Day: January 14, 2022

The Vietnam Motorkhana Championship finals will be held at the Hanoi Circuit around the My Dinhh Stadium on January 15.

Nearly 30 drivers, who qualified last May in Dai Nam Race Course in the southern province of Binh Duong, will attend the event which is officially organised at national level for the first time.

The track the drivers will race on was original constructed to host the Formula 1 event that was cancelled due to COVID-19 in 2020.

Motorkhanas are motor sport events designed to test the acceleration, braking and handling of cars and the skill and judgment of drivers.

It involves manoeuvring a car through tight tests as quickly as possible — one car at a time — on either dirt or bitumen surfaces. This usually requires sliding and spinning the car accurately while maintaining speed through the test course. Some reversing is usually included.

Most importantly, motorkhanas provide fun and enjoyment while practising and learning car control. Oversteer and understeer will be found in abundance, but at safe speeds under controlled conditions.

Motorkhana seems unique to Australia and New Zealand, but similar events are known as Autotest in the UK, Autocross or Solo in the US, and may be known as Autokhana or Gymkhana elsewhere.

At the January 15 event, co-organised by the Vietnamese Motorsport Association Limited Liability Company (VMA LLC) and the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, drivers will compete in two competitions.

The first category consists of 16 racers, who have been granted a sports car racing licence by VMA LLC. The second category consists of 11 athletes from VMA LLC member clubs across the country.

Among athletes are Truong Nam Thanh who was in top 10 off the MUBA Auto Gymkhana Cup in 2019; B?o B?o who is Vietnam’s first professional female racer and has raced in Grand Prix – F1 events in Shanghai, Monaco and Singapore as well as racing tracks in Mugello and Abu Dhabi; and Pham Thanh Dung, the only female driver in the Vietnam’s first professional racing club, Redline Motorsport Club.

Vehicles used in racings are sedans, hatchbacks, CUV and SUV types which are normal means of daily transportation.

In addition to the main competition categories at the tournament, drivers and guests will also participate in the experience of Go Kart racing.

Due to the impact of COVID-19, audiences are not allow to watch at the track but the races but they will be broadcasted live on K channel.

This is the first time Vietnam’s famous F1 racetrack has organised a competition since its completion last year.

The championship is scheduled to be held annually following FIA standards. The best drivers will represent Vietnam at the FIA World Motorsport Games in Europe in October.

VMA LLC has confirmed to host a stage of the Asia AutoGymkhana Championship in Hanoi later this year. Vietnam will have three representatives to compete.

VMA LLC is the FIA’s Vietnam National Sporting Authority. The company is responsible for the governance and administration of all major forms of motor sport including the F1 Grand Prix in the country.

It promotes and improves motor sport as a widely recognised, accepted and respected sport, and by valorizing the values and spirit of competitive sport and fairness. It also advances and grows motorsports for Vietnamese participants at all levels.

SOURCE: VIETNAM NEWS AGENCY

Vietnam’s agricultural produce sent to China are, including those sent via unofficial channels, quality products. Quality has no bearing on them being stopped at customs, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam told the ministry’s meeting in Hanoi on January 12.

He said most export products were complied with regulations on animal and plant quarantine, having traceability and growing area codes, and the issue on the Chinese side was stricter COVID-19 controls in the neighbouring country.

At the meeting to discuss promoting agricultural exports, Nam said the ministry had now granted nearly 2,000 planting area codes for exported agricultural products to the Chinese market, or more than 60 percent of the total planting areas. For example, they have issued 247 codes for dragon fruit, accounting for 85 percent of the growing area in Vietnam.

The official said the ministry had worked with China to allow their customs clearance to resume at border gates popular for Vietnamese exporters, in Mong Cai in Quang Ninh and Tan Thanh in Lang Son province.

“Even when China has reopened some border gates, they can close them at any time if export products are found infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus on the packages,” Nam said.

As the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday is coming, some border gates will be closed for at least a week for the holiday. Nam asked businesses to consider this as getting goods through the gates would be very difficult.

Nam said MARD’s many inspection and quarantine centres had prepared equipment testers to check for virus on goods, to help businesses with agricultural exports.

At the same time MARD and the Ministry of Transport (MoT) and the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) will organise a meeting on the export of agricultural produce via sea transport.

Nam said: “The possibility of transporting agricultural products by sea is taken into account, not only for export to China but also other countries.”

Nguyen Thanh Tung, deputy director of the Department of Crop Production, said that in the first quarter of 2022, the provinces of Binh Thuan, Long An, and Tien Giang needed to export about 100,000 tonnes of dragon fruit, or about 5,000 containers via sea.

Tung said sea transportation also faced with difficulties as costs were three times higher than before while a lack of refrigerated containers and ships to export via sea and the long transit time could affect quality of the products.

The Chinese side’s strict control of COVID-19 at seaports would add to the matter as it may cause slow loading and unloading, and spoiled fruit.

Nguyen Xuan Sang of the MoT said that since December 2021, the number of containers transported was 4,000, nearly three times higher than in November.

Sang pointed out the difficulties in converting from land to sea transport, saying: “First, the export must be with official quota, while much fruit trading is not via official channels. Secondly, the cost of transportation can increase to an uncontrolled level, because businesses have to bear additional fees for empty containers to Vietnam.”

Sang also said a strict policy of “Zero COVID-19” was applied to sea routes so the speed of customs clearance by sea was not necessarily faster than by road.

He said there were signs of congestion in some wharfs for agricultural produce in China’s seaports for about a week, thus through exporting by sea, domestic enterprises may incur additional storage fees.

Le Quang Trung, deputy general director of Vietnam Maritime Corporation (VIMC), said it would study and consider the exemption and reduction of shipping fees for businesses to support dragon fruit consumption and other agricultural produce.

On the same day, the MoIT held a meeting discussing the congestion of thousands of containers of agricultural produce exported to China.

Nguyen Cam Trang, deputy director of the Import-Export Department, said that in the past two years, despite the pandemic, the export of agricultural products to the Chinese market was still very positive, with a growth rate of 18.3 percent.

She said, however, the negotiation on quarantine between the two sides was still slow, making a problem for Vietnamese fruits in the Chinese market, adding that 100 percent of Vietnamese fruits exported to China had to be quarantined, while Thailand only has to quarantine 30 percent.

Trang said the MoIT had organised working groups to border provinces to grasp the situation and find immediate solutions.

The MoIT and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have worked with China to make an agreement on the delivery process./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

An exhibition by Vietnamese-French painter Vincent Monluc is underway in Ho Chi Minh City, featuring art paintings depicting Vietnamese nature, people and daily life.

The exhibition named “Dream” will be running through January 20 at Ngo Art Gallery at 21 Vo Truong Toan Street in Thu Duc City.

On display are 95 watercolour and oil paintings created by the 70-year-old artist over the last five years, through which he conveyed his deep love for his homeland Vietnam. Some of them describe the beauty of natural landscapes in Vietnam while others depict daily life of urban Vietnamese.

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A visitor takes a look at the exhibited paintings. (Photo: dantri.com.vn)

Monluc was born in Vietnam in 1952. He and his family left Vietnam to live in France when he was just 12 years old. He graduated from the French National School of Decorative Arts (École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) with a degree in cinema.

He returned to Vietnam to establish a company for animation production in HCM City in 1994 and decided to settle down in his motherland in 2019./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its complicated developments, has given a boost to e-commerce, with non-cash payments accounting for 70 percent of total retail transactions in Vietnam last year.

According to a survey of 15,000 retailers by tech firm Sapo, cashless payments in 2021 made up 72.8 percent of total transactions, up 9 percent year-on-year.

Payments through bank accounts became the most popular method, accounting for 36.5 percent of total transactions at retail shops, restaurants and cafés followed by cash (29.8 percent), e-wallets (14.8 percent), QR code (9.9 percent), bank cards (8.5 percent) and payment gateways (0.5 percent).

Notably, 89.3 percent of retailers have positive assessments on non-cash payments, considering them a trend at present and in future.

New cashless payment tools are expected to be launched in the time to come to reduce difficulties currently facing some retailers./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Billboard Vietnam plans to debut its two flagship charts, Billboard Vietnam Hot 100 and Billboard Vietnam Top Vietnamese Songs, on January 14.

The charts will showcase the popularity of local artists and the reach of global artists in Vietnam. The Billboard Vietnam Hot 100 encompasses all music genres, while the Billboard Vietnam Top Vietnamese Songs ranks the most popular Vietnamese songs specifically.

Both charts rank the most popular songs in the country based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading audio and video music services in Vietnam, plus download sales from top music retailers, provided by MRC Data.

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The charts will showcase the popularity of local artists and the reach of global artists in Vietnam.(Photo: thanhnien.vn)

“Music Charts are one of the most important validations that artists can receive from fans,” Billboard Vietnam CEO Myke Brown said in a press statement. “We are excited that Vietnamese music culture can unite and shine with artists around the world under a standardised metric for our music industry”./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

With stable and high demand for specialty rice from Asia, the European Union (EU) remains a highly potential market for rice exporters of Vietnam, the Dau tu (Vietnam Investment Review) reported.

In 2021, Vietnam shipped about 60,000 tonnes of rice worth 41 million USD to the EU, rising nearly 1 percent in volume and over 20 percent in value from the previous year. That included some 40,000 tonnes of fragrant rice worth almost 30 million USD, up over 9 percent in volume and nearly 30 percent in value.

The EU – Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), coming into force on August 1, 2020, has helped raise prices of the Vietnamese grain by 10 – 20 USD per tonne, partly making up for the modest increase in volume due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the EU statistical office Eurostat, among the 10 largest rice suppliers for the bloc, rice from Vietnam saw the strongest price growth, 20.3 percent, to an average of 781 USD per tonne.

The Foreign Trade Agency under Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade attributed those outcomes to businesses’ capitalisation of advantages created by the EVFTA. Besides, they are also stepping up the production of high-quality rice such as fragrant, long-grain, and specialty varieties to enter demanding markets.

For example, fragrant rice accounted for 70 percent of the country’s total rice exports to the EU, compared to 64 percent in the previous year.

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Workers prepare rice for transportation (Photo: VNA)

With 27 member states, a population of about 516 million, and annual per capita GDP of over 35,000 USD, the EU has great demand for imported goods, especially agricultural products (more than 160 billion USD each year), from around the world.

To Vietnam, the EU is its third largest importer of agricultural products, about 5.5 billion USD per year. However, farm produce from the Southeast Asian nation has made up just 4 percent of the bloc’s imports of these commodities. In particular, Vietnamese rice only has a market share of merely over 1 percent.

The Vietnam Food Association predicted rice exports to the EU will continue growing well in 2022. Notably, the improved quality of fragrant rice has met European consumers’ demand.

The optimisation of the EVFTA to export rice at zero-percent tariffs is being promoted by the enterprises with large material production zones such as Loc Troi, Tan Long, and Trung An.

Pham Thai Binh, General Director of the Trung An Hi-Tech Farming JSC, said the EVFTA is bringing about greater opportunities for agricultural products of Vietnam, including rice. The firm has made use of the agreement to sell thousands of tonnes of rice to such markets as Switzerland, France, and Germany.

Meanwhile, Loc Troi was the first to export 126 tonnes of fragrant rice to the EU under the EVFTA, in September 2020. It is currently accounting for nearly 70 percent of Vietnam’s rice exports to this bloc./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Mekong Delta is set to become a sustainable, dynamic and highly efficient agricultural economic hub of the country, the region and the world by 2030.

It is part of the regional master plan for 2021-2030 with a vision to 2050 mentioned in Resolution No.5/NQ- HÐÐPVÐBSCL recently issued by the Mekong Delta Coordinating Council.

The approval of the master plan is expected to make it easier for regional localities to devise their own planning in a way that ensures they are connective, synchronous and systemic together.

Accordingly, the region will comprise agriculture centres, economic corridors and locomotive urban areas with diverse services and industries using modern technology and adapting to climate change. It will develop maritime economy and strengthen inter-regional, domestic and global connectivity, improve the quality of workforce, create a sustainable living environment in tandem with restoring natural resources and important ecological systems, and preserve unique and special cultural identity of ethnic groups.

Further priority will be given to developing key infrastructure of national, regional and inter-provincial significance in the fields of transportation, energy, clean water supply, agriculture centres, education-training, health care, irrigation, disaster prevention and control, and climate change response.

About loans for the region, the Resolution details criteria for choosing loans and portfolios of investment projects, financial mechanisms and related contents in line with law./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Starbucks opened six additional stores in Vietnam between last December and January 2022, with three each in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The coffeehouse chain now has nine stores in Vietnam.

On the occasion of the upcoming celebration of the Lunar New Year, Starbucks has launched products inspired by the Year of the Tiger and its holiday beverages.

The world’s largest coffeehouse chain first arrived in Vietnam in February 2013 after launching a coffee shop in HCM City./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency