The signing ceremony. (Photo: Bnews)
This signing, which was held virtually on October 28 on the sidelines of the Indo-Pacific Business Forum, came near the one-year anniversary of the historic agreement the AES Corporation signed with the Vietnamese government to build the 1.8-billion-USD Son My 2 combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant.
PV GAS General Director Duong Manh Son and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the AES Corporation Bernerd Da Santos inked the deal under the witness of officials from the Vietnamese and US governments.
The Son My LNG Import Terminal Project will help meet the demand for gas and power in the southern key economic region and the whole country in general, thereby ensuring national energy security, Son said.
The Son My LNG Import Terminal Project will be located in the south central province of Binh Thuan with the total capacity of up to 450 TBtu, to supply gas to newly built gas-fired power plants of about 4,500 MW, other existing gas-fired power plants, and industrial customers. Together, the 2.2 gigawatts power plant and terminal will play a major role in shaping Vietnam’s energy future by diversifying the energy mix with imported LNG as well as meeting the country’s increasing demand for sustainable and affordable electricity./.
Vietnam sees trade surplus at 17 billion USD
As of October 15, Vietnam’s import and export value reached more than 413 billion USD, a rise of 2.3% (equivalent to 9.27 billion USD) compared to the same period last year. In the first half of October, the country’s trade balance saw an excess of 798 million USD.
Photo for illustration
This contributed to raising Vietnam’s trade surplus by the end of October 15 to 17.32 billion USD.
According to the General Department of Customs, Vietnam’s commodity export and import value totaled 24.64 billion USD from October 1 to 15. Of this, exports were valued at 12.72 billion USD. In general, export activities showed signs of prosperity as enterprises made good use of tariff incentives brought by the EVFTA Agreement.
In August alone, Vietnam’s export turnover to the EU reached 3.25 billion USD, bringing the total figure to the market to 22.76 billion USD. Many export items saw positive changes in the EU market after EVFTA has been in effect for more than 2 months.
Typically, seafood export witnessed order increases of about 10% compared to July with export turnover to the EU rising 1.7% compared to the same period last year. Of this, shrimp shipment in August 2020 soared 15.7% year on year, the highest rate since the beginning of the year./.
Vietnam’s mobile ad market expected to hit 211 million USD in 2020
The mobile advertising market in Vietnam is expected to reach 211 million USD by the end of this year, according to the “Vietnam Mobile & Smartphone Application Report in the first half of 2020” released by Appota Group - a digital entertainment company, according to Vietnam News Agency.
The mobile advertising market in Vietnam is expected to reach 211 million USD. (Photo: thanhnien.vn)
The report said Vietnam ranks 6th in Southeast Asia in terms of mobile ad spending and accounts for the largest share of the digital industry.
Due to COVID-19, the increasing trend of users using the internet means businesses are choosing digital advertising and promotions in response to the pandemic. Of which, mobile advertising accounts for more than 60 percent of total digital ad spending.
Also according to the report, 47 percent of surveyed businesses said they increased their budgets for digital media channels, 31 percent of businesses increased their promotion budgets, 28 percent focused more on selling on online channels, and only 25 percent changed their logistics system.
Dang Thai Son, Marketing Director of Appota Group, said the above figures showed that online advertising is increasingly dominating the market, especially advertising content on mobile devices. It is forecast that the spending level in this sector will increase further in the coming years. Therefore, this is fertile ground for digital content advertisers and marketers.
Under the pandemic, the general advertising trend has become digital-focused as digital consumption skyrocketed. Average downloads per app in Vietnam reached 256,290, which was significantly higher than the global average of 154,794 downloads per app.
In Vietnam, the cost-per-install (CPI) rate is relatively inexpensive and has shown a declining trend. Even with the effects of COVID-19, app usage and downloads have still been rising sharply. For developers, this is the golden period to launch their mobile applications and reach Vietnamese app users.
According to the Appota report, the effective cost per mile (eCPM) worldwide fell sharply in March due to the impact of the pandemic. Although Vietnam shared this trend, the eCPM of the Android reward video format has been quickly recovered since April while eCPM on iOS fell from 2.7 to 2.27 USD in May, its lowest level in the first half of 2020.
The report also revealed that the number of visits to news sites increased dramatically in the first quarter of 2020 because Vietnamese people are regularly updated with news related to COVID-19 at the time of the pandemic. Specifically, in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, general news sites increase from 28 to 44 percent of visits, and financial enterprise news sites increase 39 percent of visits./.