First direct flight links Xinjiang, Bangkok
Bangkok has been chosen as the destination of the first |direct flight linking northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a Southeast Asian country, sources with Urumqi Diwopu International Airport announced.
The flight is operated by China Southern Airlines between Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and Bangkok, the airport said in a statement.
Flights will be on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday each week, with a stopover at Lanzhou, capital of northwestern China’s Gansu province.
The direct flight shortens the travel time between Urumqi and Bangkok to around six hours from more than 10 hours previously, when passengers had to transit via Beijing and Shanghai to travel to Bangkok.
In 2015, the Urumqi airport saw the transit of 280,000 passengers, up 35.34 per cent year on year.
– China Daily
Outlook mixed for VN cashew exporter
A Vietnamese export company has mixed feelings, both happy and worried, about business prospects for this year.
The Hoang Son I Limited Company in the southern province of Binh Phuoc has signed a cashew-export contract until May this year, said Ta Quang Huyen, director of the company.
“The world market is consuming Vietnamese cashews with export prices rising from US$3.25 per kilogram to $3.50 per kilogram,” Huyen told the Phap Luat Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh (HCM City Law) newspaper.
The reputation of Vietnamese cashews has been getting better, even in choosy markets such as Japan and the US, the director added.
However, large export contracts also make enterprises worried.
“The company does not dare to sign contracts with large volumes because we are worried that there will be not enough raw cashews to meet the signed orders,” Huyen said.
He said domestic raw cashews could supply only 30 per cent of the demand for export processing.
Nguyen Duc Thanh, chairman of the Vietnam Cashew Association, said Vietnam could process about 1.3 million tonnes of cashews each year, but could only grow 500,000 tonnes a year, with the rest imported from Africa and Cambodia.
– Viet Nam News
One law for Vietnam
SMEs needed
All supporting policies for small and medium-sized enterprises, which account for more than 95 per cent of Vietnamese companies, should be included under one law, an official says.
That would make it easier for enterprises to access and benefit from these policies, Nguyen Hoa Cuong, deputy director of the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Enterprise Development Agency, said at a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City last week.
According to the deputy director, supporting policies for SMEs are scattered in many different documents, which makes it hard for enterprises to find them.
Tran Ngoc Liem, deputy director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Ho Chi Minh City, said SMEs contributed more than 40 per cent to gross domestic product, while employing more than half of the country’s labourers.
“Therefore, supporting SMEs is regenerating development for the economy,” he said.
Asean countries have built and approved the Asean Strategic Action Plan for SME Development 2016-2020.
– Viet Nam News
