Quick bites

Friday. Long week seeing what is happening in the US, plus COVID-19, plus Hong Kong, plus…who knows. When is 2020 going to be over! I am by nature an optimist, so I hope that we will come out of all this tumult with a renewed sense of wonder and respect for humanity. It’s too easy to be cynical, so let’s take the harder route and be optimistic. I’m not talking about being a pollyanna, but rather hoping and working toward the better. It’s a struggle every day.

Anyway, to some news:

Money supply: We have been talking about currencies and FX and inflation. Well, we got some figures from the SBV, and they aren’t such a surprise. M2 is up 3.4% ytd as of the end of May. We aren’t seeing inflation, but this is likely to pressure the currency. Also, bank credit is up 1.96% in the same period, which is probably not enough to drive a 5% growth target (I can’t remember if this is still the new target or now).

Uniqlo: In good news for Vietnamese growth, Uniqlo is opening a new store in HCMC this week. It’s the 3rd store for Uniqlo in the country. It’s big at 2,000 sqm (or 21,500 sqft for my American readers).

Riverway tourism: HCMC is adding three new waterway routes for tourists in the city. There are now 7 (including these 3, if I am reading the article correctly).

In less good news:

Drought in Long An: The Mekong delta province is facing yet another drought, with supply equal to only 50% of demand. And it looks like it isn’t going to change for the foreseeable future.

Nearly 736,000cu.m of water will be needed by 2030, according to the province’s planning on water supply. Currently, its plants can only supply 206,000cu.m of fresh water. It lacks more than 215,000cu.m of fresh water to serve industrial and urban development and people’s daily activities.

We have talked about saltwater intrusion for quite a while (it was one of the first things I looked at over a year ago). It is no surprise that fresh water is lacking and that efforts to deal with saltwater intrusion have hurt mangrove forests (that need brackish water).

This is going to be a running occurrance, especially as water gets help up by dams further upstream on the Mekong. The Vietnamese government needs to start figuring out a way to deal with this. It’s going to be tough and require significant changes.

There is a new environmental law coming down the track, and hopefully it will help address some of these concerns. It seems to be based on the good principle of “polluter pays.” This will only partially help drought-affected regions, but maybe it will help clean up water elsewhere.