London, England, June 29, 2016 -(PressReleasePoint)- The country has received glowing commendations from the IMF and most observers put this down to its low inflation, stronger than average growth and solid foreign investment. The International Monetary Fund said the nation had achieved “impressive” results in the last decade.

What sets Vietnam apart from a number of countries in the region is its commitment to deliver a decent standard of living for their population, “What sets Vietnam apart from a number of countries in the region is its commitment to deliver a decent standard of living for their population,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank.

Kim also commented that a ‘hands off’ approach by the government with respect to the nation’s economy was a factor that has driven growth quickly.

“I think an impressive part of the structure of the Vietnamese economy is that it is very much market driven. Vietnam has built up good relationships with international trading partners and we are seeing substantial investment coming in.” he said.

Some observers have pointed to the still high level of corruption present in the country, and the Vietnamese government admit this is an area they need to crack down on, along with improved training in blue collar sectors.

Foreign investment has been surprisingly good considering Vietnam’s often hazy reform policies, as many big multinationals understandably feel the pattern of powerful economic development outweighs these concerns.

Wouter Wersch, president and chief executive of GE in ASEAN, a company who invest heavily in the energy sector in the country, said “It’s not just traditional energy like oil and gas that we see as our only opportunity in Vietnam, we are also looking closely at the emerging renewables sector as a potential target for major investment in the country.

GE has had a presence in Vietnam for over 20 years and employs nearly a thousand locals, and do not limit themselves to energy. They are also highly active in technological development in the aviation and health sectors.

Government stability
Richard Sharpe, Co-Head of Global Mergers & Acquisitions at Acom Tokyo Securities has had extensive experience in Vietnam and says that despite the country’s reputation for corruption, the government has produced a very stable environment for businesses to thrive.

“Corruption….we see that in every country in the world. It’s a shame that Vietnam has been singled out, but when you look at the big picture I think the government are actually doing an incredible job to nurture the economy, and the statistics and plaudits reveal that fact. Fighting corruption is a slow process and the authorities are taking steps. It is being dealt with.”

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 28, 2016 – The U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) today announced a nearly $100 million commitment toward a new model of secondary education in Morocco. This investment is included as part of MCC’s Employability and Land Compact grant agreement signed in 2015, and the announcement comes during First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to Morocco as part of the Let Girls Learn initiative.

In Morocco, too many children do not stay in school to get the skills they need to support their families, “In Morocco, too many children do not stay in school to get the skills they need to support their families,” said Kyeh Kim, MCC acting vice president for compact operations, who visited Morocco alongside the First Lady. “By focusing on secondary education, MCC can create greater opportunities for Moroccan students while supporting economic growth and poverty reduction across the country.”

Despite important progress by the Government of Morocco to reduce gender gaps in school enrollment and achievement, many girls in Morocco continue to face challenges to completing their education and getting the skills they need to enter and stay in the workforce. Adolescent girls are often at a particular disadvantage because of a lack of sufficient infrastructure in schools, such as adequate bathrooms or locker rooms, and a risk of gender-based violence at school.

MCC’s nearly $100 million investment is expected to benefit about 100,000 Moroccan students, including 50,000 adolescent girls, by improving their learning environments with activities like mentoring programs; internships; after-school clubs; updating school buildings and bathrooms for girls; and gender-responsive training for teachers and administrators to transform the way curriculum is delivered and how schools are managed. This new model for middle and high school education will be introduced in approximately 100 Moroccan schools.

Included in this investment is a newly announced $4.6 million Education for Employability Partnership Fund that will engage the private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to develop innovative programs for middle and high school students that address the unique needs of girls and work to reduce social and gender inequalities in Morocco. The Fund is a unique opportunity for the private sector and NGOs to bring their expertise to the table to improve education for adolescent girls in Morocco and empower them to transition from school to high-quality jobs in the country’s growing economy.

MCC and the Government of Morocco signed the Employability and Land Compact grant agreement in 2015 in part to improve the quality of education and workforce participation as part of a broader, transformative investment in Morocco’s education sector.

Read our fact sheet to learn more.

Armasight, based in San Francisco, is a global leader in night vision, thermal, and daylight imaging products for hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, law enforcement, and military customers. Armasight develops and distributes a wide range of rifle scopes, spotting scopes, binoculars, goggles, and illuminating tools that improve safety and the enjoyment of the outdoors as well as enable military users to detect, recognize, and identify targets from extreme ranges at any time of day or night. The acquisition will combine FLIR’s existing lines of Personal Vision Systems and Thermal Weapon Sights with

Armasight’s products thus providing FLIR the ability to better serve hunters, wildlife enthusiasts, police, and military customers with advanced day and night capabilities. The combined business line will be named FLIR Outdoor and Tactical Systems™ and will be reported within FLIR’s Surveillance segment.

The addition of Armasight to our existing scopes and sights business provides us with meaningful additional scale and injects additional market expertise to better serve the growing hunting and military scopes markets,”The addition of Armasight to our existing scopes and sights business provides us with meaningful additional scale and injects additional market expertise to better serve the growing hunting and military scopes markets,” said Andy Teich, President and CEO of FLIR. “We are pleased to welcome this talented team in further leveraging FLIR’s established channels into global military and law enforcement customers, as well as utilize our advanced thermal sensor development and vertically-integrated production capabilities to advance their products and reduce costs.”

FLIR anticipates this transaction will be neutral to 2016 net earnings and accretive thereafter.

About FLIR Systems
FLIR Systems, Inc. is a world leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of sensor systems that enhance perception and awareness. FLIR’s advanced thermal imaging and threat detection systems are used for a wide variety of imaging, thermography, and security applications, including airborne and ground-based surveillance, condition monitoring, research and development, manufacturing process control, search and rescue, drug interdiction, navigation, transportation safety, border and maritime patrol, environmental monitoring, and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives (CBRNE) detection. For more information, go to FLIR’s web site at www.FLIR.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to: the expected benefits of FLIR’s acquisition of Armasight and the expected effects on FLIR’s consolidated financial results and business performance following the acquisition. Such statements are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements due to numerous factors, including the following: the ability of FLIR to integrate the new business and products into its business, the retention of existing customers and partners of Armasight, the adoption by new and existing customers of the new products, and other risks discussed from time to time in FLIR’sSecurities and Exchange Commission filings and reports. In addition, such statements could be affected by general industry and market conditions and growth rates, and general domestic and international economic conditions. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and FLIR does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release, or for changes made to this document by wire services or Internet service providers.

The new agreement provides that from 1 July 2019, it achieved the conditions for deepening productive integration and balanced development of productive structures and trade, the flex of bilateral trade in the automotive sector will be $ 1, 7 for every $ 1, after prior agreement between the parties.

“After much negotiation, we reached an agreement for another four years, which brings a lot of predictability for the industry and establishing bases for the free automotive trade from 2020, a great victory for the domestic industry,” said Minister Marcos Pereira in a statement sent to the press.

In June 2014, the two countries signed an automotive agreement, valid until June 2015. At the end of last year, the agreement was extended and the two countries continued negotiating the terms for the renewal of settlement. Brazil is trying to expand the scope of so-called flex system. Argentina have wanted to extend the country’s auto parts Innovating the Auto scheme, which provides tax exemption on Industrialized Products (IPI) for Brazilian manufacturers that meet investment targets in research and development of new technologies.

Flex system

The mechanism known as flex provides that each $ 1 that Argentina sells to Brazil in auto parts and vehicles, Brazilian automakers could export to the neighboring country $ 1.5 exempt from import tax.

Above that, the Brazilian vehicles pay 35% tariffs to enter the Argentine market. Vehicles need to have at least 60% of parts and components manufactured in Mercosur.

The KLIC TVOD service complements Cinépolis’s position as the fourth largest cineplex chain in the world, with more than 830,000 seats. The company operates 506 cinema complexes in 13 countries including Mexico, India and the United States. The company uses its presence as a leader in luxury cinemas to promote its OTT service, offering creative promotions so theater-goers receive a free movie rental from Cinépolis KLIC.

“With Cinépolis KLIC, we are leading a new era of premium multiscreen and OTT content delivery in Mexico and across Latin America,” said Marco de la Cruz, Deputy Director of Cinépolis KLIC. “By leveraging the flexibility and scalability of Elemental Cloud, we can offer rich services without building a dedicated infrastructure while simultaneously accelerating time-to-market and avoiding large capital expenditures.”

The integrated AWS and Elemental solution enables Cinépolis KLIC to create a true TV Everywhere platform with movie delivery to customers on a full range of connected devices. The online service, which is available on numerous platforms, including Android, iOS, LG, PlayStation game consoles, ROKU set-top boxes, Samsung Smart TV devices, and Sony Bravia, is complementary to the Cinépolis cinema service because it offers different content and experiences. Cinépolis KLIC has more than 1,200 movies titles on offer, mostly blockbusters, and is expected to experience six-fold growth from 2015 to 2016.

Cinépolis KLIC uses Elemental Cloud to process source content from studios. This content is stored in Amazon S3 and delivered securely via the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network to the broad range of connected devices available in the Mexican marketplace. Elemental software-defined video solutions transcode video content for multi-protocol, multi-DRM delivery, which can easily scale in the cloud as Cinépolis continues its expansion around the world.
“Cinépolis KLIC is pioneering a new level of consumer experience in the theatrical content realm,” said Dan Marshall, SVP, Worldwide Field Operations at Elemental. “We are happy to play a role in supporting this effort as the Cinépolis KLIC service expands, both at home and around the world.”

Elemental at ABTA 2016

At the 2016 ABTA Expo & Conference (June 29 – July 1, Transamérica Expo Centre, São Paulo, Brazil, Booth 54), Elemental will showcase a complete set of advanced, software-based video processing and delivery solutions optimized for the cloud. Highlights include:
• Live channel playout (master control) and dynamic input switching (live stream to VOD) in the cloud for reduced hardware requirements and video infrastructure costs;
• Progressive file reading from Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to accelerate file transcoding in the cloud;
• Cloud bursting with Elemental Server to temporarily increase and scale back transcoding resources as demand fluctuates;
• Video delivery anywhere through seamless integration of the Amazon CloudFront global content delivery network (CDN) service and the Elemental Delta video delivery platform;
• Dynamic server side ad insertion (SSAI) for increased personalization and monetization in the cloud via Elemental Delta integration with the Ooyala ADS (ad decision server) using VAST 3.0.