Day: December 29, 2021

Cooperation between the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and the Russian News Agency TASS has made important contributions to consolidating and developing the good relations between Russia and Vietnam, Russian Ambassador to Vietnam Bezdetko Gennady Stepanovich has affirmed.

He made the remarks at a meeting with VNA Director General Vu Viet Trang at the VNA headquarters in Hanoi on December 28.

Trang briefed the ambassador on the agency’s operations and its news for foreign service in Russian language which she said has helped nurture the Vietnam-Russia traditional relationship, and helped the two peoples, especially young generations, understand more about each other’s country.

Regarding the time-honoured ties between VNA and TASS, she informed the diplomat of the success of a photo exhibition featuring two decades of Russia-Vietnam strategic partnership through photos taken by TASS and VNA reporters.

The fourth exhibition jointly held by the two news agencies has contributed to the success of the official visit to Russia by President Nguyen Xuan Phuc early in December.

Ambassador G. Bezdetko stressed that one of the important tasks of the two news agencies – TASS and VNA – at present is to provide readers with accurate and objective information about the pandemic situation as well as about the two countries’ joint efforts in controlling and repelling the epidemic.

He expressed his willingness to coordinate with VNA in information dissemination, thus helping boost the two countries’ all-round strategic partnership.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Russian localities wish and stay ready to further boost effective cooperation with Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam’s southern localities, new Russian Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City Timur Sadykov told the press on December 29.

Sadykov further said that Russia considers relationship between Vietnamese and Russian localities an important factor in bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Specifically, the Republic of Tatarstan (Russia) and Moscow capital expressed their interest in establishing cooperative ties with Thu Duc city in Ho Chi Minh City in the fields of hi-tech, science and education.

In the near future, the Russian Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City will also launch activities to boost ties between the Republic of Mordovia and Can Tho city, Kursk province and Ninh Binh province, Svedlovsk province and Dong Nai province, and the Republic of Tatarstan and Kien Giang province.

The Consul General lauded ties between Ho Chi Minh City and Saint Petersburg city as an outstanding model of locality-to-locality cooperation between Russia and Vietnam.

He also vowed to do his best to further tighten ties between Russia and Ho Chi Minh City and southern localities, thus bringing practical benefits to the two peoples.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Standing board of the Vietnamese Journalists’ Association (VJA) presented awards to outstanding press works for late 2020 and early 2021 during a ceremony in Hanoi on December 29.

At the event, 28 television and 18 audio works and 12 electronic newspaper interfaces for New Year (Tet) were honoured.

The judging panel presented 17 A, 29 B, 32 C and 30 consolation prizes to outstanding Tet newspaper covers. The Vietnam News Agency’s Tuan Tin Tuc (Weekly News) won B prize and The thao and Van Hoa (Sports and Culture) newspaper earned C prize in this category.

On the occasion, the VJA chose 11 best works at the “Vietnam 2020” photo competition and a total of 73 works for exhibition within the framework of the VJA’s 11th Congress. Taken during January – November 2020, the works feature Vietnam’s achievements in all aspects and its fight against natural disasters and the pandemic.

A number of Vietnam News Agency reporters will have their works displayed at the exhibition.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam enjoyed a trade surplus of 4 billion USD in 2021, marking the 6th consecutive year in a row the country’s export turnover is higher than its import revenue, General Director of the General Statistics Office (GSO) Nguyen Thi Huong said on December 29.

This year, Vietnam’s total foreign trade turnover hit 668.5 billion USD, up 22.6 percent year-on-year, of which exports reached 336.25 billion USD, up 19 percent, and imports earned 332.25 billion USD, up 26.5 percent, Huong said at a press conference announcing socio-economic figures in the fourth quarter and the whole year.

In December alone, the country’s total import-export value was estimated at 66.5 billion USD, up 6.4 percent month-on-month and 19.7 percent year-on-year.

This was a positive result in the context that the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting negatively the national economy, she said.

In 2021, 35 commodities saw export turnover exceeding the 1 billion USD benchmark, accounting for 93.8 percent of the total turnover, in which eight products posted over 10 billion USD in export turnover, accounting for 69.7 percent.

The US was Vietnam’s biggest export market with a turnover of 95.6 billion USD, while China was Vietnam’s biggest import market with revenue of 109.9 billion USD.

In 2021, Vietnam’s trade surplus with the EU was estimated at 23 billion USD, up 12.1 percent year-on-year, while the country posted a trade deficit of 54 billion USD with China, up 53 percent.

In order to support businesses and promote exports in 2022, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said that the ministry has been focusing on solutions to strengthen and expand export markets, and paying attention to implementing free trade agreements (FTAs) to effectively bring into full play their preferences and make the most of opportunities and minimise challenges.

The ministry will also prioritise export promotion activities and soon restore export markets after the COVID-19 pandemic is controlled, and closely monitors each market to review and identify the types of goods that countries have demand.

It will focus on implementing import-export administrative procedures in accordance with the national and ASEAN single-window mechanisms to create favourable conditions for associations and enterprises.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Vietnamese tourism sector will embark on the tourism recovery and development scheme under the 2022-2023 socio-economic development programme next year.

It will also strive to complete the 2021-2030 tourism system planning with a vision to 2045 and submit it to the Government for approval, develop smart tourism via digital transformation toward the goal of serving 65 million visitors, including 5 million foreigners, and earning 400 trillion VND (17.39 billion USD) in revenue .

Data from the General Statistics Office as of December 29 showed that foreign arrivals in the country rose by 14.2 percent month-on-month in December as Vietnam has been piloting the serving of foreigners since November and international commercial flights have been restored.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam slumped by 95.9 percent annually to 157,300, most of them were experts and technical workers working for projects in Vietnam. Almost all tour guides became unemployed while the capacity of lodging facilities only reached about 5-10 percent this year.

In face of such, the sector worked closely with ministries, agencies and localities to fulfill the dual goals of fighting the pandemic and restoring tourism in the new situation. As a result, tourism activities in several localities, including Hanoi, Da Nang, Lam Dong, Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa, have begun to revive.

In November, the first foreign tourists arrived in Quang Nam, Phu Quoc and Khanh Hoa under a pilot programme to welcome them back after a long hiatus.

By late December, the country was expected to host 3,000 – 3,500 foreign visitors. A month later, more foreigners from the Republic of Korea, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand and India will come.

In 2021, Vietnam was honoured as the “Leading destination in Asia”, the “Leading sustainable tourism destination in Asia”, the “Best golf destination in Asia and the world”, and the “Best yachting destination in Asia”. Its hotels, resorts, destinations, restaurants, tour agencies and airlines also won a number of awards.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism also earned the title of Asia’s Leading Tourist Board 2021 by the World Travel Awards.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has proposed the Ministry of Transport increase the frequency of flights to Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK), and Taiwan (China), given the great demand for returning home among overseas Vietnamese.

CAAV Director Dinh Viet Thang cited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that more than 140,000 overseas Vietnamese people are planning to return to the homeland.

Airlines shared the view that it is necessary to increase flights linking with some markets with high demand such as Japan, the RoK, and Taiwan, he noted.

Thang said after the Ministry of Health had issued guidance on anti-pandemic measures, the CAAV on December 17 sent official documents to aviation authorities of Japan, the RoK, Taipei (Taiwan, China), China, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. These are the destinations with which the Prime Minister has agreed to resume commercial passenger flights.

It proposed four flights to Vietnam per week for each side while flights from Vietnam follow current regulations, starting January 1, 2022, and the frequency will be adjusted basing on the COVID-19 situation.

Meanwhile, as only Vietnam Airlines has been flying to the US and got licensed by both countries’ authorities, this carrier can immediately conduct regular flights as schedule.

Apart from the US, Japan, Taipei (Taiwan), Singapore, and Cambodia have agreed with Vietnam’s proposal so far.

Regarding the emergence of Omicron, the CAAV said all the nine markets Vietnam plans to resume regular international flights with in the first phase (China, Japan, the RoK, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, and the US) have recorded this new variant, and that new rules on Omicron control will affect all the flights that have been being operated.

The CAAV will negotiate with foreign partners to update information about rapid COVID-19 tests for passengers before getting on planes. At Vietnamese airports, it will assign the Airports Corporation of Vietnam to work with local health authorities to carry out tests, and passengers will have to pay for the tests by themselves.

In terms of the first Omicron case in Vietnam confirmed on December 27 by the Health Ministry, the Hanoi-based Central Military Hospital 108 said the patient is in stable health condition and haven’t shown any symptoms.

This passenger flew from the UK and arrived at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on December 19 evening. The patient was sent to the hospital’s quarantine area after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at the airport.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A Vietnamese association in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu has been founded, representing nearly 3,000 Vietnamese expats living here.

Its founding congress, which was attended by about 100 delegates, elected a 13-member executive committee chaired by President Ta Minh Thu, a Vietnamese woman living in Kitakyushu for more than 10 years.

Two Japanese people, Matsushita – a pharmacist and Masuda Shin – a professor, who have made great contributions to enhancing the friendship between the two countries, were voted as honourable members of the executive committee.

Addressing the event, Vietnamese Consul General in Fukuoka Vu Binh expected the association would have meaningful activities not only for the local community but also the homeland and contribute to further strengthening the bilateral ties between Kitakyushu and Hai Phong – its Vietnamese twin city, and Vietnam and Japan at large.

Head of Kitakyushu’s international affairs department Oba Chie affirmed that the city’s authority is delight to see the Vietnamese community here growing day by day. She also hoped that the association would help tighten the relationship between Kitakyushu and Hai Phong.

In her remark delivered virtually from Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, Deputy Director of Hai Phong’s Department of External Affairs, highly spoke of the twin-city relations and described the establishment of the association as an important event that not only benefits the bilateral ties between the two cities but also facilitates the promotion of Vietnamese culture in Japan.

The Consulate General of Vietnam in Fukuoka later took the occasion to present the Vietnamese Association in Kitakyushu a set of Vietnamese language teaching books in support of the opening of classes providing Vietnamese language lessons for Vietnamese children and Japanese people in the coming time.

Source: Vietnam News Agency