Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Conglomerate Vingroup JSC plans to earn 145 trillion VND (6.2billion USD) in revenue this year, up 12 percent year-on-year.

The information was released during the group’s annual general meeting ofshareholders (AGMs) held on May 28 in Hanoi.

Post-tax profit is expected to decrease 35 percent to reach 5 trillion VND.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vingroup Chairman of the Boardof Directors Pham Nhat Vuong said its tourism arm Vinpearl wasmost ravaged by the disease.

“However, the group still seeks solutions to stimulate domestic demand fortourism, especially inbound because we could not offer services for foreignclients during the pandemic,” he said.

“According to statistics, Vietnam greets 80 million domesticvisitors and 18 million foreign visitors each year,” Vuong said.

The Vingroup chairman said if the disease was controlled and people couldnot travel abroad, domestic tourism would be strongly boosted. Therefore,Vinpearl can partially offset the damage caused by COVID-19, he said.

Earlier, in a conference with businesses of Hanoi on April 16,Vingroup said that during the disease outbreak, Vinpearl stopped 70 percent ofits hotel services and ceased operation of 100 percent of its entertainmentservices.

In the period, revenue from tourism and entertainment plunged. The group stillmaintained a hotel staff of more than 18,000 and must ensure income for all ofthem.

Industrial real estate will be one of Vingroup’s main segments in the future, Vuongsaid.

Vinhomes Joint Stock Company (Vinhomes), real estate arm of Vingroup, hasstarted to implement some projects in Hai Phong and other localities. Some projectshave been licensed for site clearance, so construction can be gradually startedby the end of next year.

The VinFast automobile manufacturing complex has been converted into anindustrial park managed by Vinhomes with a total area of 335 hectares.

The group has decided to delay the investment project in Lach Huyen Portbecause it is incapable of arranging funds for the project at present.

For the industrial segment, Vuong said VinFast is researching new markets forexport besides existing markets.

“We aim to focus on the US as this is one of the most fastidious markets in theworld, if you can penetrate this market, to some extent, we can be able toreach others,” he said.

“With the automobile segment, Vingroup determines to investheavily and drastically and accept to compensate for losses from three to fiveyears, with the goal of increasing market share,” he said.

At the meeting, the Board of Directors agreed on the plan not to pay dividendfor 2019, using all the remaining profits to invest in business. This is thesecond consecutive year that Vingroup retained its profit and has not paida dividend.

The last time it paid a dividend was in June 2018.

In order to proactively cope with the instabilities caused byCOVID-19, the group will stick with austerity measures, strictly control theexpansion of spending and investment, optimise operational efficiency inexisting fields./.