Day: June 27, 2021

Head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations Le Hoai Trung, on behalf of the leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam, sent a letter of condolences to the Communist Party of Greece over the death of Greek Hero of the Vietnam People’s Armed Forces Kostas Sarantidis whose Vietnamese name is Nguyen Van Lap.

He also extended condolences to the family of the 94-year-old deceased.

Kostas Sarantidis was born in 1927 in Athens, Greece. Sarantidis was 16 when he was sent to the German army in 1943. After World War II, he could not return home for having no identity documents and later joined the French Foreign Legion and was mobilised to Indochina.

Since Sarantidis set foot on Sai Gon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in 1946, he decided to follow the Viet Minh (the short name for Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh or Vietnam Independence League) as he had witnessed invaders’ crime to innocent Vietnamese and realised the aspirations of the Vietnamese revolution.

The soldier, with the Vietnamese name of Nguyen Van Lap, had made various accomplishments during his service and was presented with awards from the Party and State.

He was honoured with the Friendship Order and received Vietnamese citizenship in January 2011.

In 2013, Lap was awarded with the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces of Vietnam./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap is taking measures to preserve bio-diversity in its wetlands, waterways, and dry land areas, as well as in agricultural production, in the 2021-25 period.

Huynh Minh Tuan, deputy chairman of the province’s People’s Committee, said that fish and other aquatic species, for example, were often released into the wild on public holidays. The province releases more than 2 million fish of various species into the wild each year.

The province has surveyed eco-systems to identify the specific areas and species of plants and animals that should be preserved. Typical plants like lotus, water lily, cajuput trees, bamboo, rice varieties and other indigenous plants will be preserved.

Many plants, especially rice varieties and specialties fruits like Cat Chu mango, Cat Hoa Loc mango and pink mandarin, will be preserved as well.

The province is also focusing on developing animal husbandry, aquaculture and plants in the Dong Thap Muoi (Plain of Reeds) area in the Tram Chim National Park, Go Thap Heritage Site, Xeo Quyt National Historic Site and Gao Giong cajuput forest area.

In the Gao Giong cajuput forest area in Cao Lanh district, 68 types of bamboo on a bamboo reservation area are under preservation.

Huynh Thanh Hien, head of the Gao Giong cajuput forest area’s Management Board, said the reservation is part of a preservation area attached to the Gao Giong ecotourism area. Many bird species are now coming and making nests in the bamboo area. The bamboo reservation is also a place for researchers and tourists to visit and study about bamboo species in Vietnam.

From 2021 to 2025, the province People’s Committee said it would improve public awareness about bio-diversity preservation and environmental protection.

Nature reserves, endangered animals and plants, and forest areas, especially special-use forests, will all be protected. Focus will also be on the reproduction of indigenous plants and animals that have high value and the use of advanced techniques in agricultural production to promote bio-diversity.

The province is calling for private investment in bio-diversity, forest and eco-tourism preservation and environmental protection projects./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A herd of three to five elephants has re-appeared in several communes in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai’s Chu Prong district in recent days.

According to Ro Ma Nghia, chairman of the People’s Committee of Ia Ga commune, these elephants were spotted in the area of My Stream and Chu Gay mountain on June 25.

They damaged a farming hut and some banana trees planted by locals in the bordering area of Ia Ga and Ia Lau communes. The elephants moved to another commune on June 26 morning

Local authorities have reported the appearance of the elephants to the Chu Prong district People’s Committee, Nghia said.

Nguyen Tuan Anh, Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Ia Mo commune, said that elephants have appeared in border communes for many days. They usually travel at night.

On the evening of June 25, the staff on duty at Cat stream and people of Ia Mo commune saw wild elephants were moving to Cat stream and the border area with Cambodia. Among the herd of elephants, there is a very big elephant with a long tusk. Elephant footprints of up to 30-40cm wide are imprinted on the soil. The damage is not yet calculated.

To ensure the safety of the people, the People’s Committee of Chu Prong district requested relevant agencies and the People’s Committees of Ia Ga, Ia Pia, Ia Puch, Ia Mo, Ia Pior, and Ia Lau communes to strengthen their patrol work and get information on wild elephants’ activities to prevent them from affecting daily life, production, and health of locals.

Local people have been advised to limit their traveling and not stay overnight in the fields to avoid being attacked by wild elephants.

They were asked to immediately report the elephants activities to the administration for appropriate handling measures. The hunting of the elephants was also prohibited./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The trend of shoppers going online en masse is driving demand for cold storage facilities, something that is in severe short supply in Vietnam.

Nguyen Quoc Trinh, chairman of the Long An Dragon Fruit Association, said June is the peak harvest season for many agricultural products in Long An, but exports remain difficult and local consumers have tended to switch online due to the COVID-19 epidemic, causing severe congestion and overload at cold storages.

Seafood is the other product that requires the largest cold storage capacity.

Trang Bui, senior director of markets, JLL Vietnam, said in fact seafood exports top the list.

During the peak COVID period, 30 – 50 percent of seafood export orders were cancelled, leading to an increase in inventories, forcing cold storages to work at maximum capacity.

Supply is constrained in part because cold storages take more time to build than other types of logistics facilities and more expensive than standard warehouses, she said.

They cost two to three times more, and the lease term is usually only 15-20 years, making the already scarce supply even scarcer, she said.

Besides, the industry requires expertise in temperature maintenance since each fruit, vegetable, meat, and fish has its own temperature requirements, and this explains why of the thousands of companies in the logistics sector only a few set up cold chains, she said.

JLL Vietnam said cold storage demand would continue to grow strongly for at least the next half decade as global consumers change their shopping behaviour due to the pandemic.

With its huge potential real estate for cold storage is now attracting the attention of investors, venture capital funds and lenders.

They are also considering it an alternative to traditional industrial real estate, while logistics companies looking to expand into new markets.

The Louis Holdings Group has invested 250 billion VND (10.7 million USD) in vegetable processing and cold storage facilities in Long An province.

Huynh Quang Vinh, general director of the Louis Holdings Group, said the plant would focus on exports of the main agricultural products of Long An province and surrounding areas such as jackfruit, dragon fruit, pineapple, and mango.

With a capacity of four tonnes per hour, it is expected that the plant will supply 15,000-20,000 tonnes of agricultural products to the global food supply chain.

Ken Research, a global publisher of market intelligence, said that in 2016-21 the Vietnam cold chain industry grew at a compound annual growth rate of 10.4 percent.

It expects the market to be worth 1.8 billion USD this year./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a slowdown in the property market but many experts believe this is only temporary and are pinning their hopes on a rebound once the virus is under control.

Su Ngoc Khuong, senior manager at real estate consultancy firm Savills Vietnam, said the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the second quarter of this year significantly affected socio-economic development. The real estate market saw declines in purchasing power and investors were more cautious.

Statistics from Vietnam’s largest property portal batdongsan.com.vn showed that after reaching a peak in March, the level of interest in the real estate market showed signs of decreasing.

Real estate searches on the portal in April dropped by nearly 18 percent against March with searches for land down by nearly 21 percent and apartments by 17 percent. Interest continued to decline in May with searches for residential land decreasing by 19 percent.

Notably, prices of apartments saw an increase of about 3 percent against the same period last year.

Deputy Director of the Vietnam Association of Realtors Nguyen Van Dinh said the shortage of supply was a major reason for the increase in the apartment prices in the first half of this year.

According to Matthew Powell, director of Savills Hanoi, the COVID-19 pandemic would continue to impact the real estate market, causing uneven development between different localities, different market segments and different projects.

It was important that the virus be put under control together with the vaccination programme, he said, adding that when the virus was successfully contained, investment would flow into the economy.

He, however, urged individual investors to study the information of property projects, planning and infrastructure development carefully before making decisions.

Mai Duc Toan from the Construction and Material Trading Group said not only the real estate market but other sectors were holding their breath for the updates on the pandemic.

“The market is still difficult to predict. Local land fever might occur. If the pandemic is successfully put under control, the market would bounce back in the second half of this year,” Toan said.

He added the real estate market development largely depended on the pandemic and pointed out that in the three previous outbreaks, prices were seen to increase in a number of segments, even forming large-scale land price fever at the beginning months of this year.

Ngo Quang Phuc, general director of the Phu Dong Group, said the real estate market had large potential for development and the outbreak would only have a short-term impact.

Phuc said that the market was expected to see robust development, providing the legal problems of real estate projects were tackled properly.

Director of Dai Phuc Land Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong said from the beginning of 2020 to date, despite virus outbreaks, the real estate market basically kept a solid foundation. There were not significant price drops or sell-offs but the market often saw stronger transactions and increases in prices.

According to Khuong, the property market would not see any breakthrough development because the Vietnamese economy was still struggling with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most transactions recently were from long-term investors who had idle money to pour into the real estate market, he said.

In the scenario of market recovery, the housing segment would be the most robust, driven by high demand, Khuong said, adding that while the pandemic affected incomes, housing demand would focus more on affordable homes.

He added that the resort and tourism property market would continue to suffer and retail property would struggle to compete with rising online platforms. The interest of investors in industrial property remained high but investment in this segment would not be as good as expected because of travel restrictions./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Young European and Vietnamese have the chance to spark conversations about values in a pandemic-hit world through a project supported by the Belgian embassy.

Under the project, a photography exhibition entitled Things That Count is being held displaying works that are a part of online collaboration between students from the Photography Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, with young Vietnamese photographers.

The 10-week project was held from March and May to divide the photographers into pairs to discuss important current issues in modern society.

Ten values include family, safety, gender, heritage, humour, intimacy, freedom, power, knowledge, and faith.

“What struck me most was the immediate openness and trust that the participants had in each other,” said Bert Danckaert, associate professor of Photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, who spearheaded the project.

“The project seemed to generate an injection of hope facing another continent, a virtual bridge between two cultures. Looking back, I think the most important and 11th value is that of trust.”

In times of COVID-19, existential questions are posed to young people who are now facing an uncertain future.

Each week, the participants dealt with an assigned value, which they first discussed in pairs, then provided each other with inspiration, and finally expressed their personal opinion of the value in question in one photograph.

The resulting images and fragments of the written communication between the participants were published online, where perspectives were shared and friendships developed.

At a time when social contact is severely limited, Things That Count sends a hopeful signal by creating an international network among upcoming artists and reflections on what is considered valuable today.

The exhibition is being held in Hanoi by Matca Space for Photography and the Embassy of Belgium in Vietnam from June 25 to July 7./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency