Grab bag

Having a bit of trouble today figuring out what to write about. There is a lot of stuff out there, but I don’t really have a good take. So, some thoughts on big stories:

Monthly plastic update: I have told you, dear readers, that plastic is going the way of the dodo (see my posts on May 6 and April 22). Now the airlines are going to phase out single-use plastic. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love plastic. Plastic containers are super helpful. I sous vide (pretentious cooking of plastic-wrapped food in water), and I can’t live without plastic wrap. But so much of the plastic that we use could easily be replaced and ends up polluting our environment.

Now, unfortunately, this move is probably going to mean very little. The cultural move away from using plastic is real, but each of the steps along the way seem kind of…limited. Like banning plastic straws. Plus, this is just such a minimal use of plastic. How much does each plastic bag weigh? They sell them by the ton which equates to something like 200,000 plastic bags. Straws even less.

I guess what I’m saying is that over time, these effects will be cumulative, but each step is minuscule.

PENDING PROJECTS IN INFRASTRUCTURE: FINCH BY WAY OF BLOOMBERG FOR INVESTMENT FIGURES. POPULATION FIGURES REPRESENT 2017 FROM THE WORLD BANK. CALCULATION BY VIETECON.COM

Lots of investment in ASEAN: Everyone is looking at China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but it turns out that Japan is easily beating them, at least in terms of infrastructure investment in ASEAN. China is rising in the ranking - last year, the differential between its investments and Japan’s was much bigger. (Feb 2018 figures put Japan’s projects at $230bn vs China’s $155bn).

In the chart on the right, I added a column for investment per capita, which is probably not that meaningful, but I thought it would give some perspective. Even limited investment in Laos can make a really big difference. Same with Timor-Leste.

Vietnam is right in the middle. I am surprised that China is not more involved, since Vietnam is starting to be part of its supply chain as Chinese companies shift some manufacturing to the country. Plus there is a pretty big border.

Indonesia/Vietnam maritime borders: It looks like after the elections in Indonesia, relations between the country and Vietnam are starting to improve. On May 22 (scroll down), I wrote about Indonesia’s concerns over maritime borders with Vietnam (mainly fishing by Vietnamese in Indonesian waters). Well, the two countries are starting new talks to demarcate their respective maritime borders.

Hopefully this will de-escalate the situation.

HCMC visits are up 10%: Foreign tourist visits to Ho Chi Minh City are up 10% yoy in the first half of the year (not sure how they got this figure, since we aren’t finished with the first half, but I guess they expect the numbers to remain consistent through the next few days).

The city received 17 million travellers in the January-June period, including 12.8 million domestic tourists, reaching 40% of its set target for 2019…In the same period, the city’s hospitality sector earned approximately VND73 trillion (US$3.15 billion) in tourism revenue, an increase of 16.6% against the same period last year.

It actually looks like the city is falling behind a bit, because it was targeting a 14% increase in foreign tourists and a 13% rise in domestic ones. However, revenues are doing better than expected - the city targets a 14.5% increase in those.

There is some concern that the city is just not ready for so many tourists. (See this article). If it gets really bad, then not as many people will come, so I assume it will be self-regulating. We will find out over time.