Day: December 25, 2021

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on December 25 had a working session with leading officials of the northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang.

Representatives of ministries, central authorities and Tuyen Quang discussed and analysed proposals of the province, and agreed on the development of infrastructure, industrial zones and tourism in association with the revolutionary and historical tradition as well as culture of the locality.

Speaking highly of the achievements recorded by the provincial Party organisation, authorities and locals, the PM also pointed to the province’s slow and unsustainable development, poor performance despite the huge potential and desire, low provincial-level competitiveness, hard livelihood of locals, especially in remote areas.

For 2022, he held that the province must continue to effectively fight the COVID-19 pandemic, complete the building of the zonings in the first quarter, and help ensure political stability, security, national defence, and social order.

The leader basically agreed with the proposals from the province and ordered relevant authorities to continue studying so as to work out suitable policies for the province. He also asked ministries to join hands with Tuyen Quang in prioritising infrastructure projects, and the province to quickly implement the projects, especially in site clearance./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The third National Mong Ethnic Cultural Festival kicked off in the northern mountainous province of Lai Chau on December 24.

Opening the event, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Trinh Thi Thuy said the festival reflects the Party, State, and authorities’ attention to the spiritual life of Mong people. It is also an occasion for people nationwide, including the ethnic minority group, to improve their sense of responsibility towards traditional culture and enhance the great national solidarity, thereby helping guarantee political stability, security, and defence.

In his remarks, Secretary of the Lai Chau Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People’s Council Giang Pao My said the festival is significant to Lai Chau and other participating localities as it will help popularise their images and stimulate travel demand after a long hiatus caused by the COVID-19 resurgence.

This year’s event attracts nearly 3,000 guests, artisans, artists, and people of the Mong ethnic group from 11 provinces.

It features a wide range of cultural, sports, and tourism activities such as performances of folk music and traditional costumes, the reenactment of traditional festivals and cultural rituals, and folk games of Mong people. Visitors will also have a chance to try tourism products in Tam Duong district and take part in a paragliding festival.

As part of the festival, trips will be arranged for participants to explore community-based and ecological tourism potential in Lai Chau. A discussion will also be held to devise measures for addressing difficulties, improving the tourism environment, and encouraging travel firms to attract tourists to this province.

The festival will last through December 26 in Lai Chau city, Tam Duong and Phong Tho districts./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietjet welcomed the first wide-body aircraft A330 to its fleet at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport on December 25, a move for the budget carrier to expand its international flight network and optimise customers’ experience.

Vietjet Managing Director Dinh Viet Phuong said the airline is happy to mark its 10th year since its first flight by welcoming the new aircraft, expected to help Vietjet expand capacity and increase flights to destinations around the world.

The arrival of the new plane also reflects its commitment to renovating the fleet and heightening service quality at competitive rates, he added.

According to Vietjet, its A330 aircraft uses Trent 700, a high-bypass turbofan produced by Rolls-Royce, and offers 12 Business-class and 365 Economic-class seats.

Vietjet Air expects to reopen regular international flights starting January 1 next year.

These flights will be operated on routes connecting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei (Taiwan – China), Singapore, and Bangkok.

In the first stage beginning in January, all routes will see one return flight operated a week, which will be increased gradually in line with the demand and the approval of competent management agencies to ensure effective pandemic prevention.

Vietjet is a fully-fledged member of International Air Transport Association (IATA) with the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate. As Vietnam’s largest private carrier, the airline was awarded the highest ranking for safety with 7 stars in 2018 and 2019 by the world’s only safety and product rating website airlineratings.com and listed as one of the world’s 50 best airlines for healthy financing and operations by Airfinance Journal in 2018 and 2019.

The airline has also been named as Best Low-Cost Carrier by renowned organizations such as Skytrax, CAPA, Airline Ratings, and many others./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Ca tru, a form of traditional ceremonial singing, has been increasingly developed in both quantity and quality through activities of clubs in Hanoi, one of the largest cradles of the genre in the country.

Hanoi now counts 16 Ca tru clubs, with the number of singers and instrument players ranging from 250 to 300. The art form is considered as a specialty of the capital city.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the city organised Ca tru performances at Kim Ngan communal house in Hang Bac street, Quan De Temple in Hang Buom street, Bich Cau Dao Quan, and in a number of music spaces.

Hanoi works hard to keep ceremonial singing alive hinh anh 2

Ca tru clubs in Hanoi still maintain activities and practice the heritage in accordance with a fixed schedule, and continue to organise classes (Photo: VNA)

Thang Long and Hanoi clubs are the units that regularly organise Ca tru performances. Meanwhile, Thai Ha club not only performs in the country but also brings this art form to other countries and territories such as the Republic of Korea (RoK), Taiwan (China), the US, and Japan.

Ca tru clubs in Hanoi still maintain activities and practice the heritage in accordance with a fixed schedule, and continue to organise classes.

Head of the heritage management office of the municipal Department of Culture and Sport Pham Thi Lan Anh said the city has strongly invested in preserving and developing Ca tru, focusing on documenting the intangible culture heritage, and organising training courses, festivals and contests, and art and tourism activities to create “playgrounds” for practitioners as well as to seek young talents.

Ca tru has been also performed at major diplomatic events of the city, she said.

In recent years, Hanoi has recorded the increasing number of artisans directly practicing the heritage. However, the masters in this art genre are all old.

With great efforts of the municipal authorities, a generation of young artists has been trained, contributing to preserving and developing the heritage.

Ca tru is a complex form of sung poetry found in the north of Vietnam using lyrics written in traditional Vietnamese poetic forms. A Ca tru group comprises of three performers: a female singer who uses breathing techniques and vibrato to create unique ornamented sounds, while playing the clappers or striking a wooden box, and two instrumentalists who produce the deep tone of a three-stringed lute and the strong sounds of a praise drum.

Some ca tru performances also include dance. The varied forms of Ca tru fulfill different social purposes, including worship singing, singing for entertainment, singing in royal palaces, and competitive singing.

The art genre appeared in the north around the 15th century and thrived until the early 20th century. Since then, it has decreased in popularity due to the spread of modern recreational and cultural activities.

That UNESCO put Vietnam’s Ca Tru into its list of Intangible Cultural Heritages in Need of Urgent Safeguarding has affirmed this heritage’s value to humanity.

To preserve the heritage, municipal authorities need to take concerted solutions, focusing on raising public awareness of the importance of protecting the art form.

Plans to promote the value of the intangible culture heritage should be annually developed and deployed in districts where Ca tru clubs are operating, thus creating favourable conditions for Ca tru clubs to promote their performance and practice. /.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Ca Mau province is taking measures to mitigate the impacts of increasing erosion and other natural disasters.

The country’s southernmost province – the hardest by climate change – lost some 4,900ha of coastal forests in the last 10 years to high tides and disasters.

The loss of forests has worsened the erosion.

On the eastern coast, where there is no dyke, the erosion situation is severe.

Without a dyke, the coast could lose 200ha of land a year, according to local authorities.

In some areas, erosion has reached 80 – 100 metres, affecting infrastructure along the coast and the Ho Chi Minh Road.

Erosion and loss of coastal forests is expected to worsen until year end because of the north-east monsoon that will cause seawater to rise.

Over recent years the province has mobilised funding from various sources to build more than 40km of embankments on the western coast, preventing erosion and recovering mangrove forests.

But 16km of the coast still face a serious erosion threat.

This year erosion occurred thrice along a total length of 1.9km of coast and 149 times along rivers involving 3.03km.

Natural disasters damaged 7,500ha of crops, mostly rice, 500ha of aquaculture and 846 houses, inundating 572 and flattening 104 others.

Authorities said they were seeking to speed up construction of resettlement projects to relocate households living in disaster–prone areas.

