Day: December 17, 2021

A nearly 1,000-page book has been published featuring the journey seeking ways for national salvation of President Ho Chi Minh, known in those days as Nguyen Tat Thanh, said Dr. Vu Manh Ha, Director of the Ho Chi Minh Museum, on December 16.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum, the Truth National Political Publishing House, the Management Board of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the HCM City Department of Culture and Sports coordinated in the compilation and publishing.

With four main parts, the book comprises 110 speeches that were presented by experts and scholars from Hanoi, HCM City and many other cities and provinces at a symposium on the late President’s journey.

The book is expected to give readers an insight into the beloved President’s life and revolutionary career, and contribute to promoting the campaign on studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and lifestyle, Ha said.

Exactly 110 years ago, on June 5, 1911, Nguyen Tat Thanh, using the name of Van Ba, boarded vessel Latouche-Tréville in Vietnam and headed overseas to seek ways to save the country.

During his 30-year journey, Nguyen Tat Thanh, who later became President Ho Chi Minh, found a path to national liberation, turning Vietnam into an independent, free, and unified country moving towards socialism.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Offshore wind power is considered a promising field and able to replace renewable energy in Vietnam but the industry is rather new and it is difficult to implement offshore wind power projects, heard participants at a seminar held in Hanoi on December 16.

The seminar entitled “Development of offshore wind power for Vietnam’s clean energy in the future” was co-organised by the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

The issues that haven’t been solved for offshore wind power development include the development of mechanisms and policies, the construction of grid infrastructure as well as enhancing capacity in construction, installation and development of domestic supply chains, participants heard.

Keld Bennetsen, Vice President of Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP), the management unit of La Gan offshore wind power project, held that legal framework was a challenge in the deployment of offshore wind power projects.

Favourable mechanisms should be created to facilitate the participation of international financial institutions, he said, adding that the power system needs to be upgraded in line with the offshore wind power development plan, thereby, helping Vietnam to attract financial investors as well as international investors in expanding supply chains and promoting national value chains.

According to Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of PTSC MandC Ltd. Co, it is essential for Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) to collaborate with foreign investors when implementing offshore wind power projects in the country because other enterprises in the oil and gas industry will have the opportunity to join the offshore wind power supply chain based on that foundation.

Dung suggested considering allowing enterprises acting as general contractors as the value will be lower if they work as a manufacturing contractor or provide logistic services.

From a financial perspective, participants at the event said the attraction of investment in the offshore wind power market in Vietnam is expanding as the demand for green energy is increasing, not only in the country but also internationally. Meanwhile, financial arrangements for thermal power projects face difficulties in the context of globalisation and the adoption of measures in coping with climate change.

Patrick Jakobsen, Chief Underwriter of Denmark’s Export Credit Agency (EKF), said offshore wind power is a specific field that requires a longer and more complicated project development process than other projects, so a flexible policy is needed in financial arrangement for these projects.

He recommended offering loans for offshore wind power projects in Vietnam or having a special mechanism for power purchasing agreements to attract more investors and enhance the projects’ competitiveness.

According to Vietnam Electricity (EVN), by the end of October 31, 2021, Vietnam had 88 wind power projects that has begun commercial operations with a total installed capacity of about 4.2 GW. There are 35 offshore wind power projects which are under research and development with a total capacity of up to 60 GW.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Regular international flights from/to Vietnam will be resumed in two phases, with air travel with nine foreign destinations to be available again in the first phase and fifteen in the second phase, according to the latest scenario developed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).

It is the third scenario developed by the CAAV for the resumption of international flights from/to Vietnam, CAAV Deputy Director Vo Huy Cuong said on December 16.

Under the new plan, Vietnam will restore regular international air routes with Beijing/Guangxi (China), Tokyo (Japan), Seoul (the Republic of Korea), Taipei (Taiwan, China), Bangkok (Thailand), Singapore, Vientiane (Laos), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), and San Francisco/Los Angeles (the US).

The reopening of regular international flights is expected to fuel travel demand from these destinations to Vietnam, Cuong said, adding that people will be able to travel normally to Vietnam without having to transit through other destinations.

During the second phase, flights will be likely to reconnect Vietnam with six more other foreign destinations, including Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Hong Kong (China), Paris (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Sydney (Australia) and Moscow (Russia).

Concerned authorities will evaluate the implementation of the plan before allowing regular international flights to resume to pre-pandemic level, he stressed.

According to a new guidance issued by the Ministry of Health on the same day, fully vaccinated foreign arrivals with negative COVID-19 test results will only need to self-quarantine at home or places of accommodation for three days upon entry into Vietnam by air.

Vietnam to resume nine regular international air routes hinh anh 2

Illustrative photo. (Source: Ministry of Health)

The new regulations will be effective from January 1, 2022, the day Vietnam is set to resume regular international flights on a pilot basis.

The arrivals must have proof of negative COVID-19 test results (using the gold-standard PCR method) within 72 hours prior to entry (except in the case of children under two years old), must declare their health status before entry and must install Vietnam’s PC-COVID app (available on both Android and iOS) for contact tracing and medical declaration purposes.

