Day: January 19, 2022

Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh has given in-principle approval that favourable entry procedures will be created for foreigners, and overseas Vietnamese and their relatives.

According to a dispatch recently issued by the official, foreigners entering Vietnam are those invited or guaranteed by agencies, organisations, or individuals in line with the law on foreigners’ entry into, exit from, transit through, and residence in Vietnam. Regarding the foreigners wishing to come to Vietnam for tourism purposes, in the short term, they are still welcomed under the pilot programme on reopening to international tourists.

Foreigners, and overseas Vietnamese and their relatives with valid entry papers can enter the country without undergoing personal examination, visa granting, and visa exemption procedures again. They also don’t need to seek entry approval from ministries, sectors, or localities.

In terms of the foreigners who haven’t got visas, provincial-level People’s Committees will consider approving their entry so as to create optimal conditions for them to work, attend meetings, study, or engage in humanitarian activities. Meanwhile, ministries, sectors, and central agencies will make decisions on the invitation and reception of foreigners coming to work with them, and be responsible for managing those persons, according to the dispatch.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The State Bank of Vietnam set the daily reference exchange rate for the US dollar at 23,119 VND/USD on January 19, up 22 VND from the previous day.

With the current trading band of +/-3 percent, the ceiling rate applicable to commercial banks during the day is 23,812 VND/USD and the floor rate 22,425 VND/USD.

The opening-hour rates at many commercial banks stayed unchanged.

At 8:20 am, Vietcombank listed the buying rate at 22,560 VND/USD and the selling rate at 22,870 VND/USD, the same as the rates at the end of January 18.

BIDV also kept both rates unchanged at 22,600 VND/USD (buying) and 22,880 VND/USD (selling)

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Indices were mixed on January 19, with some large-cap stocks rebounding from the recent sell-off.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the benchmark VN-Index finished the choppy session at 1,442.79 points, up 3.85 points, or 0.27 percent.

The index had lost for four consecutive sessions with shares across all sectors facing a sell-off, as investors planned to take profit before the Lunar New Year holidays.

The market’s breadth was positive, but liquidity still dropped sharply compared to the previous session. On HoSE, 260 stocks rose, while 217 declined and 41 ended flat.

Meanwhile, investors poured in nearly 23 trillion VND (1 billion USD), equivalent to a trading volume of over 637.6 million shares.

The benchmark’s recovery was thanks to large-cap stocks as the 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index posted a gain of 5.49 points, or 0.37 percent, to 1,482.55 points.

Eighteen stocks of the VN30 basket rose, while ten declined and two stayed unchanged.

Masan Group (MSN) led the bullish trend, up 3.8 percent.

Also supporting the index’s uptrend, Becamex (BCM), SSI Securities Corporation (SSI), Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) and Vinhomes (VHM) reported positive performance, with gains of at least 0.78 percent and BCM shares even hit the biggest intraday rise of 7 percent.

Other real estate stocks like the Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation (KBC) and securities stocks like VNDirect (VND) also saw big increases, up 6.73 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

However, profit-taking pressure ahead of the Lunar New Year continued to trigger sell-offs in some pillar stocks, especially in the banking sector, such as BIDV (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), Sahabank (SHB) and MBBank (MBB).

Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) also witnessed another session hitting the floor price.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index edged down 11.9 points, or 2.83 percent, to 409.31 points, falling for a third straight session.

During the session, more than 101.6 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth nearly 1.8 trillion VND.

On the other hand, foreign investors net sold a value of nearly 5 trillion VND on HoSE, while they net bought a small amount of 4.64 billion VND on HNX.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a Government meeting to discuss lawmaking issues in Hanoi on January 19.

Cabinet members scrutinised eight bills and lawmaking proposals which are among those needing the Government’s consideration by March 1 this year before they are submitted to the National Assembly.

The items under discussion consisted of the draft revised law on road traffic; the draft law on ensuring road traffic order and safety; the draft law on forces taking part in the protection of grassroots security and order; the proposals to amend the law on housing, the law on real estate business, and the law on water resources; a proposal to build a law revising and supplementing some articles of the telecommunications law; and a proposal to build a law on digital technology industry.

Participants looked into the need of those bills and proposals, requesting that the laws to be promulgated must not only serve management but also create a legal corridor for promoting development.

PM Chinh asked ministers and heads of sectors to invest more efforts in the building of institutions, mechanisms, policies, and strategies for the development of their sectors.

Institutional building must be based on the reality, respect the reality, and use the reality to measure its effectiveness, he noted, adding that ministries, sectors, and agencies need to work closely with relevant parties, especially verification bodies, so as to have high-quality proposals for submission.

The Government leader also demanded proper communications to win over support from the public.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese futsal goalkeeper Ho Van Y has been named as one of the world’s 10 leading futsal goalkeepers in 2021 by FutsalPlanet.

Y ranked 10th in the list with a total of 21 votes. This marks the second year in a row that the Vietnamese futsal goalkeeper has made the list compiled by FutsalPlanet which has been running since 2018, reported the Voice of Vietnam (VOV).

The 25-year-old man enjoyed a successful year with both his club side Thai Son Nam and the Vietnamese national team.

Thai Son Nam won their 11th national championship last December, and Y was voted goalkeeper of the tournament.

He is the favourite for the 2021 Golden Ball statue given to the tournament’s best futsal player, which will be announced next month. He also picked up the Silver Ball award in both 2018 and 2020.

This year also saw the talented goalkeeper join the national squad to compete in the FIFA World Cup in Lithuania. The Quang Nam-born goalkeeper put in a string of amazing performances to help Vietnam advance to the last-eight and he was one of the most impressive goalkeepers of the group stage.

First place in the list went to Thiago Mendes Rocha of Brazil with 299 votes. Elsewhere, second and third places went to Leonardo De Melo Vieira Leite “Higuita” of Kazkhstan and Nicolas Sarmiento of Argentina, respectively.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi expects to raise its export revenue by 5 percent this year, the municipal Department of Industry and Trade has said.

Tran Phuong Lan, acting director of the department, said her agency will enhance trade promotion, thereby effectively implementing the city’s plan on international integration in 2021-2025.

Apart from the plan, Hanoi will also work to materialise the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

Last year, despite impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the service sector still expanded 2.71 percent year-on-year. Notably, export was seen as a silver lining, with turnover of 16 billion USD, up 0.9 percent from the previous year.

To assist local exporters, the municipal People’s Committee has taken solutions, focusing on improving competitiveness and adaptiveness of enterprises in the new situation and finetuning administrative procedures.

Hanoi will also strive to better implement monetary policies, connect labour demand and supply, and attract investments in infrastructure and services to boost production and export.

It will step up coordination with ministries, agencies, embassies and commercial affairs offices of Vietnam and foreign countries, cities and provinces in trade promotion, while supporting businesses to access markets, loans and technologies.

Economists said to raise export revenue by 5 percent, Hanoi should intensify trade promotion and improve its capacity to respond to international trade remedies and disputes.

It needs to increase tools and measures to manage imports in accordance with commitments in free trade agreements (FTAs), they said, suggesting tools regarding tariffs, non-tariffs, environment and corporate social responsibility.

Meanwhile, enterprises should work harder to raise product quality and competitiveness, build brands and improve personnel quality to meet requirements of international economic integration, the said.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The central city of Da Nang has taken the top position in the Vietnam Tourism Competitiveness index (VTCI), according to the city’s Department of Tourism.

It attributed the result to the city’s strengths in transport and tourism service infrastructure, readiness to apply advanced information and technology as well as environmental sustainability.

The rankings, released on January 18 by the National Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) and the Private Economic Development Research Board, measured 15 tourist destinations across Vietnam based on factors including business environment, infrastructure, sustainable development, natural and cultural resources.

Da Nang gained an overall score of 4.7 points, followed by Quang Ninh, Khanh Hoa, Quang Nam, and Thua Thien-Hue with 4.68, 4.56, 4.55 and 4.52 points, respectively.

Hanoi was ranked sixth and Ho Chi Minh City eighth on the list. The localities that stood at the bottom of the list are Lao Cai, Binh Thuan and Can Tho.

Hanoi ranked first in terms of cultural resources while Lam Dong and Quang Nam got the highest scores in natural resources and price competitiveness, respectively.

Nguyen Xuan Binh, deputy director of Da Nang’s Department of Tourism said the ranking will help the local tourism industry continue to improve quality and overcome the shortcomings. In the coming time, Da Nang hopes to resume commercial flights soon, expand tourism space and diversify products to keep tourists stay longer when coming to the central region, he said.

The project on building the VTCI is funded by the European Union Delegation and supported by the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board. It aims to promote the tourism competitiveness of each locality, contributing to improving the country’s competitiveness in developing tourism economy and future development orientations.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Ho Chi Minh City has issued a socio-economic recovery and development programme in the 2022-2025 period, with recovery stage from now to the end of 2022 and development period from 2023-2025.

In the recovery period, the city will deal with consequences left by COVID-19, speeding up socio-economic recovery in parallel with safe, flexible adaptation to and effective control of the pandemic.

Along with settling the disruption of supply chains, the city will prioritise giving resources to sectors and economic motivations, while striving to complete the public investment disbursement plan for 2022 and effectively implement support packages.

In the development stage, the city will continue to focus on pandemic control and coping with bottlenecks for fast and sustainable development. It will concentrate on optimising its strengths as an economic, financial, trade, logistics, tourism and renovation centre.

To this end, HCM City will apply a number of solutions, including optimising resources, especially human resources and land use for development.

At the same time, it will implement major projects to complete the transport system to foster regional connectivity,

It will will implement an action plan to attract domestic and foreign investment to build the international financial centre, while developing Thu Duc city into a renovation centre and a growth pole.

Major resources for the socio-economic recovery and development programme in the 2022-2025 period include the fiscal and currency support policies approved by the National Assembly.

It will exploit incomes from land use for socio-economic development, while proposing the allocation of public investment capital to infrastructure projects that are important to development and regional connectivity, as well as building policies to create favourable conditions for the equitisation and divestment of State-owned enterprises. Income from the firms’ equitisation is expected to reach over 52.66 trillion VND (2.31 billion USD).

It will also mobilise resources from the society through public-private partnership, while asking for more support packages from the Government to assist COVID-19-hit businesses.

Source: Vietnam News Agency