The province is also taking measures to help people in coastal areas adapt to climate change by ensuring sustainable livelihoods by teaching them effective fishing and aquaculture models./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Rice production is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, and how to reduce the emissions while still ensuring food security and raising farmers’ income in the Mekong Delta is now a hard nut to crack to many.

The key rice farming zone of Vietnam has about 3.9 – 4 million ha under rice and produces 23.8 – 24 million tonnes of the unhusked grain each year, accounting for over half of the total rice farming area and output in the country.

Current farming techniques can help increase productivity and output but also result in more greenhouse gas emissions.

Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City High Technology Association Dao Ha Trung said the Mekong Delta is tasked with helping guarantee food security, but rice cultivation emits the most greenhouse gas in agriculture.

Le Thanh Tung, Deputy Director of the Crop Production Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said Vietnam has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the international community, but there remain obstacles and challenges to the realisation of that pledge.

Localities have been focusing on boosting rice productivity and output to achieve fast GDP growth, other economic targets, and guarantee national food security. Given this, they haven’t managed to combine food security, economic development, and social security targets with emission reduction ones. In addition, low-carbon rice production remains costly, making farmers reluctant to adopt the practice, he noted.

Mekong Delta faces challenge to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in rice farming hinh anh 2

Harvesting rice in the Mekong Delta (Photo: VNA)

Trung held that apart from increasing communications about climate change impacts, State agencies need to change policies and measures for cutting emissions such as applying technology to production and management, instead of merely providing financial support for climate change response.

Fighting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are an essential task that must centre on people, he said, adding that without concrete benefits, it is hard to persuade farmers to join hands in low-carbon production.

Therefore, it is necessary to raise income for rice farmers who practice low-carbon cultivation by adopting production chain management so as to control every step in the chain, Trung went on.

Nguyen Van Toan from the research institute for agricultural and rural planning said to reduce about 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, it is essential to boost communications to raise farmers’ awareness of the issue. Besides, as farmers are direct producer of the grain, they need to grasp measures for cutting emissions such as turning rice straw into a resource instead of burning it.

About 42 – 45 million tonnes of rice straw is there to be treated in the country every year. If straw is used for different purposes in value chains, it will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, straw mixed with certain substances will become fertiliser, which will save 3.5 trillion VND (over 152 million USD) – a considerable profit for farmers, according to him./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam’s target of bringing its GDP growth to 6-6.5 percent in 2022 as set in the recent session of the National Assembly is entirely possible if it can effectively control the COVID-19, and improve the supply – demand balance, an official of the World Bank (WB) has said.

According to Jacques Morisset, WB Lead Economist and Programme Leader for Vietnam, the biggest risk to Vietnam’s economy in 2022 can be the complicated developments of the pandemic with the emergence of new variants.

He also mentioned internal economic risks, saying that Vietnam is an open economy which will depend on the situation in other countries in the world.

Another risk is related to inflation, he said, noting that Vietnam’s economy is currently facing import inflation, while domestic commodity prices have not yet increased because demand remains lower than supply.

WB official optimistic about Vietnam’s 2022 GDP growth prospect hinh anh 2

Regarding Vietnam’s economic prospects in the coming time, Morisset pointed out three new motivations for growth.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has indirectly made Vietnam one of the reliable destinations for many large foreign enterprises, which have the goal of diversifying their supply chains, he said.

The country can also take advantage of opportunities from green economy, he noted, saying that Vietnam is one of the most affected by climate change, but it can also take advantage of this.

The third growth driver is domestic demand. As Vietnam becomes a higher income country with a growing number of middle class people, the domestic demand will be stronger, he said.

Morisset affirmed that the WB will continue to support Vietnam in achieving its ambitious goal of becoming a high-income and prosperous country by 2045.

The bank is working closely with the Vietnamese Government to promote sustainable development and effectively respond to climate change in the Mekong Delta region, and reduce air pollution in big cities, he said.

In addition, the two sides are joining hands in areas of inclusive development and gender-related issues in order to ensure people’s participation in the economy, minimise the impact of the pandemic, and fully tap future opportunities, the economist said./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency