26 minute read
Fraud in Danida Business Partnership blocked
News brief Fraud accusations against two Danida Business Partnerships in Indonesia
The Danish Foreign Ministry announced on 15 April 2020 that its lawyers had initiate legal proceedings against two companies in the Danida Business Partnership programme in Indonesia suspected of fraud. The attorney of the Danish Foreign Ministry demanded on behalf of the Foreign Ministry of Denmark full repayment of the funds which the companies in the partnership had withdrawn. The repayment would amount to 2.152.744 DKK ($ 314.076,09).
The accused had denied the allegations of the Foreign Ministry of Denmark while also refusing to meet the demand of repayment, the statement said.
Kasper Helmgaard Rask, political and economic advisor at the Danish Embassy in Indonesia, clarifies that it is not the entire programme that has been suspended – only the cooperation with the two businesses involved.
“The Danish Embassy has decided to suspend the individual partnerships with two businesses from two different projects under the Danida Business Programme. It is not the entire programme that has been suspended,” says Kasper Helmgaard Rask to ScandAsia.
The two businesses, whose partnership agreements has been suspended, are Syntes Engineering and Smoke Solution ApS.
Information provided by one of the other partners in the Daninda Business programme initiated the investigation of Syntes Engineering, while a random test of project partners’ requests for funding led to the investigation of Smoke Solution ApS, according to the political and economic advisor from the Danish Embassy in Indonesia Kasper Helmgaard Rask.
Norwegian’s cabin- and pilot crew companies file for bankruptcy in Sweden and Denmark
The Danish and Swedish staff of the airline company Norwegian were technically employed by three companies in Denmark and one in Sweden. These four companies have all filed for bank
ruptcy due to the stand-still situation of the airline industry leaving 1,571 pilots and 3,134 cabin crew staff unemployed.
In a press release issued by Norwegian on 20 April 2020, the airline explains that the Boards of the Scandinavian companies felt they were ‘left with no choice but to apply for bankruptcy’.
“Our pilots and cabin crew are the core of our business and they have done a fantastic job for many years. It is heart-breaking that our Swedish and Danish pilot- and cabin crew subsidiaries now are forced to file for bankruptcy,” announces the CEO of Norwegian, Jacob Schram.
“I’m truly sorry for the consequences this will have for our colleagues. We are working around the clock to get through this crisis and to return as a stronger Norwegian with the goal of bringing as many colleagues back in the air as possible,” adds the CEO.
NICHADA
Nichada Thani, this year celebrating its 35th anniversary in May, is the leading gated community on the outskirts of Bangkok in Pakkret, (www.nichada.com), home to the International School Bangkok, and popularly known as the Expatriate Town of Thailand.
Our family friendly community was designed and built to provide families of all sizes with an array of housing options for rent and for sale which run from one bedroom apartments to 5 bedroom executive houses. The community is lined with tree shaded streets with sidewalks and bike lanes as well as security, allowing kids to safely walk or ride their bikes to school or to access neighbors and facilities. Just as pets are considered members of the family, families with pets will find themselves welcomed into the community as pets are allowed in all long term rental homes owned by the Nichada Group of Companies.
With the ongoing global pandemic of COVID-19, social distancing is of the utmost importance; here at Nichada Thani we strive to provide the best tools to keep our residents and community safe.
The open floor plans of the homes designed and constructed by the Nichada Group of Companies in the sub communities of Premier Place, The Prestige, Baan Rimlake and the Nichada and Natakorn Lake Condominium offer large airy spaces which allow air to move freely through the home. A multitude of windows with insect screens in our homes not only let in the natural light, but when opened helps to cool the home without the need to run air conditioning 24 hours a day, saving energy and money.
Live virtual tours are now available for all of our properties. To set up a virtual Line tour, contact our Rental office through Line application @nichadareservation If however you would like to tour our properties in person, we also offer customers disposable slippers in which they may tour our homes.
The Nichada Group of Companies offers free disinfection of all of our rental properties before the customer moves in or upon request with additional payment.
True Rapid Speed Internet network is available in all of our homes so customers can surf the web without impediment. This is important these days as more people are working from home and more students are attending classes online.
