Day: July 28, 2021

The 15th National Assembly has adopted a Resolution approving the Prime Minister’s proposal on the reappointment of Pham Binh Minh, Le Minh Khai, Vu Duc Dam and Le Van Thanh as Deputy Prime Ministers for the 2021-2026 tenure.

All 479 lawmakers present at the legislature’s session on July 28, or 95.99 percent of the total number of deputies to the 15th NA, voted for the Resolution.

Minh is a member of the Political Bureau in the 12th and 13th tenures and a member of the Party Central Committee in the 10th tenure (alternate member from April 2006 to January 2009, official member from January 2009), 11th, 12th and 13th tenures.

He worked as Minister of Foreign Affairs from August 2011 to November 2013 and then Deputy Prime Minister cum Minister of Foreign Affairs from November 2013 to April 2021. He has held the post of Deputy Prime Minister since April 2021. Minh is a deputy to the National Assembly in 13th, 14th and 15th tenures.

Meanwhile, Khai is a member of the Party Central Committee in the 12th and 13th tenures and Secretary of the Party Central Committee in the 13th tenure, and a deputy to the 14th National Assembly.

At the 14th NA’s 11th session on April 8, the legislature approved his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister in the 14th tenure.

Dam is a member of the Party Central Committee in the 10th (alternate), 11th, 12th and 13th tenures. He has worked as Deputy Prime Minister since November 2013.

Thanh is a member of the Party Central Committee in the 12th and 13th tenures and a deputy to the 12th National Assembly.

At the 14th NA’s 11th session on April 8, the NA approved his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister in the 14th tenure.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Many Vietnamese rubber companies recorded outstanding growth in revenue and profit in the second quarter due to higher rubber prices. Analysts expect that rubber prices will remain high through 2021 on strong demand and tight supplies.

In its second quarter results, Dong Phu Rubber JSC (DORUCO, DPR) posted a rise of 11 per cent in net revenue to 218 billion VND (9.5 million USD).

During the period, its consumption reached 2,431 tonnes, up 35 percent, with the average selling price at 45.9 million VND per tonne, up 50 percent year-on-year. As a result, the company’s profit after tax rose 41 percent over the same period last year to over 34.77 billion VND.

In the first six months of the year, DORUCO recorded net revenue of 419.6 billion VND and profit after tax of 86.3 billion VND, up 41 percent and 66 percent, respectively.

The positive business results helped boost DPR shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE). The company’s shares were traded at 60,400 VND on July 27, up 35.7 percent compared to early April.

Similarly, Daklak Rubber JSC (DAKRUCO, DRG) witnessed net profit of more than 32 billion VND in the second quarter due to higher rubber prices, while it lost 26 billion VND in the same period last year.

In the first half of 2021, the rubber producer posted a net profit of nearly 58 billion VND, while it had a net loss of nearly 20 billion VND last year.

DRG shares are listed on UPCOM and traded at 14,600 VND per share, up 19.7 percent compared to the beginning of the year.

Tan Bien Rubber JSC (TABIRUCO, RTB)’s profit also jumped in the second quarter.

Accordingly, in its consolidated results, TABIRUCO reported profit after tax of more than 84.1 billion VND, up 99.3 percent year-on-year. In the first six months of the year, the company’s profit after tax reached 120.6 billion VND, 3.8 times higher than the same period in 2020.

RTB shares, which are also listed on UPCOM, rose by nearly 22.7 percent compared to the beginning of the year to 11,900 VND on July 27.

The Agency of Foreign Trade, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, estimates that in the first six months of 2021, rubber exports will reach about 681,000 tonnes, worth 1.15 billion USD, up 41.3 percent in volume and 79.9 percent in value compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, according to estimates from the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC), global rubber production in the first quarter of 2021 has dropped by 12.5 percent year-on-year, but rubber consumption has climbed 15.7 percent in the second quarter.

Total rubber consumption has recovered from the bottom as world economies, especially China, suffered from the outbreak of COVID-19 since the beginning of 2020.

Total global rubber production in the first half of 2021 reached 4.5 million tonnes, while total consumption was about 5.4 million tonnes. Therefore, the supplies are short by more than 800,000 tonnes.

The decline in total rubber production started since 2020, but the supply-demand gap widened in 2021.

Analysts from ACB Securities Ltd. (ACBS) said that some reports show that farmers neglected their rubber plantations due to falling prices over a long period of time, meaning plants were easily exposed to diseases.

About 65 percent of natural rubber is produced in Southeast Asia. However, at present, some countries in this region such as Thailand and Malaysia have rubber trees that are hit hard by disease.

Countries such as Sri Lanka and India also have large areas of rubber trees affected by disease.

Faced with this situation, the Vietnam Rubber Association has issued a warning to its members to be better prepared if the disease spreads to the country, especially for members with rubber plantations in Cambodia, which is geographically close to Thailand.

In fact, the development of rubber growing areas has been under pressure when rubber prices entered a bear market during 2013 – 2019.

In Indonesia, new industrial crop areas are dominated by oil palm trees, which have a shorter harvest time than rubber. There was a time when Thailand encouraged farmers to replace rubber trees with other crops due to prolonged low prices.

“The rubber market is experiencing a shortage of supplies in the first half of 2021. The tight supplies will continue through 2021 when the rainy season has started,” ACBS said.

Moreover, with the high correlation between the price of natural rubber and the price of Brent oil and butadiene, a raw material for synthetic rubber production, rubber prices may rise again as oil prices have remained high since the beginning of the year.

While ACBS believes that the second wave of COVID-19 in India, one of the largest rubber exporter in the world, since March will prevent rubber demand from growing too much in 2021, it expects rubber prices to surge 44 percent this year.

This will have a positive impact on rubber producers, offsetting the decrease in output.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The 15th National Assembly adopted a resolution on the national financial plan and public debt borrowing and payment for the 2021-2025 period on July 28 during the ongoing first session in Hanoi.

The overall goal of the Resolution is effectively pooling, allocating, managing and using resources for socio-economic development while ensuring macro-economic stability, promoting economic growth, dealing with social welfare issues, consolidating national defence-security, actively integrating into the global economy and strengthening decentralisation.

Specifically, the State budget collection will hit nearly 8.3 quadrillion VND (361.7 billion USD). Revenue to the State budget will not be lower than 16 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while the State expenditure will reach about 10.26 quadrillion VND. Regular spending will be reduced to about 60 percent of the total.

Overspending is expected to be below 3.7 percent of the GDP during the period. The total loans will stay at over 3 quadrillion VND, some 2.9 quadrillion VND of which will be borrowed by the State budget.

The NA Standing Committee suggested the Government revise and supplement laws on tax policies, step up tax management, perfect guidelines on e-commerce and trade on digital platforms, transfer pricing, and pay attention to revenue from land, natural and mineral resources.

The committee also proposed the Government strive to increase revenues of the State budget, cut down on regular spending and increase spending on development investment to 29 percent

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The market capitalisation of Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based trading and battling online video game developed by a Vietnamese studio, currently stands at 2.5 billion USD with about 61 million AXS traded.

Each AXS, which is the token in the game, values at 41.51 USD, with trading volume in the last 24 hours hitting 2.9 billion USD, according to Coinmarketcap.

Axie Infinity allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle, and trade creatures known as “axies”, which are digitised as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The game has become a global phenomenon which is attracting hundreds of thousands of players.

It is currently the blockchain-based online game with the highest revenues in the world. Axie Infinity had earned 386 million USD as of the start of July and 90 million USD in the most recent 90 days, data from Token Terminal showed.

The game is developed by studio Sky Mavis, which was founded in 2018 by three Vietnamese and two foreigners.

The start-up studio successfully raised 7.5 million USD in Series A financing from US billionaire Mark Cuban and other investors last May.

It is also the only startup in Southeast Asia to receive support from one of the world’s largest video game company Ubisoft, in its fifth season for its Entrepreneur Lab with eight international startups that are focused on social entertainment.

Its CEO Nguyen Thanh Trung was co-founder and CEO at Lozi, a review app allowing users to find food, beverage, and coffee shops.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The 15th National Assembly passed a resolution on adjustments to the State budget expenditure estimate and approval of the 2019 State budget balance on July 28 as part of the first session in the 15th tenure.

Under the resolution, the regular spending estimate for 2019 was reduced by over 2.24 trillion VND (97.65 million USD) and the same amount was added to the Finance Ministry’s development spending estimate in 2019.

Total State budget collection in 2019 was 2.139 quadrillion VND (92.85 billion USD), while spending was 2.119 quadrillion VND (91.98 billion USD), including expenditure left from 2019.

As a result, State budget overspending in 2019 was 161.49 trillion VND (7.03 billion USD).

The NA requested the Government to make public the State budget balance in 2019, while directing ministries, central agencies and People’s Committees at all levels to strengthen financial discipline, improve the efficiency of State budget management and use, and fight corruption and wastefulness.

Earlier at a discussion on relevant reports on State budget estimate, collection, spending and balance in 2019, some deputies held that the structure of State budget expenditure in 2019 remained unreasonable with high ratio of regular spending. Many important expenditures were not disbursed as scheduled, including spending on science-technology and environment issues.

According to NA Standing Committee, in 2019, spending on development investment accounted for 27.6 percent of the total State budget expenditure, which basically complete the goal in the 2016-2020 period.

However, regular spending remained high at 65.2 percent of the total State budget expenditure, which was higher than the target of 64 percent.

The committee asked the Government to roll out comprehensive measures to tighten the control over spending, cut regular spending and increase resources for development investment, thus completing the target for the whole 2016-2020 period.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Four justices have been appointed to the Supreme People’s Court under a resolution adopted by the 15th National Assembly on July 28 during its first session.

The resolution, endorsed by 95.39 percent of legislators, approved a proposal by the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court to appoint Nguyen Van Dung, Ngo Tien Hung, Nguyen Bien Thuy and Dao Thi Minh Thuy as justices of the court.

The resolution will take effect from October 1, 2021.

Earlier, the NA adopted a resolution approving a list of 27 members of the Government in the 15th tenure, comprising one Prime Minister, four Deputy Prime Ministers, 18 ministers, four heads of ministerial-level agencies, the Government Inspector General, and the Minister-Chairman of the Government Office.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on July 28 evening presided over a ceremony to announce and hand over the State leader’s appointment decisions to members of the Government for the 2021-2026 term.

Attending the event were Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, among others.

Speaking at the event, President Phuc affirmed that the development achievements of the country in general, the proud results of the Government in the past tenures in particular have been obtained partially thanks to the support and close coordination of agencies of the Party, State, NA, Vietnam Fatherland Front and people from all walks of life.

He stressed that only the spirit of solidarity and determination can lead to success, and only aspirations in thinking and actions can lead the country forward faster and more sustainably.

The President expressed his wish that all Government members for the 2021-2026 term will continue to promote their achievements and overcome shortcomings and weaknesses, and thoroughly grasp and strictly implement the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress in their direction and administration work.

The Government and the Prime Minister should continue to effectively perform the tasks and power assigned in the Constitution and the law; build a united, dynamic, and decisive Cabinet; and build a governmental apparatus and a state administrative system that are unified, democratic, disciplinary, innovative, effective and truly of the people, by the people and for the people, stressed President Phuc.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the Government is willing to devote itself to serving the Fatherland and the people, respect the law, comply with the functions, tasks and power prescribed by the Constitution and law, and obey the leadership and direction of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat as well as the Party General Secretary and senior leaders of the Party and State.

The Government will continue to inherit and promote the achievements of the Government over the past tenures, especially the 14th tenure which has made important contributions to the national building and safeguarding cause.

He said that the Government has identified two key tasks that are effective pandemic prevention and implementation of the country’s socio-economic development targets and tasks approved by the National Assembly and ensuring social security and safety for people and defence security and international integration.

The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is considered an important and urgent task at present, PM Chinh stated, adding that to prevent and drive back the pandemic, the Government will join the political system and the people nationwide to curb the spread of the coronavirus by strictly implementing pandemic prevention and control regulations, especially the vaccine strategy.

The PM asked Government members to uphold their sense of responsibility before the Party, nation and people, and fulfill their assigned tasks.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

With 95.99 percent of yes votes, the 15th National Assembly (NA) on July 28 adopted a resolution on the organisational structure and number of members of the Government, under which the Government in the 2021-2026 tenure will have 27 members.

According to the resolution, the 15th-tenure Government will have one Prime Minister, four Deputy Prime Ministers, 18 ministers, four heads of ministerial-level agencies, the Government Inspector General, and the Minister-Chairman of the Government Office.

Also on July 28 morning, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh presented a proposal on the appointment of Deputy Prime Ministers, ministers, and heads of ministerial-level agencies. The NA will vote on the proposal and a resolution on the appointment of Deputy Prime Ministers, ministers, and heads of ministerial-level agencies.

The 15th NA’s first plenary session is scheduled to conclude the same day.

Source: Vietnam News Agency