Day: September 9, 2021

The northern province of Quang Ninh is striving to achieve the highest possible growth in the fourth quarter and the whole year although the COVID-19 pandemic was forecast to remain complex.

Authorities of Quang Ninh held that in the remaining months of 2021, the pandemic will keep developing complicatedly and greatly affecting production, business, services, tourism, and budget collection activities.

To obtain a double-digit growth rate, the provincial People’s Committee has built three growth scenarios for Q4 and the entire year, with advantages, difficulties, and growth in each sector taken into account.

The Standing Board of the provincial Party Committee agreed that Quang Ninh will exert efforts to achieve this year’s targets, set in the provincial Party Committee’s Resolution 02-NQ/TU, at the highest possible level. Accordingly, the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth is expected at over 10 percent and budget revenue to match the economic expansion.

To that end, the Standing Board emphasised the need to resolutely and persistently keep “green zones” safe, push ahead with measures that have proved effective, and take flexible solutions based on the reality.

The province looks to complete vaccination for 100 percent of eligible residents against COVID-19 this year, combined with boosting the adherence to the 5K principle (“khau trang” – wearing facemasks, “khu khuan” – disinfection, “khoang cach” – keeping distance, “khong tu tap” – no gathering, and “khai bao y te” – making health declarations) and technology application.

It will also step up administrative reforms, further improve the local business and investment climate, and enhance discipline at grassroots public service agencies, aiming to stay among the top provinces and cities in terms of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), the Public Administration Reform (PAR) Index, the Satisfaction Index of Public Administration Services (SIPAS), and the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI).

Besides, local authorities will promote the efficiency and effectiveness of state management over land and natural resources. They will also make detailed planning schemes for Ha Long city, the Quang Yen coastal economic zone, and others.

The apparatus of State agencies will be streamlined in tandem with bettering their performance efficiency and effectiveness.

Legal bottlenecks will be removed while poor-performing rice cultivation and forest land areas are converted, and site clearance for projects is accelerated. The coordination between state agencies and localities in Quang Ninh will be strengthened to boost the disbursement of all capital sources, thereby creating an impulse for growth.

In addition, provincial authorities are requesting investors to quickly complete infrastructure at Song Khoai, Nam Tien Phong, Bac Tien Phong, and Viet Hung industrial parks. They are also encouraging secondary investors to speed up manufacturing projects.

Despite the complex COVID-19 situation, which has substantially impacted all socio-economic aspects, Quang Ninh has still managed to achieve the “twin targets” of curbing the pandemic and boosting socio-economic development.

The GRDP growth rate in the first nine months of 2021 is estimated at 8.2 percent.

In particular, the processing and manufacturing industry has increased 36.2 percent year on year, serving as the main driving force for the industrial sector. It has made up for the pandemic-caused downturn in services, tourism, coal, and electricity sectors.

Meanwhile, nearly 34.38 trillion VND (over 1.5 billion USD) has been collected for the State budget, equivalent to 67 percent of this year’s target. Administrative reforms and the business environment have continued to be improved.

Quang Ninh is one of the three nuclei of the northern key economic region and viewed as a strategic destination in northern Vietnam.

It looks to raise its GRDP by 10 percent on an annual average during 2020 – 2025, and the per capita GRDP to over 10,000 USD by 2025. The urbanisation rate is expected to surpass 75 percent, while the rate of poor households to go down to below 1 percent.

The province plans to complete new-style rural area building by the end of 2030.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam is becoming a more important piece of the global supply chain, despite the supply chain and shutdown problems facing the country at present, Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham Vietnam) Adam Sitkoff has told Bloomberg Television.

Acknowledging the pandemic is hindering Vietnam from increasing its role in the supply chain, Sitkoff said he still sees Vietnam attracting investment. He pointed to Vietnam’s best-in-Asia growth performance of 2.9 percent last year.

AmCham hopes anti-COVID-19 policies are the least disruptive to business as possible as firms look for ways to smooth deliveries leading into the critical year-end holiday season, he added.

Though several international organisations have lower their forecast for Vietnam’s growth, they retain a positive outlook on its recovery prospects.

“Beyond the near-term challenges, Vietnam’s medium-term economic prospects remain favourable,” analysts at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) said in a recent note.

ANZ analysts said in the ANZ Vietnam Activity Tracker said the structural factors that made Vietnam an attractive investment destination as a manufacturing hub remain intact.

There is also ample room for policy support to nurture economic recovery further, they stressed.

However, they warned about downside risks to the bank’s 5.2 percent full-year 2021 growth forecast for the country.

Andreas Stoffers, country director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) in Vietnam, said that Vietnam’s economic figures for the first half of 2021 are not too bad, with its consumer price index (CPI) of 1.46 percent still under control.

He expressed his belief that Vietnam will overcome the crisis as it did in 2020.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Runway 1B at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, which has been upgraded, is put into operation on September 9, according to the Ministry of Transport (MoT).

On September 9 morning, flight VN611 (Boeing 787-9) of Vietnam Airlines took off safely on runway 1B. Seven minutes later, a Boeing 747 8F of Cargolux Airlines (Austria) also landed safely on the runway.

Duong Viet Roan, Director of Thang Long Project Management Board, said all workload of the runway 1B upgrade has been completed.

Nguyen Bach Tung, Deputy Director of the MoT’s Department of Construction Management and Quality of Traffic Works, said although the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the construction, contractors have tried their best and followed the approved plan.

The quality of the project met the strict requirements of the aviation industry and the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), he said.

A day earlier, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) decided to put the runway into operation based on the operation of the Noi Bai Airport.

The CAAV asked the airport to coordinate with Vietnam Flight Management Corporation to notify domestic and international airlines in line with current regulations and direct the Northern Flight Management Company to organise operations to ensure that the flights are safe.

Noi Bai is one of the two biggest airports of Vietnam which play an important role in boosting socio-economic development and ensuring defence-security.

Works to upgrade the 1B runway is part of the two-phase project to repair the Noi Bai runways started on June 29 last year with an estimated cost of about 2.03 trillion VND (over 88 million USD). The upgrade of runway 1A is scheduled to start on October 1 and complete before Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A webinar themed “Sustainable Businesses Implement Dual Goals” was held on September 9 as part of the 8th Vietnam Corporate Sustainability Forum (VCSF).

To adapt to and overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, aside from the Government’s support, each enterprise needs to bring into play their internal strengths and change plans and strategies so as to achieve the dual goals of effectively fighting against the pandemic and sustaining and recovering production and business activities, said Nguyen Quang Vinh, Secretary General of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Vice President of the VCCI’s Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD).

He also put forward an initiative to establish a council of enterprise cooperation to respond to COVID-19, adding that this council will gather the strength of the business community by connecting business associations, related organisations, and the VCCI to join hands with the Government to help firms weather this trying time and quickly recover and develop.

At the webinar, Dorsati Madani, Senior Economist at World Bank Vietnam, delivered a speech on global economic prospects and impacts on the country, citing a WB report as saying that the Vietnamese economy is expected to recover in the fourth quarter of 2021 and post a GDP growth rate of about 4.8 percent this year.

Binu Jacob, CEO of Nestle Vietnam and Co-Vice President of the VBCSD, recommended workers and contractors to be fully vaccinated and enterprises be given self-determination in applying anti-COVID-19 models at their factories on the basis of the Health Ministry’s guidance.

Regulations related to COVID-19 prevention and control in localities should be simplified and accord with central agencies’ directions while public administrative procedures should be digitalised, thus creating optimum conditions for businesses, especially during the social distancing period, he suggested.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The northern province of Vinh Phuc has set the goal of having 70 enterprises eligible to become first-tier and second-tier suppliers for manufacturers of automobile, motorcycle, electronic products and partially supply for large enterprises or corporations or exports by 2030.

This is a part of a plan issued by the People’s Committee of Vinh Phuc Province on the implementation of the Government Resolution on solutions to promote the development of supporting industries in Vietnam.

The development of supporting industries is considered as one of the important solutions to attract investment, helping the province soon fulfill its goal of becoming a major centre of the automobile and motorcycle manufacturing industry.

To realise the above goals, the provincial People’s Committee worked out solutions such as carrying out synchronously projects to boost the development of supporting industries, continuing administrative reform to create favourable business environment for enterprises, and effective operation of the provincial Industrial development supporting the technical centre.

Regarding taxes, finance and credit, the province planned to offer preferential interest rates for corporate income tax with investment projects on products on the list of supporting industrial products prioritised for development. Incentive policies on interest rates for enterprises when borrowing short-term capital at credit institutions and compensate for the difference in interest rates for medium and long-term loans would also be included.

Businesses in the province were encouraged to expand cooperation with domestic and foreign partners to participate in the global value chain. They were also advised to step up promotion to attract investment from large corporations.

More support would be given to enterprises that engaged in innovation, research development, and technology transfer.

It was necessary to ensure the scale of the domestic market, promote the foreign market and take advantage of the FTAs that Vietnam has signed with other partners, according to provincial authorities.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam has asked localities to pay special attention to directing production activities and ensuring the supply of plant varieties and breeding stock to farmers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a conference to review operations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)’s Southern Working Group on September 9, Nam, who is also head of the group, underlined the need to design production plans during and after social distancing period to maintain long-term and stable farm produce supply.

The working group will submit a report to the Government’s Special Working Group on an overall plan for the whole southern region, thus ensuring the coherence in localities’ directions on agricultural production, thus preventing the pandemic and maintaining production at the same time.

Representatives from the localities suggested that COVID-19 vaccine should be given to people engaging in agricultural production chains, especially in the Mekong Delta region.

They proposed that the Government should subsidise 50 percent of plant varieties and breeding livestock for farmers to help them resume production.

Nam said that the working group will give advice to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Government on the issuance of resolutions on supporting agricultural production.

The group will also work with the Ministry of Health to give guidelines to farmers in ensuring safety during production, while asking the ministry to prioritise COVID-19 vaccination for people involving in agricultural production chains.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A webinar on Vietnam – Africa agricultural cooperation for sustainable development took place on September 9 in search of a dynamic and creative collaboration model for the two sides.

The event was co-organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF).

Speaking at the seminar, Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son underscored that Vietnam values its traditional ties with African nations and that the Vietnam-Africa engagements are continuously being consolidated and expanded.

He stated room for the sides’ cooperation in agriculture remains extensive.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh recommended the sides promote their South-South cooperation models, technological transfer, and farming encouragement measures, adding that Vietnam is willing to send experts and technicians to support Africa.

Doanh noted there is a need for the building of a pilot public-private partnership (PPP) model regarding investment in the production and processing of farm produce in some African nations, prioritising sectors of Vietnam’s strengths and demand for consumption.

Abu Bakarr Karim, Minister of Agriculture & Forestry of Sierra Leone, said his country’s agricultural sector will follow the successful development path of its Vietnamese counterpart.

Participants reviewed opportunities and challenges facing farming cooperation between Vietnam and Africa and discussed measures to bolster and expand the trade of the sides’ key farm produce.

Major orientations for joint agricultural production collaboration and financial solutions in aid of the ties were also tabled for discussion.

Source: Vietnam News Agency