I am an accountant after all....

Hello everybody,
We read a good quote about Ha Noi the other day. 'Ha Noi is a big enough city to attract interesting people , and a small enough city to get to meet them all'

Well you all know that I am an accountant but I haven't yet bombarded you with any numbers . Accountants just love numbers. It's a bit of a 'soap box' theme of mine that accountants measure far too many things with numbers, and should maybe step back sometimes to consider some  apparently less definitive units of measurement. I will quickly step off the 'soap box' though and give you some numbers according to the Word Ha Noi magazine April 2012:


              75% of Vietnamese earn between 1750 to 5000 GBP per annum (sorry I can't find the sterling sign on my Vietnamese computer)

               2% of Vietnamese earn over 10,000 GBP

               The market share of 'known' global banks like HSBC/ANZ in Vietnam is 3%

               32% of adults in Hanoi have an ATM card

                 1% of adults in Hanoi have a credit card

                 Inflation in Vietnam was over 20% last year  and is hoped to be 10-13% this year

                 The interest rate is 12%

Recently I went to a talk  where one of the guest speakers was a banker in Vietnam. He said that the banks in Vietnam are looking forward to taking consumers on their 'customer journey'. I took this to mean the development of retail lending via credit cards. So I plucked up some courage and asked a question. This is always a hairy moment, when you get passed the microphone and you ask your question, hoping that it isn't stupid and you surreptitiously look for raised eyebrows or sniggers in the audience. I said ' Is it possible that the Government here will help the banks to learn any lessons from such places as UK/USA in respect to the social distress that uncontrolled lending to people who cannot afford to borrow creates?'

I was told afterwards that my question was 'Question of the Day'. So my 'back of an envelope' calcuation is as follows.....low salaries plus high inflation plus high interest rates plus aggressive lending plus an aspirational society equals.......the need to be very careful..

To a different subject. We live in a beautiful place. Very close to Westlake, one of the main lakes around which Hanoi is based. Every morning and evening I take Sally, the dog, for her stroll along the side of the lake. At 6.30a.m. there are cyclists, runners, people exercising and loads of rowing teams ( like Oxford v Cambridge) on the lake. In the evening it's a different place. There is a grass area maybe 300 yards long and 30 yards wide between the pavement and the lake, and it is here that couples arrive on their scooters in droves after dark. It's a hugely romantic place in the evening. They come to make their plans for the future whilst gazing at the ripples in the water, under the moonlight, with the neon lights on the other side of the lake and the cooling breeze. But there are some couples who don't come for the view or to make plans. They come for slightly more physical pursuits. So to the ripples in the water, the  moonlight, the neon lights , the cooling breeze, you can add ' the occasional gently rocking scooter'.

I do struggle with the names here. I try very hard to ask what my colleagues names are then to remember them. Some are very hard to pronounce (some begin with an 'ng' for instance). One girl who sits close to me told me her name but advised that I should call her 'chewpee'. This being easy to pronounce was seized upon by me and everything went well.. Now for an auditor I am sometimes not very observant. But I noticed the other day that some people have written their names on the back of their chairs. And what did I see on the back of this girl's chair?........'chubby'. I am awaiting a visit from HR.

So to some photos..........

1 We live in an absurdly large house which I will share more about in due course. We have a lift. It was very funny the other day (to me anyway) when the lift arrived at the same floor as the dog, the doors opened and the dog just got in ........there is a real party trick here I'm sure.

2 My Work Permit.....some interesting stories about getting this.....

3 Karen had a couple of traditional dresses made, and here is one with the lady who made it. She also made me a linen suit. This photo highlights my lack of skill as a photographer (why did I think it was necessary to include a pillar in the photo?)

Cheerio everyone

HOT HANOI

Hello everyone,

I've been looking forward to writing this as I do like it. I really only discovered that I enjoy writing when I started doing Financial Due Diligence in my mid 30's. I like the journey; the rhythm  and pace of the words, and the choices that you have at every sentence.I also like the fact that sometimes everything flows really well which makes you feel good, and other times it's a struggle. Just like golf or tennis or any pastime that involves learned skills I guess.

So it's really warming up here , and will stay hot 'till the end of August I'm told. This last week the minimum has been about 33 degrees, and on a couple of days it was 40 . But its the humidity that gets you (and we are advised that this will get worse). I've had a linen suit made, but really wish I could wear shorts to work.

Back to the transport here. The cost of cars is staggering. I read an article examining this and it used a Hyundai Santa Fe as an example. In the US it costs about 25k USD. Here it's about 70k USD and the difference is all tax (lots of different taxes actually). I know we are living in a fairly affluent part of Hanoi , but there are so many really expensive cars around.. I'm talking Bentleys, Rolls, Audi Q7, big Mercs etc. etc. And they all have blacked out windows. The model with a higher market penetration here than in the UK  is the Porsche Cayenne, which personally I just can't fathom as aesthetically it has no charm at all (in my humble accountant's view).

So to a contradiction. On a day to day level we have found the standard of personal honesty and integrity really high. I have overpaid by accident several times (so many noughts on the notes is really confusing), and the money has just been given straight back. But on a formal level, the amount of 'facilitation' payments that have to be made  beggars belief. And it's quite normal. At a workshop I went to there was a powerpoint slide of all the Ports in Vietnam, with columns for the average number of days to get goods in and out of the port. And the final column was the percentage of companies using those ports who respond in the affirmative that they make facilitation payments to expedite the processing of consignments. And guess what? The lower the number of companies who will make payments, the higher the number of days to process the goods. And getting my work permit was an education which I will keep to myself.

It's a society at 2 economic levels; the western and the local. Here's a small example. 3 of the audit managers took Karen and I out the other night. We went to an Australian bar (as I had bet them that they couldn't drink a pint of Guinness......I know that sounds stupid but it was good idea at the time), and then they took us to a local bar/cafe. In the Australian bar one beer cost the same as 5 beers in the local bar. And if you made me do a blind tasting of Heineken against Hanoi Beer, it would be a matter of luck if I knew which was which.. So I'm happy to stick with the local beer every day of the week.

Finally to a food story. In our first week here we were in a supermarket and bought a packet of pork spring rolls. We were slightly disturbed when we got the shopping home and saw that one of the ingredients was 'Cats Ears'. Well we thought , 'when in Rome etc etc', cooked them and they were great. We didn't buy them again though. Anyway we have just learned that Cats Ears are in fact mushrooms, which look just like.......Cats Ears.

So to the photos;

1) We are thinking of getting our house remodelled like this one just over the road............

2 )This is our bamboo sofa being delivered.....DFS could save on petrol costs if they used this method......

3) Friday night in the local bar.....the yellow stuff is deep fried sweetcorn.....delicious

Cheers everyone