The Trends magazine on February 21 published the ranking of the top 25 small businesses with added value of less than EUR 1 million in Brussels, Hanoi Station - the restaurant of Vietnamese businesswoman Dao Hong Hai was included in the list of highest taxpayers.
The Trends magazine, which specializes in finance, is likened by industry insiders to Belgium's Financial Times magazine. Trends Gazellen is an annual program organized by this magazine with a number of partners to award the title of Trends Gazellen Ambassador - honoring top taxpayers with the ability to inspire other businesses and positively affect the business environment thanks to good revenue and standard declaration.
The Hanoi Station restaurant has received Trends Gazellen for 3 consecutive years in the Food and Beverage industry - a type of culinary, restaurant, and catering business service. Specifically, in 2020 it ranked third, in 2021 ranked 33rd and in 2022 ranked 25th in Brussels City.
Trends Gazellen certification is respected by the business society for its national reputation and regional recognition. Trends Gazellen is judged based on sustainable growth figures in value added, personnel and cash flow. The data are automatically calculated and objectively ranked based on the balance sheets of businesses for consecutive five financial years sent to the National Bank.
Businesswoman Dao Hong Hai owns the Hanoi Station restaurant chain on Keltenlaan Street in the bustling Etterbeek district and in the most famous Cameleon Shopping Center in Brussels.
For nearly 10 years, Hong Hai has been serving Vietnamese cuisine to European diners in a train station space typical of Hanoi's time, with posters such as ‘Ready to do military service to protect the country’, ‘1975 spring reunion’, ‘Keeping the homeland, keeping the youth’, ‘Vietnam in my heart’.
Businesswoman Hong Hai revealed that the Hanoi Station restaurant has installed a black box - a machine sold and coded by the tax department, which helps store the restaurant's daily invoice data for many years to be transparent about revenue sources.
In Belgium, restaurants with annual revenue of more than EUR 25,000 from customers dining at the restaurant are required to install black boxes. Taxes in Belgium are also among the highest in Europe, customers who eat on-site are taxed at 12 percent while those who buy food to take away are taxed at 6 percent.
In addition, Ms. Hong Hai disclosed that she has proactively hired many Vietnamese students and international students so that they can have a stable source of income while studying in a foreign country, creating jobs for Vietnamese people who have settled in Belgium to buy houses and sponsor relatives. In return, the restaurant's monthly revenue is still stable and many partners have been asking to buy the brand or wanting to cooperate with her.
Before meeting directly with businesswoman Dao Hong Hai, her partners in Belgium carefully searched for the information on the Hanoi Station restaurant's ability to pay taxes. Full tax payment helps businesses build trust with their suppliers.
According to Ms.Hai, a business supplying meat to Hanoi Station required payment of the invoice within a week, if there is a delay, the goods will be cut off for the following week. However, later, she sometimes accidentally forgot for a whole month but the meat supplier didn’t urge her as it trusted the restaurant which paid full tax and salaries for employees.
