Foreign investors to build university HANOI - Hanoi has moved quickly on a pledge to open up its health, education and technology sectors by approving the country's first foreign-owned international university. A consortium headed by Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) is to invest US$60 million in the project, which will be located in the Saigon south urban expansion zone and should be up and running by 2003. The institute will own a 40 per cent stake in the project, with the remaining 60 per cent held by foreign companies including banks and other financial institutions. Nguyen Thi Thu, a representative of RMIT's Vietnam-Australia co-operation programme, said the facility would offer courses to 10,000 undergraduates in communications, economics, politics, banking and science technology. "Lecturers will come from Australia, other countries and Vietnam," Ms Nguyen told the Vietnam Investment Review , adding between 15 to 20 per cent of students would be from overseas. Tuition fees will be set at between $300 to $400 per academic year, which while expensive in Vietnamese terms, represent between a quarter and one-third of annual costs of sending students to Australian institutions. The granting of the RMIT consortium's licence comes less than two weeks after Prime Minister Phan Van Khai signed a decree permitting fully foreign-owned companies to enter Vietnam's health, education and science technology sectors from Wednesday. "[This] is a breakthrough. . . in the past all projects were considered or approved case-by-case. . . but from now, the Ministry of Planning and Investment [MPI] will be dealing [directly] with them," said an MPI official. Health-care, education and technology training projects will enjoy between four and eight-year income tax exemptions from the first year they make a profit. According to MPI figures, more than $170 million of foreign investment has already gone into 10 hospitals and three international schools. By Huw Watkin - South China Morning Post - March 17, 2000.