Day: January 10, 2022

Authorities in Mekong Delta provinces are taking measures to store water for irrigation and household use during the 2021-22 dry season.

The delta, the country’s largest rice, fruit and seafood producer, is forecast to face a higher level of saltwater intrusion in its rivers than average though less severe than during the 2019-20 dry season.

It had a late flooding season this year and is likely to have higher levels of rainfall in the next few months, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting.

The delta comprises 12 provinces and Can Tho City.

To mitigate the impact of saltwater, Can Tho City has prioritised the dredging and upgrade of the Ngang, Dong Phap, E1, and G1 irrigation canals to increase their storage capacity. They add up to a total length of 29.2km.

The region is also speeding up the construction of irrigation works and upgrading deteriorated ones.

Tra Vinh province is building irrigation projects, upgrading saltwater prevention dams and sluices, and digging new ditches in fields to store water for irrigation.

Pham Van Kha, deputy head of Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development in its Cau Ke district, said construction of 31 irrigation projects is being speeded, including ditches with a total length of 25km.

It is consolidating eight embankments and other works to prevent saltwater intrusion and provide water to irrigate nearly 3,800ha, he said.

Pham Minh Truyen, director of the province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said saltwater would begin to enter rivers and irrigation canals in early 2022, and the situation is expected to be severe, affecting the winter-spring rice, vegetables and fruits.

Tra Vinh has 54,000ha under rice and 31,000ha under vegetables in the ongoing winter-spring crop, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Tien Giang province has built eight steel dams to prevent saltwater intrusion into the Bao Dinh and Go Cong areas.

It has also built seven saltwater prevention dams along canals in Chauu Thanh and Cai Lay districts and drilled 16 borewells to supply water to people living in remote areas.

Ben Tre province has built three temporary saltwater prevention dams on the Ba Lai River’s branches in Chau Thanh district so that water can be drawn for treatment.

In recent years the delta has built many water supply projects but many areas still face a shortage for household use in the dry season.

In the 2020-21 dry season it undertook 35 groundwater projects to provide water to 330,000 people and 10 water supply works to provide to another 62,000 people living in coastal areas.

In the coastal provinces of Long An, Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, and Kien Giang, saltwater is expected to intrude 50 – 60 km into rivers in places that lack comprehensive prevention works in the first two months of 2022, according to the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

VinFast Trading and Service Ltd Co, a subsidiary automaker of conglomerate Vingroup, sold 35,723 vehicles in 2021, posting a year-on-year surge of 21.2 percent despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of vehicles delivered to customers in December 2021 was 3,047.

This was also the first month VinFast officially handed over the VF e34 electric car model to its customers.

One of the breakthrough activities of VinFast in 2021 was the launch of a comprehensive online business model, which helped customers minimize contact during the pandemic period. The model has proven effective as 40 percent of orders for the company’s electric cars were made online.

At the CES 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the US, VinFast announced its switch to all-electric vehicle production from the end of 2022, and officially received pre-orders for two electric car models VF 8 and VF 9./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The JSC Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) remained the best-performing credit institution and the largest contributor to the State budget among the listed ones in 2021.

The bank, with over 50 percent of its charter capital owned by the State, fulfilled and surpassed the targets for last year despite the continued abnormal socio-economic changes, Chairman of its Board of Directors Pham Quang Dung told the bank’s meeting in Hanoi on January 10.

In 2021, it mobilised 1.154 quadrillion VND (almost 51 billion USD) from individuals and organisations, up 9.5 percent from the previous year.

Outstanding loans were estimated at 963.6 trillion VND, rising 15 percent from the end of 2020. Meanwhile, non-performing loans (NPLs) were maintained at 0.63 percent of the total, lowest among the large-scale credit institutions.

Vietcombank contributed about 11 trillion VND to the State budget last year.

Besides, it pushed ahead with measures supporting pandemic-hit businesses, individuals, and households, such as providing concessional loans, reducing fees and lending interest rates, and restructuring loans. It assisted clients with interest rate cuts worth 7.1 trillion VND, more than doubling the sum in 2020 and raising the two-year figure to 10.8 trillion VND.

In 2022, the bank looks to increase its total asset value by 8 percent, pre-tax profit by at least 12 percent, and credit by 12 percent year on year while keeping the NPL rate at under 1.5 percent./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The number of Vietnamese people going to work abroad decreased over the last two years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Department of Overseas Labour under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The department said in recent years, sending people to work abroad under contracts has proved to be an effective job creation measure, and it has received attention from authorities.

Between 2016 and 2019, an average of over 100,000 Vietnamese went to work overseas each year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the figure dropped to 78,000 in 2020 and 45,000 last year.

At present, there about 580,000 Vietnamese guest workers in total, including nearly 250,000 in Japan, some 230,000 in Taiwan (China), and nearly 50,000 in the Republic of Korea.

They mainly work in the fields of manufacturing (mechanics, textile – garment, leather footwear, electronics), construction, agriculture, fisheries, and services (caregiving, domestic work)./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Close to 200 trucks carrying goods were cleared to cross the border as of 1 pm on January 10, after China’s Guangxi province officially resumed customs clearance at border gates and border crossings in its Dongxing city bordering Mong Cai city of Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province, including bridges Bac Luan 1 and Bac Luan 2, and pontoon bridge Km 3 4.

The resumption came after a hiatus of nearly 20 days, according to the Mong Cai customs sub-department. Of the trucks, 44 transported fresh seafood for export and 51 served the import of different types of products, with most of the remaining trucks being those trapped during the hiatus.

The sub-department said as of 1pm, there were more than 1,300 trucks, mostly transporting frozen and fresh seafood and fresh fruit, left to be cleared.

The clearance duration for each truck is between 5 and 10 minutes in line with strict pandemic prevention and control measures, it informed.

Previously, to review and strengthen COVID-19 prevention and control measures, Guangxi temporarily suspended customs clearance at border gates in Dongxing city from December 21, 2021. These freshly reopened pairs of border gates and border crossings are very important for imports and exports of both sides./

Source: Vietnam News Agency