Day: July 25, 2022

 Vietnam’s Engineering Unit Rotation 1 at the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) has recently coordinated with Pakistani forces to organise its first humanitarian activity, focusing on medical examination, medicine, and gift-giving to locals in the Amiet market, the 2nd most populated area in Abyei.

The Vietnamese unit was in charge of health check-up and medicine provision for women and children, while the Pakistani forces took care of men.

Within about five hours, Vietnamese officers offered their medical services and presented gifts to 168 people, detecting many suffering from chronic and infectious diseases. The gifts included daily living tools and items such as toothbrushes, laundry soap, notebooks, ballpoint pens, instant noodles, and clothes.

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Quang Tuyen from the unit affirmed that this humanitarian activity has strengthened the foreign diplomacy, expanded exchanges and cooperation with other units, and promoted the image of Vietnam’s blue beret force, creating favourable conditions for the team to continue to successfully carry out their tasks in the area. According to Tuyen, since its deployment at UNISFA, the unit has been organising the repair and maintenance of an arterial road with a length of more than 50km passing through the Amiet market and regularly rescuing bogged trucks. In the past month, the unit has organised the rescue of six UN vehicles and local people./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 Top-ranked Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem won the Grandmaster Triathlon title at the Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland after holding direct rival Andrey Esipenko to a draw in the last round on July 22.

The Grandmaster Triathlon was the centrepiece of the festival. The eight-player tournament combined three different time formats (blitz, rapid and classic), counting towards the final score.

Le Quang Liem was convincing throughout the tournament, proving to be the strongest player in classical and rapid chess while maintaining his high level in blitz.

He won a total of 35.5 points out of the maximum 56 points across the three categories, three points ahead of runner-up Andrey Esipenko (Russian) and six points clear of third-placed Dommaraju Gukesh (India).

In particular, the Vietnamese grandmaster performed brilliantly in the classic segment, winning four games, drawing one and losing two, achieving a performance efficiency of a player with an Elo rating of 2780.

Thanks to the Biel triumph, Le Quang Liem earned an additional 5.7 Elo points to reach 2728 and resume his career-best world ranking of 21st.

This is the first individual title for Quang Liem since he bagged a hat-trick of titles at the Asian tournament, the Summer Chess Classic and the World Open in 2019./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

  Two-way trade between Vietnam and Laos in the first half of 2022 increased by 20.6% year-on-year to 824 million USD, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Laos.

Of the figure, Vietnam’s export value to Laos reached over 309.4 million USD, down 6%, while its import was 514.6 million USD, up 45.4%.

Vietnam’s main export products to Laos were petrol, with nearly 30.2 million USD (up 254.7%); and vegetables and fruits worth nearly 22.4 million USD (up 78.1%).

Other exports of Vietnam to Laos included fertilizer (nearly 20.3 million USD); electric wire and cable (over 5 million USD); paper and paper products (over 8.1 million USD); textiles and garments (5.43 million USD); and ceramics (over 6 million USD).

Meanwhile, Vietnam imported ores and other minerals; fertilizers; wood and wood products; and rubber, respectively worth nearly 53 million USD; 46 million USD; nearly 76 million USD; and nearly 109.4 million USD.

In June alone, two-way trade hit nearly 134 million USD, up 29.9% compared to the same period last year, with Vietnam’s export turnover reaching 54.6 million USD, up 11.1%.

It is expected that Vietnam’s export turnover to Laos in July will continue to be on the rise because the Lao economy has temporarily stabilised after the Government approved a credit package to buy 200 million litres of petrol, and the trade of foreign currency has been further tightened./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 Vietnamese young intellectuals and entrepreneurs in the US have expressed their wish to contribute to the development of Vietnam in general and Ho Chi Minh City in particular at a recent meeting with a delegation of HCM City officials led by the municipal People’s Committee Phan Van Mai during their visit to the US.

Huynh Chi Nhu Quyen, an engineer at Google and head of an organisation connecting Vietnamese young intellectuals in San Francisco, suggested the city’s leaders maintain connection with the OV community to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese young intellectuals and entrepreneurs in the US to contribute to their fatherland.

Lam Diep Tran, a climate expert who is working at Idemitsu Green Solutions Co. Ltd, said she hoped to join efforts to turn Vietnam in general and HCM City in particular, into a centre for the fight against climate change.

Director of the municipal Department of Information and Communications Lam Dinh Thang introduced the city’s policies calling for businesses to invest in the technology sector. The city is facing challenges in attracting talents, developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and raising people’s awareness about digital transformation, he noted.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ho Chi Minh City Finance and Investment State Owned Company (HFIC) Nguyen Ngoc Hoa affirmed startup projects will receive financial assistance from investment funds. HCM City will build a legal framework for Fintech (Financial Technology).

