Day: June 21, 2021

Vietnam will take part in an international four-side futsal tournament in Spain in August in preparation for their World Cup campaign.

The team just completed a 21-day quarantine period in Ho Chi Minh City and returned home on last week after qualifying for the event in the UAE in May.

They will join their club teammates to compete on the second leg of the National Futsal Championship in mid-July if the COVID-19 pandemic is put under control, according to Tran Anh Tu, head of the Futsal Department of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF).

The national team will have their next training camp in early August. They will have a training course in Spain from August 25. At the tournament, Vietnam will play Japan, Guatemala and the hosts.

Before leaving for the Lithuania World Cup from September 12 to October 3, they are expected to have a game against a leading Spanish club.

The VFF is also in discussions for a friendly match with the Moroccan national team on September 6.

Vietnam will play Brazil in their first group stage match on September 13.

According to the organisers, VAR will be used at this year’s World Cup./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Corporation (SABECO) has agreed a deal to sponsor Vietnam’s national football teams for one year.

The sponsorship deal was signed between SABECO, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) and the VTVcab Sport Development Joint Stock Company (VTVCab Sport) in Hanoi last week.

As part of its sponsorship, running from June 2021 to June 2022, SABECO will be the exclusive sponsor in the beer industry of the men’s and women’s national teams, and the U22, U23 and Olympic squads for both national and international competitions.

“We are proud to support the national football teams in their journey towards greater success and share their goal of bringing glory to the country,” said Bennett Neo, SABECO General Director.

Over the last few years, the Vietnamese national football team has seen tremendous success in various international competitions. Most recently, the team advanced to the third round of World Cup qualifiers for the first time in history.

“We are happy to partner with such a prominent Vietnamese brand such as Saigon Beer,” said VFF General Secretary Le Hoai Anh.

“This partnership will bring further support to and motivation for, our players, and help in the development of Vietnamese football as a whole.”

Sports sponsorships have always been a key part of SABECO’s 4C sustainable development strategy.

SABECO previously sponsored the Vietnamese delegation to the 30th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in 2019. It has also sponsored various local sporting events such as 2020 Tien Phong Newspaper Marathon National Championship as well as international events including the 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup.

Meanwhile Bui Huy Nam, General Director of VTVCab, shared: “VTVcab is proud to be the only cable TV that produces and broadcasts all worldwide and national most-watched sports leagues, as well as all matches involving Vietnamese national teams.

“Aside from content distribution across a multitude of platforms, VTVcab confirms its significant interest in football, paving the way for VFF to become a long-term strategic partner. It is an honour to walk with SABECO as a supporting partner in order to maximise the media’s effect in support of the Vietnamese national football team’s achievement.”/.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese publishing houses are promoting new programmes and books this summer to encourage children to read.

The Kim Dong Publishing House is launching the programme “Doc Xuyen Mua He 2021” (Summer Reading in 2021), providing dozens of new book titles for children by Vietnamese and international authors.

Ca voi Eren den Hon Mun (Eren – the Whale Travels to Hon Mun Island) is a new novel by author and journalist Le Duc Duong about the adventure of Eren the Whale in the beautiful sea of Nha Trang.

The publisher has also introduced Toi va Chung Ta (Me and Us) and Hon Truong Ba Da Hang Thit (Truong Ba’s Soul in the Butcher’s Body), two famous plays written by Vietnamese poet and playwright Luu Quang Vu. Play extracts appear in the textbooks.

Peter Pan, a picture book about a “boy who would not grow up” by American author Arianna Candell and illustrator Daniel Howard, is presented in both Vietnamese and English.

Many books featuring Vietnamese culture, customs, history and arts have been released as well.

Along with new books, the publishers are offering hundreds of favourite titles with affordable prices starting at 16,000 VND.

A representative of Kim Dong said: “The publisher wants to join with society and parents to bring a safe and meaningful summer to children.”

The programme is available at website www.nxbkimdong.com.vn and the publisher’s store on online shopping platform Shopee until June 30.

The Tre (Youth) Publishing House has released a Vietnamese version of National Geographic Kids, a children’s magazine published by the National Geographic Society.

The set consists of five books, answering children’s questions about people, the world, and living skills. They include Ultimate Bodypedia, What Would Happen? Serious Answers to Silly Questions, Ultimate Explore Guide, Don’t Read This Book Before Bed, and Children’s Choice-nominated How To Survive Anything.

Nguyen Kim Quyen, a mother of a 12-year-old boy, said: “The books provide children knowledge about people, nature and the world, as well as amazing adventures.”

They are available at bookstores nationwide and on online shopping platforms.

Apart from works by Vietnamese authors, the Kim Dong Publishing House has released a picture book for Vietnamese children by two foreign authors living and working in Vietnam.

Chiec Dep That Lac – The Lost Sandal is a bilingual book by Belgian author Geralda De Vos and Swedish illustrator Sofia Holt.

The work tells a story of a girl named Linh who loses one of her favourite pair of sandals, and her adventure in seeking the lost shoe.

De Vos came to Vietnam in 2017, and has participated in environmental protection activities such as plastic waste reduction and recycling activities.

She has called on people to pick up and return people’s lost items. She began picking up lost sandals on the street, which became her inspiration for the book The Lost Sandal.

Illustrator Holt came to HCM City in 2014. She is now working as a fashion and furniture designer, and an illustrator, creating art works about a happier and more sustainable world. The book can be bought at the publisher’s website and on online shopping platforms./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Literacy classes have been organized for more than 300,000 people aged 15 – 60, over the last eight years, the Ministry of Education and Training unveiled during a recent video teleconference (VTC).

The national VTC was held on June 18 to review the implementation of a project on building a learning society from 2012 – 2020.

The ministry said thanks to the project, the network of educational establishments was expanded nationwide. The country now has over 17,000 continuing education centres, providing non-formal education for out-of-school youth and adults.

There are also more than 10,000 community learning centres across the country.

The country has completed universalisation of pre-school education for five-year-old children and primary education for children of school age.

In the next phase from 2021 – 2030, the project aims to help Vietnam develop an open, flexible and connected education system and make sure all people will have an equal opportunity to access high-quality life-long education.

Vietnam met the national standard for literacy in 2000, with 94 percent of the population aged between 15 and 35 literate, compared to more than 95 percent of the population being unable to read or write in 1945. The literacy rate in this age group increased to 98.1 percent in 2016, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) e-newspaper, at dangcongsan.vn, run by the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Popularisation and Education, launched its new mobile-friendly interface and mobile app on June 21.

Addressing the launching ceremony, Editor-in-Chief of the e-newspaper Tran Doan Tien said that over the 21 years since it was found, the newspaper has shown strong performance in popularising mainstream information on the Party’s viewpoints, guidelines, policies and activities, provide live coverage of the country’s political and socio-economic aspects, thus contributing to encouraging the whole Party, people and army to successfully implement all tasks.

Currently, the newspaper sees about 2.5-3 million visits each day and even 3.5-4 million per day in particular time, which reflects readers’ confidence in the newspaper, he said.

The new interface of the e-newspaper is designed in “mobi first” principle, making it easier for readers to read on their mobile devices and share articles on social networks such as Facebook, Zalo, Twitter and Viber.

Meanwhile, the newspaper’s mobile app – CPV Online – is available on both App Store and Google Play. With its modern design, the app is expected to give readers new experience while reading news. Particularly, it maintains basic contents and functions in offline conditions.

Tien said that in the future, along with producing more high-quality articles with in-depth analysis on various issues, the newspaper will promote its role as a forum for all people by reporting opinions and requests of Party members and people to the Party and State.

Meanwhile, head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Popularisation and Education Nguyen Trong Nghia said that the introduction of new interface and mobile app is a big step forward of the newspaper during its reform process, which is in line with the current information and media trend.

He expressed his hope that the newspaper will continue to develop in the multimedia direction and improve its efficiency, thus completing its role and political mission as a major media agency of the Party and the voice of the Party and State on the Internet space./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Two more trains with total six carriages for Ho Chi Minh City’s Metro Line No.1 (Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien) arrived in the city’s Khanh Hoi port from Japan on June 20.

The trains, the fourth and fifth out of total 17 trains of the line, all produced by Japan, will be transported to Long Binh depot in Thu Duc city for assembly on June 21 and June 23.

Since the first train arrived in the city in October 2020, Japanese contractors have sent five trains to the city.

HCM City receives two more trains of Metro Line No.1 hinh anh 2

The trains will be transported to Long Binh depot in Thu Duc city for assembly on June 21 and June 23. (Photo: VNA)

The 17 trains are designed to serve up to 930 passengers each, with 147 seats. They can run at a speed of 110km per hour on elevated rail and 80km per hour on underground rail.

The 19.7-km line No.1 is the first of at least six to be built in the city and aims to ease traffic congestion in its north-eastern gateway.

Including four major bidding packages using official development assistance (ODA) and funds from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the project is designed to have 14 stations, three of them underground.

As of June 18, 86.2 percent of the workload of the Metro Line No.1 project had been completed. The line is expected to be put into commercial operation next year.

Earlier, on June 9, the HCM City People’s Committee issued a plan to implement tasks to effectively operate and exploit the project./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The multidimensional poverty rate in Vietnam reduced from 9.9 percent in 2016 to 4.5 percent last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The rate in rural areas is higher than that in urban areas, but the gap is reducing gradually.

Multidimensional poverty during 2016-2020 in Vietnam was calculated using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2020 conducted by the GSO within cooperation with the UNDP.

During 2016-2019, the proportion of households deprived of basic social services showed declines year after year in almost all indicators, reflecting Vietnamese households’ better access to the services.

In 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19, the downward trend was disrupted in some indicators.

Health insurance, which was the indicator with the highest deprivation, showed the fastest reduction, from 40.6 percent in 2016 to 19 percent last year.

Child health care and education indicators saw low deprivation levels and remained almost unchanged.

The outcomes also showed that high income does not automatically means good access to basic services, as seen in the Mekong Delta and the southeastern region.

Nguyen Van Doan, head of the research group, said as from 2020, the result of multidimensional poverty calculations in Vietnam will be announced quarterly, instead of yearly as previously.

Prof. Dr. Jonathan Pincus, UNDP Senior Economist, lauded the GSO’s timely release of the report, which, he said, is important to policy making, especially in the context of COVID-19.

Such detailed and timely information would help to adjust policies, making them match changes due to socio-economic impact of the pandemic, he said.

Multidimensional poverty during 2016-2020 is calculated by Alkire-Foster methodology, which includes 5 dimensions (education, health, housing, living condition, accessing ICT) and 10 indicators (adult education level, schooling, accessing health services, health insurance, quality of dwelling, square of dwelling, water source, improved sanitation, assets, ICT access).

Since September 2020, the UNDP has assisted the GSO in improving its capacity for designing and conducting surveys on Vietnamese households’ living standards.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) plans to focus on health, public investment and human resource development in its activities in Vietnam in fiscal year 2021, which began on April 1, JICA’s chief representative in Vietnam Shimizu Akira has confirmed.

According to Shimizu, in recent years, Vietnam has been among the countries that register the most successful cooperation with JICA in the health field, reflected in the projects to upgrade Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi and Cho Ray hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, along with stepping up the implementation of preventive measures against infectious diseases.

JICA also offered assistance in improving the testing capacity of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, the Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City, as well as providing medical supplies for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Appreciating the country’s performance in the pandemic fight , he expressed the hope that vaccines will be distributed fairly and quickly around the world, including Vietnam.

Regarding public investment, Shimizu said that the Japanese agency has helped Vietnam promote investment in socio-economic infrastructure projects, which is seen as an effective measures to boost the national economy and improve the people’s living conditions.

He cited as examples projects to upgrade the Noi Bai international airport in Hanoi, Tan Son Nhat international airport in Ho Chi Minh City, build the urban railway route No. 1 in HCM City, among others.

JICA also provided assistance to high-quality human resource development projects in several universities in Vietnam, while collaborating with localities in organising courses that connect Vietnamese and Japanese companies, he added.

The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Vietnam. In celebration, JICA will work closely with the Vietnamese Government to continue supporting the country in both building facilities and enhancing technical cooperation and developing a win-win relationship, he added.

Source: Vietnam News Agency