Day: January 10, 2022

The 2022 “Mua xuan cho em” (Spring for Children) programme raised more than 104 billion VND (4.58 million USD) to support disadvantaged and pandemic-hit children.

The 15th edition of the programme was held at the Hanoi Opera House on January 9 night.

It is an annual programme launched by the National Fund for Vietnamese Children (NFVC) under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA). Beside raising funds, the programme also honours organisations and individuals with outstanding contributions to supporting disadvantaged children over the years.

Speaking at the event, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, also Chairwoman of the NFVC, spoke highly of efforts made by businesses, organisations and individuals at home and abroad in joining hands with the Party and State to help more than 3,400 orphans and millions of children affected by the COVID-19 pandemic surmount difficulties and stabilise their lives.

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Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan speaks at the event (Photo: VNA)

She expressed a hope that support for children will be bolstered in the coming time.

Last year, the fund mobilised more than 92 billion VND and assisted 115,000 children affected by the pandemic through different programmes and projects like building classrooms and playgrounds, financing surgeries and presenting bikes and scholarships to the disadvantaged children./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam’s Ho Van Y has been named among FutsalPlanet’s nominations for Best Men’s Goalkeeper in the World in 2021.

Y will vie for the award with nine others, including Brazil’s P. Coelho, Spain’s P. Oltra, Argentina’s N. Sarmiento, Russia’s D. Putilov, and Iran’s A. Samimi.

It is the second time he had been nominated for the title, after the one in 2018. Thanks to his outstanding performance, the Vietnamese team advanced through the group stage of the FIFA Futsal World Cup last year. It was estimated that Y made over 10 saves for Vietnam per game on average.

Launched in 2000, FutsalPlanet Awards, presented by magazine FutsalPlanet, aims to honour the best players of international futsal annually

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Phankham Viphavanh met with 60 Vietnamese and 20 Lao enterprises in Hanoi on January 10.

At the event, Vietnamese firms expressed their interest in investing in Laos regarding agriculture, digital economy, and infrastructure projects.

They proposed the Lao Government and localities continue tackling obstacles in administrative procedures, issue development planning of its sectors, and provide Vietnamese investors with a source of high quality human resources.

Meanwhile, Lao businesses affirmed their determination to strengthen their sound collaboration with their Vietnamese peers across all fields, particularly energy, banking, and logistics. They hoped the Vietnamese Government, banks, and firms to assist them in their investment and development processes.

PM Chinh said the two nations need to team up in economic development. He recommended their ministries, sectors, localities, and enterprises enhance their connectivity of mutual benefits and shared risks within the Vietnam-Laos, Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia networks and in the region and the world.

The two PMs stressed Vietnamese and Lao firms should build their partnerships based on equality, sincerity, and mutual benefits.

They wished that Vietnam will top the lineup of countries and territories investing in Laos and that more Lao investors will channel their capital into Vietnam.

Both Government leaders witnessed the handover of investment licence certificates to Vietnamese and Lao businesses at the meeting./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietjet has been once again recognised as one of the world’s Top 10 safest low-cost airlines for 2022 by AirlineRatings, the world’s famous airline safety and product rating website.

In making its evaluation, AirlineRatings considers the airlines’ incident records in recent years, fleet age, results of audits conducted by the governing body of aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and other aviation authorities.

“The airline’s priority in operational excellence confirms their brand names in the aviation industry while expressing their customer-centric strategy. Vietjet is especially recognised for massive investment into a new fleet, system upgrades and technology adoption to ensure safety in operation and meeting passengers’ evolving and convenient flight demands,” AirlineRatings Editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said.

This year’s top 10 list also includes notable low-cost peers such as Ryanair, EasyJet and Frontier, for their excellent performances in flight safety despite the pandemic. AirlineRatings also rates Vietjet at seven-star level, the highest ranking for aviation safety in the world for four consecutive years since 2018.

Vietjet Managing Director Dinh Viet Phuong said: “We are proud to keep up with the top safety ranking in the global aviation industry. We have committed to carrying out reliable flight operations while expanding our flight network and diversifying services to provide the best flying experiences to our passengers in the future.”

Vietjet operates a new, modern and fuel-efficient Airbus fleet with a technical reliability rate among top operators in the region and the world. The airline is constantly investing into aircraft engine and MRO services, aviation technology transfer and adoption with leading providers in the industry such as Safran, Rolls-Royce, SR Technics and Swiss-AS to ensure the highest standard in terms of safety and quality.

AirlineRatings rates the safety, in-flight product, and COVID-19 compliance of 385 airlines using its unique seven-star rating system. It has been used by millions of passengers from 195 countries and has become the industry standard for safety, product, and COVID-19 rating.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Phankham Viphavanh co-chaired the 44th meeting of the Vietnam – Laos Inter-Governmental Committee on Bilateral Cooperation in Hanoi on January 10.

PM Chinh congratulated the Lao Government on the past socio-economic achievements, especially in controlling COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining economic growth and successfully holding sub-regional cooperation conferences, contributing to improving the country’s role and position in the region.

He also thanked Laos for working closely with Vietnam in the fight against the pandemic.

Viphavanh, for his part, thanked the Vietnamese Party, State and people for offering timely support to Laos to combat the pandemic.

Both sides expressed their delight at successes in joint work in various areas, including bilateral political – diplomatic ties with mutual support at regional and global forums, the signing of 25 important deals between the two countries’ ministries, localities and businesses during visits, and close national defence-security links with effective fight against crimes, especially trans-national crimes.

With 209 valid projects worth nearly 5.18 billion USD in Laos, Vietnam remained the third biggest investor in the country, behind China and Thailand. Last year, there were five new Vietnamese projects and four others registering additional capital with a total registered capital of 112.84 million USD, up 27 percent annually. Around 2.5 billion USD was disbursed, or 48.4 percent of the total.

Over the past five years, the Vietnamese firms have contributed more than 1 billion USD to the Lao State budget and roughly 80 million USD to social welfare services.

Two-way trade was estimated at 1.3 billion USD last year, up 30.3 percent year-on-year. The Vietnam – Laos Bilateral Trade Agreement, which was signed in 2015 and took effect till October 2020, has been extended to October 2023.

As many as 20 power purchase agreements were signed with investors to buy electricity from Laos with a total capacity of nearly 1,500MW. Other projects are ongoing and the transmission of electricity from Laos to Vietnam is likely to meet schedule.

About 2022 cooperation orientations, the two sides worked out practical measures to deepen bilateral political and diplomatic relations strengthen the pillar of national defence-security ties, continue giving special priority to education-training links, reinforce economic ties as well as connectivity and supplementarity of the two economies, particularly in transportation, infrastructure and telecommunications.

Host and guest pledged to improve the efficiency of cooperation mechanisms, the effectiveness of joint statements, agreements, visits and exchanges by leaders of the two Parties, States, ministries, agencies and localities.

They vowed to enhance consultations and mutual support, improve national self-reliance, especially in regional security issues, including the East Sea issue. They expressed high consensus on ASEAN’s principled stance on the East Sea issue mentioned in the ASEAN Joint Statement.

The two PMs promised to offer all possible support to the two countries’ firms and believed that success of the meeting will create a new driving force for bilateral ties.

At the event, the leaders witnessed the signing and exchange of nine cooperation documents between the two countries’ Governments, ministries, agencies and localities.

Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung told a press conference following the 44th session of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-governmental Committee that a major task for Vietnam and Laos in 2022 is to connect their economies in terms of both institutions and infrastructure.

Dung, who is Chairman of the Vietnam-Laos Cooperation Committee, said during the 44th session, the two sides discussed and agreed on concrete contents under the conclusions by the two Politburos to be incorporated into the agreement on cooperation plan between the two countries for 2022, he noted.

On the occasion of the session, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Phankham Viphavanh witnessed the signing of the agreement on cooperation plan for 2022, the minutes of the session, an agreement on the implementation of an agriculture project, and five others on the implementation of construction projects.

Dung and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Investment Sonexay Siphandone, who is also Chairman of the Laos-Vietnam Cooperation Committee, exchanged commitments between three Vietnamese and Lao shareholders regarding the increase of the Lao Government’s stake in the Lao-Viet International Port JSC from 20 percent to 60 percent.

The two sides expressed their resolve to boost cooperation in politics, external affairs, national defence and security, and investment-trade since the beginning of the year.

Dung said after the session, the Vietnamese Government will ask ministries, agencies, localities and businesses to closely coordinate with the Lao side to materialise the commitments.

The Government will also create the best possible conditions for Vietnamese businesses operating in the neighbouring country, he affirmed.

Vietnamese, Laos PMs co-chair 44th meeting of inter-governmental committee hinh anh 2

PM Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Phankham Viphavanh meet the two countries’ businesses (Photo: VNA)

For his part, Sonexay Siphandone said the two sides consented to focus on implementing joint statements and agreements reached by the two Politburos, and others, including those signed at the 44th session of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-governmental Committee.

Notably, they will give more heed to trade promotion activities this year, aiming to increase the bilateral trade value by 10 percent.

The two sides will work to attract more investments from big groups and companies, especially in green agriculture, processing and manufacturing and in localities with good potential along the common border.

They will also assess difficulties facing large-scale projects and help the investors in those projects to remove them. Meanwhile, Vietnam will continue to support projects newly licensed by Laos.

Vietnam and Laos will further roll out the memorandum of understanding between the two Governments on the transport cooperation strategy in 2016-2025, with a vision towards 2030.

Along with economic collaboration, the agreement on cooperation plan also covers cooperation in politics, diplomacy, national defence and security, education, human resource development and vocational training, among others.

The two countries will organise the Vietnam-Laos Solidarity and Friendship Year, and mark the 60th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties, and 40 years of their Treaty of Amity and Cooperation this year.

Both sides shared the belief that the outcomes of the 44th session of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-governmental Committee will help to drive the bilateral cooperation forward, contributing to consolidating and enhancing the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Power generation output and import in 2022 is forecast to hit 275.5 billion kWh, up 7.9 percent year-on-year, Vice Director of the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) Nguyen Quoc Trung reported at a conference on January 10.

According to a plan on electricity supply and operation of the national power system in 2022, the total output generated by hydro-power plants is expected to reach 82.5 billion kWh, 3.8 billion kWh higher than the figure in 2021.

As many as 3,407 MW of power will be generated by traditional power supplies, including large thermal power plants such as Nghi Son 2 and Song Hau 1, Trung said.

Vietnam planned to buy about 380 million kWh of electricity from China in May and June of 2022.

The peak load in the North is expected to grow by 9.5 – 13 percent, equivalent to an increase of 2,497 – 2,870 MW in consumption demand per year.

In 2021, the country’s total electricity generation reached 255 billion kWh, up 3.2 percent compared to 2020.

The centre reported that as many as 7,433 MW of new power resources were provided for the national grid in 2021, lifting the total installed capacity of the national electricity system to 78,682 MW, including 75 wind power plants totaling 3,600 MW.

There were four new plants with a combined capacity of 372 MW joining the market in the year, it added.

In the year, the NLDC operated the electricity system safely and continuously, especially during difficult periods such as the peak months of the dry season in the North.

It also effectively well performed the workload related renewable energy projects, especially at the end of 2021./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc hosted a reception in Hanoi on January 10 for Lao Minister of Public Security Gen. Vilay Lakhamphong, during which he appreciated the latter’s efforts to promote the special and precious traditional ties between the Parties and States, including between their ministries of public security.

Stressing the great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Laos, the President hailed defence – security cooperation as a pillar in bilateral relations.

He spoke highly of the two ministries’ coordination outcomes and cooperation orientations, noting that the Party and State of Vietnam always create favourable conditions for the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security to boost frequent and effective ties with its Lao counterpart, especially in crime fight and personnel training.

President Phuc expressed his hope that they will enhance close and practical cooperation to concurrently deal with strategic issues and work together in combating cyber and drug crimes and improving professional capacity.

As the two countries will mark the 60th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2022, he asked their public security forces to increase joint activities so as to develop result-oriented cooperation and turn it into an exemplar of bilateral relations.

For his part, Vilay informed his host about the outcomes of the earlier talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Gen. To Lam.

He thanked the Vietnamese Party, State, and Ministry of Public Security for their precious support for Laos, especially in the trying times.

In the time ahead, the two ministries will step up the crackdown on crimes, particularly drug crime; strengthen coordination to ensure security – order in areas along the shared borderline; guarantee social order and safety to promote investment projects, including those from Vietnam, in Laos; and boost education of younger generations on the countries’ special friendship, according to the minister./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Despite difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic logistics industry still has many opportunities for growth if it improves competitiveness with foreign competitors.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), import and export turnover of goods will continue to grow this year, creating demand for logistics services. By the end of 2021, Vietnam’s total import and export turnover is expected to reach a record level of more than 660 billion USD.

More than 4,000 logistics enterprises are operating international logistics services in Vietnam where their operation has been increasingly improved thanks to increasing digital transformation applications and better business processes, especially ones providing services to European, American and Chinese markets.

According to the MoIT’s Vietnam Logistics Report 2021, in the first nine months of 2021, the number of newly registered transport and warehousing enterprises increased by 4.61 percent, and capital increased by 43 percent over the same period in 2020.

MoIT data showed that in 2021 many logistics enterprises grew in revenue and profit, most with double-digit growth, adding that the volume of goods transported by road and waterways in 10 months of 2021 significantly improved compared to the same term of 2020.

The total tonnage of ships increased sharply by 22 percent over the same period. The economic situation in the main export markets of Vietnam also recovered.

The GDP of major consumer markets in the world such as the US, EU, Japan, and China is forecast to continue to grow in 2022 and 2023.

Over the years, Vietnam’s logistics industry has made remarkable progress. Vietnam’s logistics efficiency index is currently ranked 39 out of 160, up 25 places compared to 2016, which is third among ASEAN countries. However, logistics costs in Vietnam were still much higher than throughout the world.

According to World Bank (WB) 2020 data, logistics costs in the country were about 20.9-25 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the cost in Thailand was 19 percent, Malaysia 13 percent, Singapore 8 percent, and the US 7.7 percent.

High logistics costs push up the cost of import and export goods of 2020 data, which loses its competitive advantage compared to other countries in Asia such as China, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.

With pressure in the fierce competition of international trade, the race in technology continues to create competitive advantages, save time, optimise costs, create flexibility and reduce risks.

A representative of the Vietnam Logistics Service Association (VLA) said about 95 percent of logistics firms were small and micro enterprises, and most of the revenue and market share belonged to foreign logistics enterprises.

The association said the proportion of newly established transport and warehousing enterprises compared to the total number of enterprises in the country was still modest and the capital scale of enterprises in the industry was still limited.

In the first nine months of 2021, there were 2,509 transport and warehousing enterprises that had to temporarily suspend operations, an increase of 14.1 percent over the same period in 2020. At the same time, 571 enterprises completed dissolution procedures, up 17.7 percent over the same period in 2020, the association said.

“Currently, Vietnamese logistics enterprises continue to face stiff competition with foreign logistics enterprises,” a VLA representative also said.

Ho Thi Thu Hoa, Director of the Vietnam Logistics Research and Development Institute, said that in order to improve the competitiveness of the economy and trade activities, Vietnamese logistics enterprises needed to focus on the provision of high value-added services such as third-party logistics services and fourth-party logistics services, international multimodal transport services, and cross-border logistics services.

Hoa said: “In order to have strong logistics enterprises, in addition to providing logistics services with the highest quality and standards, businesses need to make efforts in building a system that can flexibly adapt to market fluctuations.”

She said it was particularly necessary to promote the digital transformation process in logistics management through electronic port applications, automatic monitoring, application of cloud computing technology and artificial intelligence to support and care activities, and at the same time develop high-quality human resources./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency