Day: December 11, 2021

Ambassador Pham Hai Anh, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of Vietnam to the United Nations, chaired a periodical meeting of the UN Security Council’s Informal Working Group on International Tribunals in New York on December 10.

This is the fourth and also final meeting chaired by Vietnam in its post as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in the 2020-2021 tenure.

In his opening remarks, Anh thanked members of the working group for their cooperative and constructive contributions.

In the past two years, as the Chair of the working group, Vietnam has helped promote dialogue between the group and the Chair and the prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) to complete the mechanism’s tasks assigned by the UNSC, thus promoting the observance of the UN Charter and international law, he added.

Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Stephen Mathias hailed the efforts of the judge, and staff of the IRMCT in overcoming difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain and speed up the judging activities.

He also lauded the cooperative attitude and efforts of the group’s members, especially Vietnam’s performance as the Chair of the group in maintaining the group’s operations and dialogues with the mechanism amidst the complicated situation.

The Informal Working Group on International Tribunals was established in June 2000 to deal with a specific issue pertaining to the statute of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (ICTY).

It was subsequently mandated to deal with other legal issues pertaining to ICTY as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide and Other Such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994 (ICTR)

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A national action plan on the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in the 2021-2030 period has been issued, with priority given to recover important wetlands that are under degradation.

The plan aims to complete the investigation, statistics and inventory of the wetland database at the national level.

It also targets to increase from 13 internationally recognised ramsars to 15 sites by 2030, in accordance with Ramsar Convention.

By 2030, at least 25 percent of degrading important wetlands are expected to be restored. The plan prioritises recovering degrading ecosystems at wetland reserves, Ramsars, Melaleuca forests, mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds; while implementing programmes to monitor threats and assess their impact on important wetlands, especially vulnerable important wetlands.

Sustainable livelihood models and models to conserve and sustainably use important wetlands will be built and implemented, with effective ones to be duplicated.

The plan will also pilot the co-management models with the participation of enterprises, local communities for some important wetlands and implement benefit-sharing mechanisms of wetland resources.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Representatives of the Border Guard Command under the Ministry of Defence of Vietnam and the Border Guard Department of the General Staff of the Lao People’s Army held a conference to review three years of implementing their cooperation agreement on December 11 in Huong Hoa district, the central province of Quang Tri.

Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lieut. Gen. Hoang Xuan Chien of Vietnam and Lao Deputy Minister of Defence Lieut. Gen. Vongkham Phommakone attended the conference.

Addressing the event, Deputy Minister Sen. Lieut. Gen. Hoang Xuan Chien highly valued results of the agreement’s implementation over the past three years, thus contributing to maintaining peace, stability and development of each country’s border areas, boosting the socio-economic development of Vietnam and Laos, and consolidating the special friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, States and armies.

Over the past three years, the two sides maintained the regular exchange of information and close cooperation in joint patrols and experience sharing in border protection and management, anti-crime, while strengthening the COVID-19 prevention and control work. They also coordinated to carry out drills to ensure order and security in the border areas, organise border friendship exchange programmes in order to promote the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two armies.

At the conference, both sides agreed that the two countries’ border guards will continue coordinating to implement contents of the Cooperation Protocol for the 2020-2025 period and the cooperation plan for 2022 between the two defence ministries, particularly in fighting crime, illegal immigration and the COCID-19 pandemic.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

In 2021, Vietnam recorded 5,600 newly-established digital technology businesses, stemming from the need to work, sell and communicate online in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, Deputy Director of Information Technology Department under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), said statistics from the ministry showed that Vietnam currently had about 64,000 digital technology enterprises with more than one million employees. The working environment and non-contact economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic had made digital transformation faster and stronger as well as promoted the digital business community.

“The number of Make-in-Vietnam businesses has increased sharply,” Tuyen said.

The department said in 2020, there were more than 34 platforms announced by the MIC as Make-in-Vietnam products. Many information security products had been also launched by Vietnamese enterprises. Digital technology enterprises such as VNPT, Viettel, CMC and FPT had potential and made great contributions to the development of digital government and digital economy with the construction of national digital platforms.

In 2021, with the ministry’s leadership, Vietnamese businesses have researched new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and Big Data. This has never been seen before.

“That is the spread of the Make-in-Vietnam spirit and we hope that it will spread more to build more Make-in-Vietnam businesses and have more products, platforms, and pride of Vietnamese people in the near future,” he added.

Deputy Minister Pham Duc Long said that Make-in-Vietnam enterprises were both Vietnamese enterprises as well as foreign enterprises investing, researching, and manufacturing in Vietnam.

The country’s digital technology industry has also achieved impressive growth results. In 2020, due to the impact of the pandemic, the world economy witnessed negative growth. Vietnam achieved a GDP growth rate of 2.91 percent and became one of the few economies with positive growth. Vietnam’s digital technology industry had a growth rate of over 9 percent, which was three times higher than GDP growth.

Long said currently, Vietnamese digital technology enterprises had not only processed and assembled products for foreign countries, with the spirit of Make-in-Vietnam, but also manufactured and mastered products and platforms for the country’s digital transformation.

With the spirit of Make-in-Vietnam, the products of local digital technology enterprises had been used and brought about many benefits.

The Deputy Minister gave specific examples that the digital transformation of public services and document management systems in localities were by Make-in-Vietnam firms. The smart city management centres in 38 localities had been built by Vietnamese digital technology enterprises.

Meanwhile, in the economic sector, Vo so (Viettel Post) and Postmart (Vietnam Post) are two e-commerce platforms completely Make-in-Vietnam, which have helped farmers, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The spirit of Make-in-Vietnam has solved the problem of Vietnam and achieved many successes,” he added.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Securities investment funds in Vietnam have ample room for growth if they effectively promote current results and implement goals and solutions in a substantial way with a roadmap in accordance with the country’s international integration and situation, according to the State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC).

The scale of management assets of fund management firms is targeted to make up about 6-10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. The SSC is also keen to develop and diversify types of stock funds and open the asset management market in accordance with a committed roadmap, together with sharpen competitive edge of fund management in Vietnam.

The SSC said that the growth of fund management firms and securities investment funds are commendable with contributions to the sustainable development of Vietnam’s stock market, while the development potential of securities investment funds in the country remains high.

Despite difficulties and challenges, fund management has made contributions to the development of Vietnam’s stock market. By late 2020, the total management assets of fund management companies made up 5.5 percent of the country’s GDP. The percentage was lower than that of other countries in the region.

Some reasons behind the low percentage include investors’ mindset of investing independently and opening bank saving accounts with stable interest rates instead of entrusting their money to investment funds managed by financial experts.

In the coming time, to bolster development of fund management firms and securities investment funds in Vietnam, the SSC believed that it is necessary to fulfil targets and improve the efficiency of fund management companies in a bid to ensure their capacity and financial safety, among others.

In the 2011-21, legal framework for activities of fund management companies and securities investment funds was amended, with new models added, signaling the growth of the sector in Vietnam.

The establishment of securities investment funds was sped up in the period, with the number of the funds figure tripling to 62 in September 2021 from just 23 recorded 10 years earlier.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Vietnam Stock Exchange (VNX) made debut on December 11, on the basis of merging the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE).

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai said that developing the stock market to create a medium- and long-term capital mobilisation channel for economic development is a big and consistent policy of the Party and State.

Over the past 25 years, the Vietnamese stock market has grown more and more firmly, and made active contributions to the nation’s socio-economic development and is really becoming an important capital mobilisation channel for the economy, and helped promote the development of the financial market.

On the stock market, the VN Index has surpassed 1,500 points, making it the highest mark since the stock market officially came into operation. The average trading value in the first 11 months of 2021 reached more than 37.2 trillion VND per session, over two times higher than that of 2020. As of the end of October, total stock capitalisation and outstanding bond balance in the market had reached nearly 163 percent of GDP in 2020.

The growth of the stock market in recent years partially shows the confidence of investors and businesses in the policies of the Party and State, Khai said, adding that this is also the result of the timely direction of the Government and the Prime Minister; the close coordination between ministries, sectors and localities; the direct instruction of the Ministry of Finance; and especially the solidarity, consensus, high determination and persistent efforts of the financial sector’s staffs, the State Securities Commission, the Stock Exchanges, the Securities Depository Centre, and domestic and foreign investors.

The Deputy PM stressed the importance of restructuring and reorganising the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchanges to unify the securities trading market, ensure the market’s efficient, fair, open and transparent operation towards a unified and professional Vietnamese stock market.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The upcoming official visit by Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue to the Republic of Korea (RoK) starting December 12 is viewed as an opportunity to lift the countries’ strategic cooperative partnership to a new height, towards bringing two-way trade to 100 billion USD in a balanced, sustainable and effective manner.

The Vietnam-RoK relations have been thriving across all fields since the countries set up diplomatic ties in 1992. Despite the negative impacts of the ongoing pandemic, bilateral trade in 2020 was equal to the level recorded before the pandemic, and is on the path to recovery this year.

The RoK is Vietnam’s third largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching 66 billion VND, or 12.85 percent of Vietnam’s total trade turnover with the world.

Currently, the RoK is the fourth biggest export market of Vietnam with an export revenue of nearly 19.1 billion USD.

The Northeast Asian nation is an important export market holding enormous potential for Vietnam’s fresh and processed fruits, with a market capacity of about 1.3 billion USD per year. To date, five fruits of Vietnam have been officially shipped to the RoK.

There are ample room for Vietnam’s fruits to enter the RoK, according to RoK firms and consumers. Vietnamese businesses are advised to pay more attention to improving product quality, packaging, processing method, production scale and stability of supply. Kyung Don Kim, head of the Investment Promotion Team at the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) in Hanoi, said that Vietnam-RoK trade turnover is rising despite the complex developments of COVID-19. Businesses from the RoK are keen to further invest in the Southeast Asian nation in the coming time.

The RoK remains the largest foreign investor of Vietnam with a total of 9,165 projects mainly in manufacturing. About 79 percent of RoK firms are investing in industrial production, namely Samsung, LG and Hyundai Motors, among others.

Vietnam is a key partner in the RoK’s enhanced New Southern Policy.

The Agency of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) will join hands with relevant agencies of the two countries to call on the RoK to open its door to other fruits of Vietnam as well as increase trade promotions in the coming time.

Since the fourth wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, the RoK business community in Vietnam has been working with the Vietnamese side to overcome difficulties brought by the pandemic, said Vu Ba Phu, director of the ministry’s Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency.

Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien affirmed that there are many room for growth in economic-trade cooperation between Vietnam and the RoK thanks to various factors, especially the sides’ active engagement in free trade agreements and strong connection in the global value chain.

The ministry will continue to foster close collaboration and maximise the efficiency of bilateral cooperation mechanisms in carrying out tasks and plans of action, so as to bring two-way trade to 100 billion USD by 2023.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Vietnam Festival 2021 began in Tokyo, Japan on December 11, attracting a large number of visitors.

The two-day event aims to promote Vietnam’s images to Japanese friends, and part of efforts to restart cultural and people-to-people exchanges between Vietnam and Japan.

COVID-19 preventive measures have been in place to ensure safety for festival-goers.

This is one of the largest annual festivals in Tokyo, which promotes Vietnamese cuisine and culture to Japanese people, Charge d’Affaires of Vietnam to Japan Lam Thi Thanh Phuong said.

The festival was first held in Japan in 2008, when the two countries celebrated the 35th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties, she added.

Japanese Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Miyake Shingo said about 450,000 Vietnamese are living in Japan, and Vietnamese dishes are favoured by local people.

Vietnamese and Japanese musical performances are staged at the event.

Source: Vietnam News Agency