Day: February 12, 2022

To help carry out the national green growth strategy, the Ministry of Planning and Investment is making a national action plan on green growth for 2021 – 2030 to be submitted to the Prime Minister this April.

The plan is critical to ensuring the targets, orientations, and tasks set in the national strategy are feasible and implemented effectively.

Le Viet Anh, Director of the ministry’s Department of Science, Education, Natural Resources and Environment, cited the PM’s decision which approved the national green growth strategy for 2021 – 2030 with a vision to 2050 as stating that green growth helps promote economic restructuring in tandem with the growth model reform and improvement of the country’s competitiveness and resilience to external shocks. It is also useful to implementing the socio-economic development strategy for 2021 – 2030, the national planning system, and sectoral development strategies. Besides, green growth is important to achieving sustainable development, directly contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions towards an economy of carbon neutrality in the long term, centres on the people, and helps ease human vulnerability to climate change.

Green growth encourages a responsible lifestyle, the formation of a civilised and modern society in harmony with the nature, along with investment in advanced technology, digital transformation, and smart and sustainable infrastructure. It also creates momentum for private investment to play an increasing role in a green economy, according to the PM’s decision.

Anh noted the action plan drafting board and compilation group have been working together on the approach and orientation for making the plan so as to carry out green growth solutions and tasks while ensuring feasibility in the monitoring and assessment of the strategy implementation./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam is striving to sustainably develop its fishery and promote responsible practices while protecting and restoring aquatic resources and preserving biodiversity, according to a draft national plan on protecting and exploiting aquatic resources from 2021 – 2030, with a vision towards 2050.

Under the plan, the country will not only effectively exploit but also protect and recover aquatic resources and preserve biodiversity by 2030, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Over the next decade, Vietnam will promote the sustainable development of the sector and responsible practices to meet international standards. The industry will be restructured with more suitable production models, improving product quality, and good practices for environment protection and adaption to climate change.

By 2050, Vietnam eyes to become a nation a the sustainable and modern fishery sector that approaches those of regional and global peers. It also targets to effectively protect and expand the biodiversity and improve livelihood and living standard of coastal residents, contributing to ensuring social welfare and safeguarding the national independence and sovereignty.

Twenty-eight Vietnamese coastal localities are doubling efforts to observe the 2017 Law on Fisheries and remove the European Commission (EC)’s “yellow card” warning on fishery products from Vietnam.

Over the last decade, Vietnam’s fishery output reached 8.4 million tonnes and the industry provided jobs for about 4.8 million people, including fishermen and services and logistics workers./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Ho Chi Minh City’s metro line No 1 between Ben Thanh Market in District 1 and Suoi Tien Theme Park in Thu Duc city will start trial operations by December 31 this year.

Nguyen Quoc Hien, deputy head of the HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR), said recently that construction of the line is 89 per cent complete.

The underground portion on Le Loi Street and in front of Ben Thanh Market will be finished by April 30, restoring normalcy to traffic flows and the downtown landscape, he said, adding MAUR and its contractors are striving to begin commercial operation by next year.

Le Hoa Binh, standing vice chairman of the city People’s Committee, said meetings would be held every two weeks to assess the progress, quality and safety of the project and resolve any difficulties that arise.

The 19.7km line is expected to carry a 2.05 billion USD price tag.

It will have 14 stations, three underground and 11 elevated, and run through districts 1 and Binh Thanh, Thu Duc city and neighbouring Binh Duong province.

MAUR has received 11 trains and will take delivery of the remaining six this year. All the 17 will have 147 seats and a capacity of 930 passengers.

They can run at speeds of up to 110km per hour on the elevated section and 80km underground.

The line is the first of the at least six to be built in the city.

The city will begin construction of line No 2 between Ben Thanh Market and Tham Luong Depot in District 12 this year.

It will cost 47.89 trillion (2.1 billion USD), with funding from official development assistance sources and reciprocal capital from the city.

Scheduled to be completed in 2026, it will be linked with line No 1./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The brand value of Military Industry-Telecoms Group (Viettel) reached 8.758 billion USD, moving up a total of 99 places to reach the 227th position in the 2022 list of the world’s 500 most valuable brands.

This information was recently released by Brand Finance, the world’s leading independent branded business valuation and strategy consultancy. Overall, Apple topped the list to become the most valuable brand valued at 355 billion USD, followed by Amazon and Google.

This year, a total of 22 out of the 36 major telecom brands globally witnessed an improvement in their rankings, with Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, and ATandT being the world’s leading telecoms brands. In addition, Viettel was ranked at the 18th to become the best growing brand.

Viettel also continues to retain its position as the leading telecommunications brand in Southeast Asia, thereby ranking among the top three most valuable brands in the region./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam recorded more than 240 cyber-attacks between January 29 and February 5 when the nation was celebrating Tet, Vietnam’s traditional New Year holiday, according the Ministry of Information and Communications’ Authority of Information Security (AIS).

The most common type of attacks was phishing, making up 74 percent of the total or nearly 180 attacks. It was followed by malware with 60 attacks and defacement (one).

The AIS also received over 500 reports about spam messages and requested mobile network operators to block close to 9.68 million spams.

Computer viruses costed Vietnam some 24.4 trillion VND (1.06 billion USD) last year, data from a recent report by Vietnam-based cybersecurity corporation BKAV shows. The country recorded about 70.7 million computer virus infections in 2021, making it one of the most vulnerable to cyber-attacks in the world.

Vietnam also saw a sharp increase in the number of ransomware attacks. Over 2.5 million infections were detected during 2021, 4.5 times that of the previous year./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended a spring festival of ethnic groups and launched the 2022 tree planting festival at the Culture – Tourism Village of Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi on February 12.

Addressing officials and 200 representatives of 22 ethnic groups from 15 provinces, the leader said the Party’s ethnic minority policy has created the best possible conditions for upholding and developing the cultural identity of each ethnic group while facilitating the harmonisation of the groups’ culture to form the culture of Vietnam.

Over 35 years of “Doi moi” (Renewal), the great solidarity of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam has continued to be strengthened, he stated, noting that the material and spiritual lives of ethnic minorities have been improved substantially thanks to the implementation of policies, programmes, and projects on socio-economic infrastructure development, poverty alleviation, and conservation of their cultural values.

He also spoke highly of the Culture – Tourism Village’s organisation of hundreds of festivals engaging thousands of ethnic people nationwide over the past years, which has helped affirm the everlasting vitality of traditional cultural values and open up prospects for cultural and tourism development.

The President asked all-level authorities, sectors, and organisations to practically assist ethnic groups in socio-economic development, education, culture, health care, and social welfare so as to make fundamental improvements in ethnic minority areas and encourage their self-reliance.

He also expressed his hope that village elderly, leaders, and artisans will keep encouraging their communities to continue adhering to the Party and State’s policies, upholding traditional cultural values, and educating the young, thereby helping nurture the strength and value of Vietnam both today and in the future./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Thailand’s Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on February 11 approved a proposal to donate up to 3.55 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to six countries, including Vietnam.

The others are Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

In response to Thailand’s signalling to the World Health Organization (WHO) its readiness to donate vaccines to other nations in need via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), the WHO has permitted the country to proceed with donating to the six countries directly, said Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the CCSA.

Following the approval by the CCSA, around 3.5 million doses of the vaccine will be delivered to those countries, he said.

Thailand will donate 500,000 to 1 million AstraZeneca doses to Myanmar, 300,000 to Laos, 300,000 to Vietnam, 400,000 to Nepal, 550,000 to Kenya, and 1 million to Ethiopia.

On February 12, Thailand logged in 16,330 new COVID-19 cases and 25 related deaths, raising the total caseload to nearly 2.58 million and death toll to over 22,400.

As of February 8, more than 52 percent of some 35,500 schools across Thailand had reopened and resumed in-person classes. According to the CCSA, nearly 100 percent of the teachers have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot and 79.45 percent vaccinated twice. For the students, the figures are 95.11 percent and 71.41 percent, respectively./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency