Day: November 10, 2021

Kurz International Holdings GMBH from Germany has been granted an investment licence for a hi-tech coating and thin film project worth 40 million USD at Becamex Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) in the south central province of Binh Dinh.

Kurz International are the first foreign investor to be approved at the 1,425 ha park in the central coastal province. It comes just one year after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the park owner Becamex Binh Dinh Joint-Stock Company.

The project will be built on 12 ha with a total capacity of supplying 15 million square metres of hi-tech film and coating products. It’s expected to begin operation from the second quarter of 2023.

The project highlights the efforts of local authorities, investors and the park owner in land clearance and infrastructure preparations, despite the delays and setbacks caused by COVID-19.

According to the Binh Dinh economic zone administration, the Becamex VSIP Binh Dinh – the areas first industrial, urban and service zone – was developed thanks to a total investment of 3.3 trillion VND (142.1 million USD). It is a part of the Nhon Hoi economic zone, in the province’s Quy Nhon City.

The park was designed to draw 2 billion USD and create about 150,000 jobs for the province, and neighbouring provinces, along the central coast of Vietnam.

Last year, the province opened a 20km route connecting the Nhon Hoi economic zone and Phu Cat Airport, to encourage business and tourism.

Nine VSIPs, a typical economic cooperation model between Vietnam and Singapore, have been developed in Binh Duong, Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, Quang Ngai, Hai Duong and Nghe An. They have attracted 840 partners and investors from 30 countries and territories, and a total investment of 14 billion USD.

VSIP complexes nationwide cover around 8,600 ha and have created around 250,000 jobs for Vietnamese and foreigners.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Resuming international flights is a necessary move at present after a long shutdown, heard an online seminar held by the Ministry of Transport (MoT) on November 10.

The MoT recently submitted to the Prime Minister a plan on the resumption of regular international flights with the aim of helping tackle difficulties facing airlines, promote economic recovery, and revive the tourism industry.

Vo Huy Cuong, Deputy Director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), said many countries across the world have reopened international flights, and Vietnam, which has suspended such flights since early February 2020, should not be an exception.

The best possible conditions will be provided for tourists with “vaccine passports”, he added.

Highlighting the necessity to resume international flights, Nguyen Quang Trung, head of the planning and development division of the Vietnam Airlines Corporation, held that to achieve the twin targets of developing the economy and ensuring pandemic prevention and control, the aviation sector should prioritise passengers from countries which have well controlled COVID-19 like the Republic of Korea, Japan, the US, and European nations.

He noted entry and quarantine rules receive the most attention now. The current policy of seven days of concentrated quarantine and then another seven days of home quarantine can attract only overseas Vietnamese wishing to return home, and it needs changes so as to attract foreign tourists.

Echoing the view, Cuong said the biggest obstacle now is the rules on health quarantine, adding that the shift from “zero COVID-19” to “flexibly living with COVID-19” is a very important change.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Le Phuc, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said the tourism sector is ready to welcome international travellers, and it will deal with any problems arising by working closely with ministries, sectors, and localities.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Embassy of Vietnam in Venezuela held a seminar on the Vietnamese publishing industry’s outstanding features in both virtually and in-person forms on November 9 as part of the 17th Venezuela International Book Fair (FILVEN 2021).

Addressing the seminar, Dr Tran Doan Lam, former director of The Gioi Publishing House, said that Vietnam attending the event as a guest of honour at Venezuela’s biggest cultural event of the year proved that the two countries, despite being far apart geographically but very close in terms of love for reading culture, share similar history with aspiration for freedom, independence, self-reliance, courage and patriotism.

Lam presented an overview of the main stages of development of the writing and publishing industry in Vietnam, from moc ban (woodblocks) printing to making use of the do (poonah) trees to make the unique paper suitable for printing and writing in about the 2nd century BC, or the creation of the Nom script in literary works in the 10th century, to the birth of world-renowned classical literary works such as the Tales of Kieu by Nguyen Du in the 18th century.

The Vietnamese speaker said that in the Middle Ages, there were villages specialising in book printing with wooden planks, mainly near the Thang Long Citadel (now Hanoi). Among them, 3,050 woodblocks preserved in Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Giang were recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as the World Documentary Heritage in the Memory of the World Programme.

Vietnam has had over 60 publishing houses since 1952, plus about 1,500 printing establishments and 13,700 bookstores across the country. Every year, on the occasion of Vietnam Book Day (April 21), major book fairs are held in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, attracting the participation of Vietnamese and international publishers.

At the event, President of the Venezuela-Vietnam Friendship Association Carolus Wimmer expressed his desire to cooperate with the The Gioi Publishing House to give more Vietnamese books to Venezuelan readers to meet their demand for studying the history, culture, country and people of Vietnam.

Source: Vietnam News Agency