Arrivals that are Vietnamese citizens, including Vietnamese citizens residing overseas and the spouses and children of Vietnamese citizens, who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, can be given free inoculation during the quarantine period if they agree.

Entrants who have been fully vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19, must not make direct contact with others nor leave their places of residence or designated accommodation (hotels, motels, resorts, offices, dormitories, guest houses, etc.) during the first three days.

Two RT-PCR tests will be conducted, on the first and third day since the date of entry.

If the results return negative, then the entrants still need to self-monitor their health status for 14 days after arrival, but this is already a huge step down from the current policies of mandatory seven days of concentrated quarantine and seven days of follow-up medical self-observation.

If they are willing to get a COVID-19 test (RT-PCR) on the tenth day, then the medical self-observation could end then.

For entrants who have not been fully vaccinated, upon entry, they will stay at home or place of accommodation for seven days, with RT-PCR tests conducted on the first and seventh day.

If the results are negative, the full two weeks of self-observation is applied, with another RT-PCR test to be done on the fourteenth day from the entry.

For entrants who are under 18 years old, above 65 years old, pregnant women, or having underlying health conditions (without requiring care or observation of medical facilities), they will be allowed to go into quarantine with their parents or caretakers.

The caretakers must be fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 and sign a ‘commitment’ document giving their voluntary willingness to quarantine with another person after having been informed of the risks of virus transmission. They will also be subject to the same stringent testing regimes and COVID-19 prevention and control measures expected of foreign arrivals.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Forestry products are one of the few products seeing export growth despite COVID-19 threatening economic development in countries around the world.

However, the impact of the pandemic would be unavoidable in the long term which will force the Vietnamese timber industry to find a new direction to sustain development.

Data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development showed the export of wood and wood products brought Vietnam more than 13.2 billion USD in the past 11 months, up 20 percent over the same period last year, in which the export of wood products fetched 9.9 billion USD, up 16.6 percent.

“The rapid spread of COVID-19 has changed consumer behaviour, creating pressure and challenges forcing businesses to innovate and improve at all stages, from design and production to trade, in which digitalisation is the key,” said Amit Sharma, lead of researcher team in the report on Digitalisation Maturity Assessment of the Wood Processing Industry in Vietnam.

The report, conducted by the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA) and the Private Sector Development Research Board (IV Board) under the support of Asia Foundation in Vietnam, has studied the readiness of Vietnam’s wood industry to digital transformation.

The report found 58 percent of respondents confirmed their company has some form of a digital strategy in place and 80 percent said digital transformation is core for their future strategic business development. While 70 percent of firms confirmed their management team has the necessary skills for executing digital transformation, only 48 percent said their company plans its digital strategy for up to two years and 46 percent have a plan from 3-5 years.

Lack of knowledge, process and people are seen as the biggest challenges of developing and implementing a digital strategy, followed by budget and management. Most of the companies said increasing productivity and transforming the company are the core reason for shifting to digitalisation, besides rising revenues, reducing costs and finding new markets.

To achieve exports of 20 billion USD in 2025, it is necessary to approach new directions, multi-channel sales, and increase the value of products. Though e-commerce is the immediate solution, the report said complete digitalisation should be the mid-to-long-term focus of all wood processing Vietnamese enterprises.

According to Pham Thi Ngoc Thuy, director of the office of the IV Board, wood manufacturing businesses have made great efforts to find solutions for digital transformation, especially in the pandemic, business leaders sought many ways to interact with customers given lockdowns in both domestic and foreign markets.

“However, those endeavours are still spontaneous and have yet to create spillovers to the whole industry, so the effect has not been as expected,” Thuy said at the conference on the digital transformation in the wood processing industry on December 15.

She said businesses need to determine where they are in the digital transformation process to make the most accurate action and investment decisions.

Hesitancy

Nguyen Chanh Phuong, HAWA’s vice chairman and general secretary, said up to now, Vietnamese wood enterprises have still maintained some retention towards digitalisation that make them lag far behind counterparts in other countries like China, Germany and Poland.

“Vietnam’s wood industry has a relatively high position in the world’s export map but the contribution of digital transformation and high technology to this result is not much and has not changed the face of the Vietnamese wood industry,” Phuong said.

The furniture segment, which dominates the wood product industry, has four values including production, designing, trading and branding, which have transaction volumes estimated at 450 billion USD per year. However, over the past 20 years, the Vietnamese furniture business community has just focused on the value of production, which has annual transactions of about 140 billion USD with low profit.

Many businesses are sceptical of digital transformation because of high cost pressure. Many do not know where to start and what can be done in the short term and what solutions are needed for the medium and long term. The unwillingness to change is a major challenge to going digital.

Experts have agreed that there is no common answer for digital transformation. Each business has different qualities, so there are also different solutions for their digital strategy. Many companies have begun by examining the factors that create value for their customers and developing operating models to deliver value.

According to Do Xuan Lap, Chairman of the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association, a digital transformation programme will help the company improve capacity and corporate governance. Currently, the competitiveness of wood industry enterprises is still low compared to other enterprises, especially foreign-invested enterprises. In the future, the associations will make efforts to help Vietnamese wood enterprises put a digital transformation programme into place.

Source: Vietnam News Agency