KTFA Members "News and Veiws" Wednesday PM 5-27-2020

KTFA:

Don961:  Disclosure of the date of the arrival of the budget law 2020 to the Iraqi parliament

Policy 05/26/2020 23:30 1093 Editor: amm   
Baghdad today - Baghdad

A member of the government program and strategic planning in Parliament, Hassan Al-Masoudi, revealed today, Tuesday, the date of the arrival of the 2020 budget law to parliament, to impose his reading and voting on it.

Al-Masoudi told (Baghdad Today) that "the 2020 budget law will reach the Iraqi parliament immediately after the end of the Eid al-Fitr holiday," noting that "drafting and preparing the law is exclusively a task of the cabinet, and there is no participation of the parliament, But after reaching parliament, there will be a role for the relevant parliamentary committees, to give their comments on the law and to amend what they see appropriate. "

He added that "if the budget arrives, the parliament will hold its sessions in order to read the law and then vote on it, despite the existence of the Corona virus epidemic, there is a determination to pass the budget quickly upon its arrival to Parliament."  LINK

Iobey777:  IMO..it seems there is still a note of Urgency here!! Go ahead and pass it quickly... but it will still need a new rate to implement it...IMO!!

Edna:  okay, I'll ask the obvious question, Can someone please tell me When Eid al fitr is over?

Samson:  I believe tomorrow (Thursday in Iraq) is the last day of Eid

Samson:  How does technology change the most prominent traditions of Eid?

26th May, 2020

One of the important customs that relatives and relatives practice on the Eid is the Eid gift, or what is known as the "Eid

The atmosphere for this holiday differed, and in light of the procedures and precautionary measures to limit the outbreak of the Corona virus, the competent authorities in the Emirates advised to reduce the use of banknotes when distributing the Eid during the Eid period

Some studies have indicated that the virus may be transmitted through the circulation of fiat currencies in the absence of hand washing. The majority of the people to whom Eid is distributed are children and young adults who may not be aware of the risks of spreading the virus or are eligible to take the necessary precautions

In view of the individuals’ inheritance in their homes and the practice of social divergence, some countries have allocated electronic applications and means as an alternative that allows individuals to share the joy of the holiday remotely and transfer cash amounts without the need to trade in paper currencies

Among these applications is the "STC PAY" application in Saudi Arabia, which allows sending cash and prepaid gift cards

In the Emirates, the General Authority allocated a list of 23 digital applications to banks operating in the country, in addition to 10 applications related to electronic wallets through which "Eidia" can be transferred

In Kuwait, Adityati service, which follows the same system, is dedicated. Other countries also allowed Eidiya to be sent using mobile banking applications   LINK

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Samson:  Vietnam ready to be world’s factory, but is the world?

25th May 2020
Việt Nam attracted US$12.33 billion worth of foreign direct investment in the first four months of 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 15.5 per cent due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Foreign Investment Agency.

But the figure was much higher than that in the same period in 2018 and 2017, when FDI was only $5.8 billion and $9.2 billion, it said.

The four-month period saw 984 new foreign projects licensed with a total capital of $6.78 billion, down 9.1 per cent in terms of number of projects but up 26.9 per cent in value. Many experts said, however, the country’s FDI flows had shown some signs of a “break-out”.

Việt Nam’s successful control of the pandemic has been one of the main reasons for attracting foreign investors, according to the experts. Many of them are possibly those fleeing China due to rising labour costs and the US-China trade war, which is being escalated due to the pandemic. But Việt Nam has in recent years seen the arrival of many foreign manufacturers from China, including many Chinese.

For instance, in 2018 Korean giant Samsung and Japan’s Olympus closed their factories in Shenzhen in southern China and moved bag and baggage to Việt Nam. The former has already invested billions of dollars in building a grand manufacturing base in the Sài Gòn High-tech Park in HCM City. The park has also attracted huge investments from other high-profile tech giants like Intel, Schneider and Jabil.

Earlier, in 2015, Microsoft had moved its Nokia manufacturing from Bejing to Hà Nội. Now, amid the escalating US-China trade war and the Covid-19 pandemic, the US wants to bring high-tech manufacturing back home. To do this, it will have to revamp global supply chains.

Besides, multinationals have been moving from China to other countries to avoid the higher costs due to the US tariffs on Chinese exports. Việt Nam is among the countries they are moving to.

Besides low labour costs, the country also has other advantages that help it attract global firms, including a young population, a supportive policy environment and sustainable economic growth.

Nguyễn Đình Cung, member of the Economics Advisory Group to the Prime Minister, also pointed out another important reason for global firms’ switch to Việt Nam: They want to diversify supply chains to reduce reliance on a few markets.

What should Việt Nam do?

Analysts said when the US-China Trade War broke out, Việt Nam was expected to become a new regional manufacturing hub since many global companies seemed interested, but things have panned out otherwise. Markets that create good financial efficiency for investors and enable low costs attract foreign investors, according to the analysts.

Việt Nam has yet to meet these conditions and if it wants to attract foreign supply chains it would have to do so and more. They stressed the need for the country to soon restructure its economy to improve its competitiveness.

It would also need to have an industrialisation programme for 2021-30 to enable its firms to enter global supply chains.

Trần Toàn Thắng of the Ministry of Planning and Investment said it was very important for a country to attract foreign investors, but keeping them, especially large firms, is much more important. Incentives like tax and land rent waivers and low labour costs could attract them at first, but these would not be enough to keep them, he said.

To keep them would require a country to have an open and transparent business environment, a modern and well-linked transport system and a comprehensive and reliable legal system that is in line with international rules. "High-quality human resources, a large domestic market with a growing middle class and supply of supporting industries for foreign businesses are also imperative," he said.

Retail investors keep corporate bonds going

According to a recent report by the Ministry of Finance, corporate bond issuance increased sharply in April to VNĐ30.12 trillion (nearly $1.4 billion). The figure for the entire first quarter was only VNĐ35.55 trillion ($1.54 billion).

A highlight has been the increased buying by individual investors, not only in April but also earlier, the report says.

In the first quarter their buying doubled year-on-year to 20 per cent. They bought more than VNĐ9.5 trillion ($404.9 million) worth, with domestic investors accounting for almost the entire amount.

Analysts attributed the interest to the increasing coupon rates for many of the bonds and a simultaneous decrease in bank deposit interest rates at a time when all other asset classes were hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to SSI Securities Corporation, in the first quarter of the year the interest rate on corporate bonds averaged 10.4 per cent, 1.57 percentage points higher than the average rate. In March the State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV) decided to cut many key interest rates in an attempt to support the economy, which was hurt by the outbreak. The refinancing rate was cut by 1 percentage point to 5 per cent, and the discount rate by half a percentage point to 3.5 per cent.

The overnight lending rate in the inter-bank market was also adjusted down to 6 per cent from 7 per cent, and the open-market-operation (OMO) rate, to 3.5 per cent from 4 per cent. The central bank also reduced the cap on the interest rates on đồng deposits and loans by 0.25-0.5 percentage points, depending on the tenor. After the central bank’s moves, many banks cut their deposit interest rates significantly even as credit growth slowed down sharply.

Private banks such as VPBank, MBBank, ACB, and Viet Capital Bank reduced their interest rates by 0.2-0.7 percentage points.  At VP Bank, the interest rate on six-month deposits stands at 6.6 per cent now and on 12-month deposits, ranking from 6.7 to 7.2 per cent per year.

Vietcombank, the largest State-owned lender by market cap, lowered its deposit interest rates by 0.2-0.3 percentage points for periods of six months and more.

The cuts came amid bank credit growth in the first quarter of only 1.1 per cent compared to 2.28 per cent in the same period last year as many businesses scaled down or stopped operations, experts said.

Bảo Việt Securities Company said the corporate bonds were expected to continue attracting individual investors since their interest rates were quite high and bank deposit interest rates were expected to fall further since the central bank planned to further cut key interest rates in the coming months.

Property companies like Phú Hưng Real Estate Investment JSC, Paradise Bay Resort Company Limited and Hải Phát Investment JSC offered coupon rates of 11-13 per cent. TPBank and MB Securities made issuances at 8.5-9.5 per cent.

The Hà Nội Stock Exchange said in fact retail investors were keeping the corporate bond market afloat.

But experts warn the retail investors about the possible risks, saying they should not buy corporate bonds just for high interest rates without paying attention to their potential and the possible risks. LINK

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Samson:  Vietnam needs to change its ways to attract FDI leaving China: experts

25th May, 2020

Việt Nam has some great advantages while competing with regional countries in attracting capital flows moving out of China after the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have said.

A report by SSI Research said foreign projects set up in industrial parks in the country were up 32 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of the year to US$9.8 billion.

The pandemic has shown that many large countries’ supply chains are heavily dependent on China, and they have taken drastic steps to cut this dependency.

Many large US, Japanese and European companies are gearing up to shift production away from China. Việt Nam is one of their destinations besides some others in the region such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

"Compared to Indonesia, which directly competes with Việt Nam in attracting FDI, Việt Nam has the advantage of proximity to China,” the report said.

“Việt Nam also offers support to businesses, with many incentives for large FDI projects, and has a lot of free trade agreements in which Indonesia does not participate. Recently the Vietnamese đồng has been very stable compared to the Indonesian rupiah."

Nguyễn Văn Toàn, vice chairman of the Việt Nam Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises, said the opportunity to attract the FDI wave looking to relocate from China is quite clear, but not really big, and whether the opportunity can be grasped depends largely on Việt Nam. "We also need to be aware that investors will not easily pull out all investment from China because that country has great advantages such as a strong work force, good use of technology and products for all market segments, not just the affordable segment."

Việt Nam would face difficulties in competing with so many rivals to attract a part of the capital flows moving out of the neighbouring country, he said. Experts agreed that to compete in the race, the country would need to change its way of attracting FDI and quickly.

Phan Hữu Thắng, former director of the Foreign Investment Agency, said, “[We] will fail if we try to attract foreign investment in the traditional way. “For example, India has immediate policies to allocate land, prepare infrastructure, identify potential investors to approach, announce tax reduction plans ... Investors are gearing up to shift their production. If we continue to act slowly, we will miss an opportunity that comes once in 100 years.”

Toàn said Việt Nam needed to further improve its business and investment environment and administrative procedures. He believes that HCM City, which leads the country in FDI attraction, has all the conditions and capacity required to make good use of this opportunity.   LINK

Don961:  :  Trump officially announces the withdrawal of American soldiers from Afghanistan

Policy 05/27 2020 15:06 328 Editor: hr   
Baghdad today - translation

US President Donald Trump announced, on Wednesday (May 27, 2020), the withdrawal of the soldiers of the United States of America from Afghanistan, after 19 years of their presence there.

"We are behaving like a police force, not as a fighting force in Afghanistan, as we are," Trump wrote on his Twitter account.

He added: "After 19 years, it is time for their country police."

The American president added: "Bring our soldiers home, but watch closely what is happening and strike with thunder as never before, if necessary!"

In implementation of the first phase of the agreement signed between Washington and the Taliban, the United States began withdrawing a number of its soldiers from two bases in southern Afghanistan, on March 10.

The US military is deploying between 12 and 13,000 troops in Afghanistan and will have to reduce these numbers to 8,600 by mid-July.

The US military began withdrawing from two bases in Afghanistan as part of the implementation of the first phase of an agreement the United States signed with the Taliban in Doha.   LINK

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Don961:  Iran .. a 4-magnitude earthquake hits the outskirts of Tehran

Localities 05/27 2020 19:52 81    
Baghdad today - Baghdad

Iranian media reported on Wednesday that an earthquake measuring 4 on the Richter scale hit areas in the east of the capital, Tehran.

Initial reports indicated that "the tremor struck areas of Samnan, Damavand, Bardis and Fairuzkuh."

The seismological center affiliated to the Geophysical Institution at the University of Tehran stated that "the epicenter of the earthquake was the outskirts of Damavand at the administrative borders between the provinces of Tehran and Mazandaran."

He continued, "The tremor occurred this afternoon, and was at a depth of 12 km from the surface of the earth."

Residents of cities near the Al-Haza area confirmed that they felt it, while no casualties or damages were announced.    LIN