Online Service is available from our personal butlers. Services that may have required a trip to the office can now be accomplished online by contacting a butler at customer relations@nichada.com n1n2@nichada.com or through Line @nichadareservation.
E-payments and wire transfers are now not only accepted but encouraged for the convenience of our customers. Your rent and utilities can now be paid online and customers can receive their acknowledgement of payment both in their mailbox and via email.
Nichada Thani and the surrounding area is full of facilities and amenities catering to residents and many of them now offer take away and or delivery service. Some of the local businesses offering delivery are Villa International Supermarket, Tops Supermarket and Vapor Restaurant. Vapor, Restaurant Starbucks,7-11, Cherry’s Kitchen and O-C Organic are also offering take away service.
Our 125 rai private lake and the more than 2.5 kilometers of surrounding shaded roads, sidewalks and bike / jogging paths offers a perfect place for residents to relax, enjoy the fresh air and exercise while social distancing.
The protection of the health and safety of our residents starts outside of the gates and visitors to Nichada Thani must submit to a temperature check before entering through the gate.
Nichada Thani has put into place procedures and staff training to protect our customers from health risks, which includes the use of protective face masks, requiring frequent hand washing and social distancing through a work from home program.
Nat Pattarasirin
Rental Manager rental@nichada.com 02-960-4329-31
Scott Roman
GM Nichada & Natakorn Lake Condominium n1n2@nichada.com 02-832-0001
Chitapat Na Songkhla
Sales Manager sales@nichada.com 02-832-0088
NichadaThani
News brief University of Copenhagen warns of illegal logging in Cambodia
Denmark’s University of Copenhagen has drawn attention to recently published data which shows increased illegal logging within the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia, according to the Cambodian daily the Phnom Penh Post.
In a letter to stakeholders of the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, the university provides documentation of the deforestation with a tool by the EU that detects processes
of forest degradation by the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), the EU Reseach Centre and Global Forest Watch. The University of Copenhagen also documents the deforestation of Prey Lang with the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (Glad) that via satellite pictures of earth detects deforestation.
The letter states that there have been approximately 1.000 alerts when deforestation was detected per week in Prey Lang in 2020. The data shows an increase in forest loss in the southern and northern part of Prey Lang, reports Phnom Penh Post.
The spokesman of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment Neth Pheaktra told the Phnom Penh Post that the Cambodian government is dedicated to protecting and conserving natural resources, including the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary.
The spokesman stated that rangers employed by the Ministry are stationed in protected areas and enforces the Law on Protected Areas. The rangers patrol regularly and crack down on forest crimes, hunting, animal snaring and land grabbing, said Neth Pheaktra.
“The Ministry of Environment emphasizes that no perpetrator can escape the law. We recognize that there are small-scale natural resource offences in protected areas, but no large-scale crimes,” said the spokesman of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment to the Phnom Penh Post.
Three Taiwanese people lose nationality lawsuit against Norway
Three Taiwanese people living in Norway lost a lawsuit against the Norwegian government, where they accused the government of wrongly changing their nationality from “Taiwanese” to “Chinese” on their residency permits, reports the Taiwanese daily Taipei Times.
The court of Oslo ruled 28 April that the Norwegian government follows the “One China” policy and therefore doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent state – and the decision to change the nationality of Taiwanese people residing in the Scandinavian country corresponds with the government’s
policy. The court ruled the lawsuit as ‘without justification’.
“The ruling was widely expected, but we have decided to appeal,” said Joseph, one of the Taiwanese people who filed the lawsuit.
“The judge did not give us the chance to express ourselves in court, so our right to a fair trial was violated,” added Joseph, who is a lawyer.
The lawsuit was backed by many of the Taiwanese residents in Norway along with numerous Taiwanese exchange students in the Scandinavian country.
According to Taipei Times, Joseph has announced that if they lost the lawsuit, they would file an appeal all the way to European Court of Human Rights to ensure “that the world hears the voice of the Taiwanese people”.
Ups and downs in the World Happiness Ranking
The Scandinavian countries are notoriously known for ranking high in reports of happiness and welfare with Finland ranking first place for the third year in a row and Denmark remains as second place. Likewise, Iceland hasn’t dropped or risen from their fourth place and neither has Sweden as the seventh place in the happiness index.
But interestingly Norway has dropped two spots since 2019 – and are now ranked as the fifth happiest country in the world.
These are the findings in the latest annual World Happiness Report which was released 20 March 2020.
Looking at the Asian countries, there are several drops and rises on the ranking of the happiest countries.
For several years Singapore has been the highest-ranking Asian country in the index – and the tendency continues as Singapore rises three rankings since 2019 to 31th place. The Philippines rises a whooping 17 places on the rankings as the 52th happiest country in the world – taking over Thailand’s spot of 2019. Thailand drops 2 spots to 54th place.
The next Asian country in the happiness ranking is Malaysia who falls two spots since 2019 to 82th place with Vietnam just after as the 83th happiest country in the world – having risen 11 spots since 2019.
Indonesia rises eight spots since 2019 and places 84th on the ranking of the world happiest countries. China drops one spot to 94th place in 2020.
Finland remains the happiest country in the world, followed by Denmark and a bit further down Norway, Iceland and Sweden. Photo: Lauri Rotko / Visit Finland.
Entering the 100’s of the ranking Laos places 104th – a small improvement of one spot since 2019- with Cambodia following right after on 106th place, having risen three spots.
Myanmar is the lowest ranking Asian country in the World Happiness Report Ranking on 133th place – and has dropped two spots since 2019.
News brief Swedish publisher distributes prison-poems by Gui Minhai
Photo: Teller Report.
The Swedish publishing firm Kaunitz-Olsson released a collection of 11 poems written by Gui Minhai, the Swedish-Hong Kong bookseller currently impris
oned in China after being convicted of providing illegal information to foreign countries in February.
The collection is dubbed ‘I draw a door on the wall with my finger’.
The poems were written by the Hong Kong-born Swedish citizen while he was serving his first prison sentence. The themes of the 11 poems, that are printed in both Swedish and Chinese, vary from longing for Swedish forests, Norse Myths, fondness of Swedish culture to reflections on his imprisonment, with a stanza of a poem reading:
“It would be embarrassing to stop writing poems because the poetry has been caged”
Kaunitz-Olsson reports, that Gui Minhai memorized the poems while in prison and smuggled them out to his daughter after haven written them down, when he was released for a short while.
Source: Hong Kong Free Press
Singapore Vikings Football Club raised funds for migrant workers
Two weeks after the Singapore Vikings Football Club with more than 100 of its members opened a fund raising campaign with the aim of collection 22.000 SGD, the club has collected 45.000 SGD based on 158 sponsors.
The campaign centred around how many kilometres the players could run while jogging solo in their neighbourhoods, over the labour day weekend (1-3 May 2020).
They aim was to raise $20,000 in support of the Migrant Workers Assistance Fund, the humanitarian charity of the Migrant Workers Centre in Singapore.
The Singapore Vikings is a social football club with players predominantly from Denmark and other Scandinavian countries.
Its charity challenge was conceptualised by the Singapore Vikings management, who wanted to help migrant workers who are living in local dormitories and have been heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
How to support? Click here: https://www.giving.sg/campaigns/ singaporevikingsfc
All 30.000 Nordic TUI travelers came home
TUI Nordic announced on 31 March that they had completed repatriating over 30,000 Nordic travelers from different parts of the world to Scandinavia. The evacuation was part of TUI’s worldwide evacuation in which a total of 200,000 European guests have now been flown home.
TUI is the largest corporation within tourism and travel in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland and part of the larger TUI Group, which is the world’s leading tourism group.
In Asia, TUI operates tours to among others Indonesia, Vietnam, Maldives and Thailand.
TUI began early in the corona virus crisis to get everyone home in collaboration with all the Nordic foreign ministries.
“A record-breaking collaboration meant that we were able to get everyone home safely and well,” says Mikkel Hansen, Head of Communications at TUI Denmark and Adam Györki,Head of Communications at TUI Sweden.
“We would like to thank all customers, both those who got the holiday shortened, but also those who had to re-book a trip they had been looking forward to.”
“A big thank you also to all employees in the Nordic countries as well as the rest of the world,” he adds.
TUI’s employees in the Nordic countries have been working around the clock for the past two weeks. In total, they have handled 25,000 calls on the phone in the customer service department as
The last TUI Nordic charter plane discharges passengers in Arlanda Airport near Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo: TUI)
well as more than 6,000 questions on social media. Many of the guests who never left now choose to rebook for a new trip.
“We see that the customers with whom we are in contact want to travel. It becomes even more evident to feel that desire when travel options like life are generally limited as these days.”
Ann Måwe Sweden’s Ambassador to Vietnam
By Joakim Persson
For the third time in a row seasoned diplomat Ms. Ann Måwe has been awarded the job she applied for within the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This time the appointment is her Ambassador debut - at the Embassy of Sweden, Hanoi.
Ambassador Måwe began her work in September 2019. Two high level business delegations – one in each direction from Sweden and Vietnam – had just taken place so it was, as she describes it, an easy start.
“Before the summer, two big delegations had taken place; with the Crown Princess Couple and Trade minister Ann Linde who came here with the largest trade delegation ever; followed by the Vietnamese Prime Minister’s trip to Stockholm with a large delegation,” explains Ann Måwe.
“I had a big advantage with the 50 years anniversary of bilateral relations as point of departure. It’s easy to frame things around such an anniversary and the embassy
and my predecessor had done an excellent job, which has made it easier for me to take over this role.”
“There was a lot to continue with, new MoUs to follow up on and many events that had already been planned for the autumn. It was a just a matter of entering the role while carrying through with things.”
The spring of 2020, however, has been anything else than normal, with all planned activities cancelled due to Covid-19 and instead a lot of work with assisting stranded Swedes in Vietnam to get them back home safely.
Ambassador Måwe had applied to Vietnam as she wanted to have a completely new challenge, having worked intensively with the Middle East, including for the five last years at the Middle East and North Africa department in Stockholm during the period when Sweden was a member of the UN Security Council.
“I felt I needed a break from that and I’ve been curious about Asia and feel that it’s the region in the world where things are developing rapidly. Vietnam felt exciting based on that Sweden has a very long and deep relation with the country and also that we’ve gone from primarily development aid to supporting trade here. That is a positive and specific agenda to work with in Vietnam,” the ambassador elaborates.
What was new for Ann Måwe was the representative role she would have; to be seen and heard a lot in public, representing Sweden and talking about the bilateral relation.
Her diplomatic career started very early, so early in fact that she has never worked in the private sector.
“I’ve been working at the Foreign Ministry for 20 years now and especially on topics concerning the Middle East and also the United Nations. The Middle East is also my educational background; I studied oriental studies at Uppsala University, followed by a Masters at SOAS, the School of Oriental & African Studies (University of London), so it has been a lot of work connected to the Middle East for me throughout the years, including my latest position as Deputy Head of the Department for the Middle East and North Africa.”
In 1999 she was admitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) internal education, the Diplomat programme, back then called ‘Handläggarutbildningen’.
Outside of MFA headquarters she has been on two postings abroad that both connect to her educational background; the Consulate General of Sweden in Jerusalem, followed by the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations in New York.
“In Jerusalem I was political officer, so my task was political reporting, in particular about the Middle East and the peace process with the concrete negotiations that were taking place back then.Palestinian domestic politics was also in focus etc. In New York I spent five years, of which the first few were dedicated to development topics within the UN and Sweden’s support to some of the UN’s development organisations; specifically Unicef, UNFPA, and UN Women. After that I moved over to the security section, being responsible for the Middle East and also Afghanistan and Pakistan – which also coincided with Swedish Presidency of the EU in 2009. I led the EU negotiations regarding the Middle East in the UN General Assembly.”
Asked about her lasting impression of working with the UN she says: “UN is the organisation we have to solve conflicts and when working with security issues one can notice that they often disagree among the five permanent members in the Security Council. At the same time I think Sweden has a very long tradition and experience of working in the UN and the latest period when Sweden had a seat in the Security Council, during 2017 – 2018, I felt that we could contribute well there thanks to the fact we have a broad contact network and wide understanding of how the UN works. And, for instance, Sweden hosted consultations about the conflict in Yemen in Stockholm in December 2018, which gave progress somewhat. Sweden is a small country in need of a rulebased world order, so it feels worthwhile to work in the UN. Meanwhile, it is of course dominated by bureaucracy and many reforms are needed, so that things could work much better.”
HE Ambassador Ann Måwe handing over her credentials to Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong of Vietnam. Photo: Embassy of Sweden, Hanoi.
“With this background in multilateral and UN affairs it is particularly interesting to arrive in Vietnam when the country is embarking on a two-year term in the UNSC 2020-2021 and also presiding over the ASEAN in 2020,” she adds.
Now, with her focus turned to Asia she gets the chance to learn more about a region she has had little to do with previously.
“I’ve been here only on missions to Cambodia and Myanmar when I was working on multilateral healthcare topics. Other than that I have only visited as tourist.”
With her family she has been on a wedding trip to Bali and on vacation to Sri Lanka two times. She is married to outgoing left wing party leader Jonas Sjöstedt and together they have 13 years old twins; a boy and a girl who are attending school in Hanoi. Intending to move to Vietnam and join the family her husband’s arrival has been delayed as the party congress was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The family has also had the time to explore the country a bit.
“We travelled during the autumn, in Laos and Cambodia, including on the waterway from Phnom Phen into the Mekong delta, and then took the night train from Saigon to Hanoi, which takes 36 hours and during which one get to see a lot of the country passing by. We’ve also been on shorter excursions to the coast etc. There are still lots to see though we managed to travel quite a lot during the first six months.” The epidemic has of course stopped all travel though, and that of course includes official trips in the region that had been planned and that she had been looking forward to very much.
In order to engage with the vibrant Swedish business community in Vietnam the ambassador also needs to travel frequently to Ho Chi Minh City, where most of the Swedes are based. These work either for Swedish companies or are own entrepreneurs.
“We are bit off up in Hanoi, so I try to travel there every sixth week. We hold breakfast meetings with Swed
HE Ambassador Ann Måwe visiting Bai Bang. Photo: Embassy of Sweden, Hanoi.
ish companies in Saigon and meet with those who can make it at those times.”
There are also some Swedes in Hanoi, she informs, who have remained after the development programmes stopped, continuing in professional capacity where partnerships have continued, within for example healthcare (one of the sectors where Sweden used to have significant development cooperation).
The embassy shares office with Business Sweden, which is now also free-standing (previously under Bangkok). Björn Savlid is now Trade Commissioner appointed by the Swedish Government.
“It is very practical to share office as our main mission also concerns the trade relationship. They do an excellent work here, and we do almost everything together though we work separately. And since Vietnam is a oneparty state, and with everything more or less controlled by the state, the embassy is needed as a door opener to solve questions relating to trade barriers and various red tape complications. We can therefore help each other a lot by working together,” thinks the ambassador.
She has also noticed, since arriving, that there is a positive momentum, with Swedish companies expanding and wanting to expand further; doing big investment in sectors like infrastructure, urban transport, and sustainable manufacturing.
The ambassador has also pointed to a huge potential for business opportunities and trade between Sweden and Vietnam, and which also includes exchanging business solutions and technology transfer.
“Ericsson is busy rolling out 5G, Tetra Pak opened a new production plant last year and there’s a lot of expansion going on over all. We can also see lots of SMEs wanting to come here but who find that this is a difficult market with lots of red tape and corruption. And there is hope that once the EU-Vietnam FTA is implemented later this year it will get easier for the smaller companies with less capacity than our multinationals.”
The embassy works very closely with the Swedish companies, with a focus in recent years on three themes that were previously jointly identified to focus on: innovation, safety and sustainability. They see that Swedish companies have comparative advantages within these themes and that are quite relevant in the Vietnamese contexts.
“The three priorities have been there for several years and it has worked very well, they function as a sounding board; there is an interest from the Vietnamese side for solutions within them.”
Directly upon Ann Måwe’s arrival to Vietnam it was time for the kick-off of the annual ‘Innovate like a Swede’ competition, where teams of two persons (university students) can pitch an idea or innovation and that has to be connected to one of the SDGs.
“I immediately had to get an understanding of why Vietnam is interested in innovation and why Sweden is focusing on that here, and what Sweden has to offer. Vietnam has moved very fast during the last ten years, in terms of reforms, having joined WTO and established 17 FTAs with various blocks and countries. They have also understood in this country that they want to raise their position in the global value chain and add more value for products. They then also realise that innovation is something that is needed, and are thus very active within this, and have climbed a few positions in the global innovation index too.”
Ann Måwe also informs that when the Vietnamese
Prime Minisiter visited Sweden he in particular brought up innovation and sustainability with Sweden’s PM Stefan Löfven - wanting to see collaboration.
“We have also had both the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Governors visiting Sweden last year, studying innovation and the start-up scenes etc. So it feels like a very given priority.”
“Within sustainability, also there Vietnam has very high ambitions but also enormous challenges, as their economic growth has moved so fast, so for example air quality in Hanoi is during periods very bad. There, they have evident challenges, with plastic waste being another. And waste management over all is a big challenge,” she continues.
The amount of waste in the country is expected to double in less than 15 years. Meanwhile, less than 10% of waste in Vietnam is recycled and a significant amount of waste ends up directly in landfills or in the ocean. Sweden, meanwhile, is one of the world’s leading countries in waste management and recycling.
“We have Swedish companies that want to get involved within these topics. We arrange seminars and held one on circular economy, co-organised with Business Sweden, in November 2019. We spoke about the Swedish experience within waste management and recycling, and Tetra Pak, a big supplier food packages in Vietnam, would like to see more recycling. They have a pilot project in Hanoi where they help to recycle milk cartons in 800 schools.”
“Vietnam did fulfil all Millennium Goals before deadline and now they are very determined to continue working on the sustainability development goals. But it’s a balance act when they at the same time want strong financial growth while at the same time trying to make it as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible.”
Ann Måwe has also had the time to notice how strong the Vietnamese – Swedish relation and friendship remains still today. In every meeting she has been to, Bai Bang, the Swedish paper mill development aid project has been mentioned.
“It is one positive part that there are plenty of people-to-people relationships no matter in what sector, be it a radio station or at a hospital! As the first western country to do so, Sweden recognised Vietnam as an independent state already in 1969 while the war still raging, and subsequently had a major development cooperation programme for Vietnam, And within companies they have either been to Sweden or have worked with Swedes who were here. Those connections make it very easy to work here because it’s much appreciated that we were here and helped in developing the country after the war.”
Now, the ambassador says it is the Swedish embassy’s task to convey a more modernised image of Sweden to Vietnam’s overall very young population.
“Sweden is very different now. We must nurture that history that is appreciated here but also contribute to the understanding that Sweden today offers something completely different.”
Tommy Franssila: Enjoy your holiday in Da Nang
Tommy Franssila, Director - Culinary Operations, who was previously a familiar Nordic face at Grand Hyatt in Kuala Lumpur is since May 2018 based at Hyatt Regency Danang Resort & Spa – in a leisure-focused setting. Tommy therefore constitutes our best possible guide to get a grip on what this destination called Danang has to offer holiday-makers.
Today this Vietnamese seaside city is accessible directly from many cities in Southeast Asia and even further away – South Koreans being its number one visitor group, for instance.
A former landing zone for US soldiers in the war, today, Danang boasts Vietnam’s third biggest airport. Photos and text: Joakim Persson
“Danang receives 400 inbound flights per week. It’s a busy airport. There are lots of visitors from Asia in general but we also see those from other countries such as from Europe, Australia and the US. Previously it wasn’t the most popular destination here; Hoi An Ancient Town was – especially among Western as well as Asian travellers, because it’s a Unesco heritage city and a travel destination in that sense,” says Tommy as we meet for lunch at Pool House.
Hoi An is situated only 25 minutes from the Hyatt hotel, which is situated on an expansive beachfront land in southern Danang, so an excursion there is easily organised with the hotel.
“It’s worth visiting, especially at night time. There’s a
