đồng.
Báo cáo trước Quốc hội, Bộ trưởng Kế hoạch & Đầu tư Nguyễn Chí Dũng cho biết, tổng mức vốn đầu tư trung hạn từ nguồn ngân sách giai đoạn 2021-2025 là 2,75 triệu tỷ đồng, tăng 37,5% so với kế hoạch giai đoạn 2016-2020. Trong đó, nguồn từ ngân sách trung ương là 1,38 triệu tỷ, còn vốn cân đối ngân sách địa phương là 1,37 triệu tỷ đồng. Mức dự phòng chung là 10%.