Addressing the event, the chairman of the municipal People’s Committee appreciated the enthusiasm of the young OVs for Vietnam and HCM City. He also asked departments to study the proposals made by the OVs, including high-level human resource training to meet the city’s demand for development./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 The performance of the 2021 Malaysia Happiness Index (MHI) score was at 6.48 out of 10, reflecting a happy level, according to findings by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the first-ever MHI 2021 found that most Malaysians are satisfied with their lives, following a nationwide survey conducted by the department.

The survey ran between September and November last year encompassing 42,446 respondents from all walks of life nationwide, reported the news site Malay Mail.

It has 73 indicators covered under the 13 components of MHI, namely family, housing and environment, social participation, health, communication facilities, education, working life, income, public safety, time use, religion and spiritual, culture and emotional experience.

Categorisation was based on a score of one to 10 from very unhappy to very happy to indicate how satisfied respondents are, whereby a score above 6.01 means they are happy.

Overall, all the 13 components were at a happy level with scores ranging from 6.04 to 7.23. Analysis by gender showed that females (6.49) recorded a higher score than males (6.46).

Mohd Uzir said Malaysian and foreign respondents’ scores did not differ much, at 6.49 and 6.32 respectively./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 Cambodia’s export to other member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) totaled 3.28 billion USD in the first half of 2022, up 10% year-on-year, according to the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce.

The top three importers of Cambodia in the period were Vietnam, China, and Japan, with export values reaching 1.17 billion USD, 612 million USD, and 542 million USD, respectively.

Cambodia’s exports to RCEP member countries in the first half accounted for 28.8% of the country’s total export turnover. Meanwhile, the total import-export turnover between Cambodia and RCEP countries peaked at 16.24 billion USD, up 9% over the same period last year.

Penn Sovicheat, Undersecretary of State and Spokesman of Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, affirmed that RCEP, which took effect on January 1 this year, is a contributing factor to Cambodia’s exports in the first six months of 2022.

According to Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) Chea Chanto, the Southeast Asian country’s economy is expected to grow 5.3% in 2022, mainly thanks to increased export of garments, bags and footwear; a well-performance of construction and real estate industry; growing agriculture; and tourism recovery.

The RCEP free trade agreement comprises 15 Asia-Pacific countries including 10 ASEAN member states, and their five trading partners, namely China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand. It has formed the largest trade region in the world, accounting for about 30% of the global GDP, 28% of the global trade, and 32.5% of the global investment./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 Tuna export turnover in 2022 is expected to reach about 1.1 billion USD, up 45% from the previous year, considering a 56% growth in the first six months of the year, according to statistics of the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Tuna export turnover in June reached 90 million USD, a year-on-year increase of 41%, bringing the value for the first half of the year to 553 million USD, a year-on-year rise of 56%.

Regarding markets, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that good growth was seen in most major markets except the EU, Israel and Egypt.

As of the end of June, tuna export value to the US totalled more than 300 million USD, up 96% over the same period last year.

In the reviewed period, CPTPP is the third largest export market of Vietnamese tuna exporters (after the US and EU). The value of tuna shipped to the pact’s member economies reached 68 million USD, up 50% over the same period last year.

However, shipments of tuna to the EU have continuously declined over the past three months. Tuna export turnover to the market in June decreased by 25% year on year to nearly 9.5 million USD, bringing the figure for the January-June period to 77 million USD, up 4% compared to the same period last year.

Besides the three major export markets, tuna exports to Saudi Arabia, Thailand, the Philippines and Russia also increased.

VASEP forecasts that tuna exports in the second half of the year will continue to grow well, but at a slower rate./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

 Up to 85% of enterprises in the processing-manufacturing and construction sectors expected better and stable business situation in the third quarter of this year, while only 15% predicted that the situation may be tougher, according to a survey conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO).

The survey also found that for in the third quarter, 44.9% of the firms surveyed said that they eye a rise in new orders, while 13.8% forecast a decrease. The order balance indicator in the non-State sector is 31.6%, while that in the FDI sector is 30.8% and in State-owned sector is 26.4%.

Meanwhile, in the third quarter, 20.2% of enterprises expected a rise in the number of their employees, while 9.3% forecast a fall.

The GSO said that although business and production have recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic with a high demand for production and construction materials, domestic steel has surged due to China’s decrease of production and export.

The GSO advised the Government to apply more drastic measures to stabilise the input material prices for the construction sector, while rolling out solutions to speed up construction projects, and creating favourable conditions for businesses to access capital from the State budget.

GSO’s quarterly production and business prospect survey covers 6,500 enterprises in the processing and manufacturing industries and 6,799 enterprises in the construction industry. In the second quarter, the survey received response from 5,635 processing-manufacturing firms and 6,315 construction companies./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency