History and development

The Group first invested into the Vietnam's market since 1991. Before investing into Vietnam, the Group was also a pioneer investing into China since 1979 when China first opened for foreign investors. The Group was one of the first investors to set up a manufacturing base in China in 1982 to produce TV and TV accessories. Benefited from the dramatic growth of the Chinese economy since then, the Group was also growing fast and subsequently listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in 1987.

In early 90's, foreseeing an increasingly fierce competition in China market, particularly the electronics business, the management realized it was time for the Group to diversify its investments to different sectors and/or different territories. After years of studies, the management found that Vietnam was like an unexplored gem in South-East Asia, which had abundant resources and great potentials and most important at all in a number of aspects very much alike China in its early 1980's.

Why Vietnam?

An Asian country with an area of around 330,000 square kilometers, a long coastal line stretching over 1,600 km and a population close to a hundred million, which people might think of Japan. But if it has the youngest population in Asia, and a GNP per capita of only US$630 per year (year 2005), then this is but Vietnam.

Vietnam is itself a very rich country in terms of its resources. It possesses abundant natural resources including petroleum, coal and numerous mineral resources, significant hydro-electric power potential, rich in agricultural products (being one of the world's top 3 exporters of rice and coffee) and marine products.

Having a population of over 84 million is not only a big market for various kinds of products, but also provide abundant supply of labour. Indeed, labour cost is one of the lowest among Asian countries, which however does not mean that the quality is low. Vietnamese workers are generally commented as diligent, hard-working, skilful and relatively well-educated (with a literacy rate of over 93% among its population). And probably due to the War and the baby boom after the War, Vietnam has the youngest population in Asia, with over 65% of the population between the age of 15 and 65, whereas the median age is only 25.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, as seen from its name, has adopted a very similar political system and government structure to that of China. Over the past 2 decades, since the first introduction of Doi Moi (the restructuring of, and new direction, for the economy) in 1986, the government has been very stable which is particularly apparent when comparing to some of the other South-East Asian countries.

Although Vietnam's economy has also experienced certain ups and downs over the past two decades, the admission of Vietnam into the WTO in January 2007 will be a catalyst for accelerating its economic growth and to unveil its underlying great potentials. As China has experienced a remarkable growth since it was admitted to the WTO in 2001, there seems no reason that the road of Vietnam's economic growth shall be slowing down or turning back for the coming 5 years.

Why infrastructure and Property related business in Vietnam?

In developing countries like Vietnam, the management believes that when the economy begins to pick up, the first wave of growth shall be related to the infrastructure development. Thus, investing in infrastructure and property related business should be in an advantageous position to be benefited from the growth.

Strategy and goal

With the support of stable income and cash inflow from the Group's property investment business and its existing cement business, the management aims at expanding the annual capacity of its cement factory to approximately 3 million tonnes in 2008. Also, seeing an accelerating growth of the economy, the Group takes the opportunity to invest in property development business in Hochiminh City, aiming to construct middle to high range apartments in order to satisfy the rising demand of a pool of local middle-class, which number is growing fast along with the economic growth.