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| Dien pomelo and Red pomelo on the shelves of Longdan supermarket (Photo: VNA) |
The first batch of 11 tonnes of Dien pomelo from the Yen Thuy district was transported to the UK on February 9 by Longdan, the largest importer of Vietnamese products in this country.
Earlier this month, Longdan also imported more than 5 tonnes of red-flesh pomelo from the province’s Tan Lac district.
In 2022, Longdan boosted the import of Vietnamese fresh fruits such as green pomelo, Hung Yen longan, Bac Giang lychee. This year, this group will continue to import Vietnamese specialties to the UK. Cao Phong orange, also from Hoa Binh, will be available in this market from the first quarter of 2023.
Longdan has a dozen of supermarkets specialising in Asian products, of which Vietnamese goods account for about 30%.
Work starts on Aeon Mall Hue
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| Work on Aeon Mall Hue begins on February 11 in Thua Thien-Hue province.(Photo: VNA) |
Work on Aeon Mall Hue, the seventh mall of Aeon in Vietnam and the first of its kind in the central region, began on February 11 in Thua Thien-Hue province, according to Vietnam News Agency.
Covering over 8.6ha, including 2,500 sq.m for vehicle parking, the shopping mall has areas for food, fashion, entertainment and supermarket.
Located in the An Van Duong new urban area in Hue city's An Dong ward, the project, which has total investment of more than 169 million USD, is expected to be put into operation in 2025.
The Japanese retail AEON Group currently has about 200 stores in Vietnam, including six shopping centres and supermarkets. Most the supermarkets are concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. The group plans to pour investment into an additional 16 projects in Vietnam by 2025, including 3-4 more projects in Hanoi.
HCM City ranks among top markets for data centre development
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| A data centre. Thanks to low price, HCM City is ranked among top markets in the land price category for data centre development. (Photo Courtesy Cushman & Wakefield) |
Ho Chi Minh City is ranked among the top markets in the land price category for data centre development, Vietnam News Agency quoted sayings of experts.
In an annual report by Cushman & Wakefield, the company said that with many of the largest markets in the APAC region boasting particularly high land costs, only HCM City ranks within the top 10 for the land price category.
The rest of the top ten markets in the category are: Columbus, Santiago, Johannesburg, Atlanta, Nashville, Phoenix, Austin, Denver, and Chicago.
The report ranks major data centre markets around the world according to 13 weighted categories, including market size, fiber connectivity, power cost and environmental risk, to determine the top overall markets as well as the top performing markets in each category.
According to the company’s latest forth quarter of 2022 HCM City marketbeat report, the average rental price reached 159 USD per sq.m per lease cycle, up 3% quarter-on-quarter and 10% year-on-year.
Vietnam may be a frontier data centre market at this juncture but it has numerous fundamentals that would suggest great potential for development going forward. The country currently has 70% internet penetration, with an estimated 29 million people yet to get online.
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| Photo for illustration |
Over 48% of Vietnam’s capacity is located in the centre of HCM City. Currently, only a small number of multinationals require high-level capacity.
The common approach for international operators is to partner with local telecommunication operators. There is a sizable lack of existing infrastructure relative to the population of the market and demand for internet services. This represents a major opportunity at both the content provision and infrastructure establishment level.
According to Cush & Walkfield, south of HCM City is preferred as a hub for data centres, especially for cloud services platform providers, due to latency issues and the securing of manpower. CMC Telecom opened its Tan Thuan Data Centre in August last year. The facility was designed by B-Barcelona of Singapore. The facility has a total area of 13,133sq.m and was 30% pre-leased at launch according to CMC.
Australian edge data centres firm Edge Centres has expanded into Asia with the deployment of their first data centre, EC51, in Vietnam in HCM City in collaboration with the Vietnam National University. They also have plans for an additional edge site in HCM City.
GAW Capital acquired greenfield land in the Sai Gon Hi-Tech Park in the city. The data centre is expected to be over 18,000sq.m and support 20MW in capacity.
Viettel, a Vietnamese telecommunications company, announced plans to build a new data centre with 260 million USD in investment. While specifics on the facility have yet to be announced, this would be Viettel’s third project in the city.
Competition for sites between both data centre players and other asset classes has reached a fever pitch over the course of the past year. Fulfillment centres and large-scale single family rental developments have been evaluating similar sites as data centres.
According to the company, one notable advantage that data centres have in competition for these sites is the limited impact on surrounding traffic and parking availability, a key area of concern for a number of local communities. However, data centres do require a higher power draw, and there have seen greater local community concerns about the potential effect on electrical grids. The growth of edge data centres has continued, optimising workload for latency.
Vietjet offers tickets from 0 VND on HCM City – Melbourne route
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| Vietjet aircraft (Photo courtesy of Vietjet) |
Vietjet has opened for sale hundreds of thousands of tickets from only 0 VND for direct flights connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Melbourne (Australia), marking a milestone on the journey of expanding its international flight network, conquering all five continents this year, according to Vietnam News Agency.
During the golden week from February 14 to 20, Vietjet will open for sales tickets priced from only 0 VND, excluding taxes, fees, on www.vietjetair.com and Vietjet Air mobile app, with a flexible flight period from now to October 29, 2023.
The first direct flights connecting Ho Chi Minh City to Melbourne (Australia), Tullamarine airport will operate from April 8 with six flights per week. The flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Melbourne on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday take off at 10:55 am and land at 10:35 pm (local time), while the flights on Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City route on every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday take off at 12:30 am and land at 6:30 am (local time).
Depending on demands, passengers flying between HCM City and Melbourne can easily choose from SkyBoss Business, Skyboss, Deluxe, Eco ticket classes with all – inclusive services with up to 60kg checked baggage, green organic food feast served throughout the journey, free travel insurance and many other attractive incentives.
Especially, customers who register to become members of Vietjet SkyJoy loyalty program and purchasing tickets can receive up to 3,300 SkyPoints on the SkyJoy app, using SkyPoints to redeem Vietjet vouchers and gifts from more than 250 favourist food, shopping and tourism brands in Vietnam./.