Day: August 19, 2022

Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Chu Xuan Dung has asked the municipal Department of Culture and Sports to remove hurdles to the preservation and restoration of historical relics suffering deterioration and damage for years.

The capital city has the largest number of national special relics, 21 out of 123 in total. The centuries-old relics, some of which were built thousands years ago, require urgent and special treatment to prolong their lifespan.

Tay Phuong Pagoda, located in Thach That district on the outskirt of Hanoi, is one of the city’s most popular cultural and historic sites. The pagoda has been severely degraded over time and facing the risk of collapse, which could damage the centuries-old statues inside.

It is a combination of three pagodas Ha, Trung and Thuong, all built in the 17th century. It is home to many masterpieces of Vietnamese Buddhist sculptures of the 18th century.

After many years without restoration or proper care, the pagoda’s main features have deteriorated. At the Trung and Thuong pagodas columns and pillars have termite damage while part of Ha Pagoda’s tile roofs have skewed and leaks when it rains.

The entrance’s laterite stone to the temple was broken, making it a trip hazard for visitors. Many ancient statues have flaking paint or broken bases.

The problems will get worse if there are no actions to be taken. Given that the pagoda’s protection zone lies within a decades-old residential area, it is urgent to make plans for the relocation of the residents to provide sufficient space for the preservation and restoration works, said Nguyen Truong Giang, head of the district’s culture and information division.

Many other relics in Hanoi are also in the same situation. However, several issues are standing in the way of the restoration efforts in the city. In many cases, a lack of expertise in restoration and preservation has led to irreparable damages to relics and loss of authenticity.

Le Xuan Kieu, Director of the Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam Centre for Cultural and Scientific Activities, said the biggest obstacles to restoring a relic remain in the shortcomings of the Law on Planning and lack of funding. He called on regulators to address legal issues hindering the development of plans for a restoration project.

In response to that, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Chu Xuan Dung ordered the municipal Department of Culture and Sports to issue instructions for properly planning restoration projects and how they should be submitted to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for verification and approval.

The department must also strengthen coordination with concerned units and local administrations to intensify inspection and monitoring of restoration works and prevent unlawful restoration activities, he said.

The capital city’s authorities have pledged to boost the public investment plan for 2021 – 2025 by pouring over 14 trillion VND (602 million USD) into restoring and embellishing a total of 579 relic sites in the area.

According to the municipal People’s Council, the sum is a significant part of its financial supplementation plans for a five-year term and the allocation for 2022, including investment plans in building and renovating public schools, upgrading the health system, as well as restoring and upgrading heritage sites from 2022 to 2025 and the following years.

According to Dung, the relic restoration was one of the city’s three major investment plans for 2021 – 2025.

The city’s authorities requested departments, agencies and localities to focus on the plan not merely as construction works, but they should be “cautious” as it contains “cultural and spiritual elements”, the official said.

Previously, in 2018, Hanoi spent more than 40.8 billion VND on urgent repairs for 50 monuments./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The northern port city of Hai Phong will become Vietnam’s centre for marine science and technology development, as set in the Politburo’s Resolution No.45 on building and developing the city by 2030, with a vision to 2045.

To achieve this goal, Hai Phong has set out a number of orientations for science and technology development, with focus on the research, transfer and application of technologies relevant to the city’s development strategy.

Important contributor to city’s economic development

Three economic development pillars identified by Hai Phong are high-tech industry, seaports and logistics, and tourism and commerce, which are all based on the strengths of a coastal locality.

Recently, in a meeting with leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Van Tung said that Hai Phong, as a main gateway to the sea of northern localities, is a key marine economic development centre of the country. Its economic scale has expanded continuously, maintaining the second position in the Red River Delta, after Hanoi. Its gross regional domestic product (GRDP) in the 2016-2020 period increased by 14.02% per year on average, 2.1 times higher than the national rate of 6.68%.

The city’s efforts in the research, application and development of science and technology have made important contributions to the general growth. Specifically, in the high-tech industry, the proportion of high-tech products in the city’s total industrial production value has increased year after year, reaching 39.5% in 2019 and 40.12% in 2021. The share of high-tech industrial products in the processing and manufacturing sector rose rapidly from 16.4% in 2015 to 50% in 2021.

In the field of agriculture and fisheries, the city has stepped up the research and application of science and technology in association with the new-style rural area building programme. The application of advanced technology in agricultural production and post-harvest preservation has resulted in drastic changes in the yield and quality of crop products. The value of crop and aquatic products per hectare of land in Hai Phong increased from 72.95 million VND (3,100 USD) per year in 2008 to 169.1 million VND last year.

An outstanding strength of Hai Phong in accessing foreign technologies for marine economic development is the supply-demand connectivity in terms of technology between Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises.

In 2020-2021, Hai Phong organised nine networking sessions with more than 5,000 meetings and exchanges to buy and sell technology and equipment between Vietnamese enterprises and partners from the Republic of Korea, Japan, China, Israel, Germany, and the Netherlands. During these networking sessions, Vietnamese businesses gained access to many advanced technologies for seaport management and marine economic development of developed countries.

Human resources development, technology transfer receive high attention

Pham Xuan Duong, Rector of the Vietnam Maritime University – a key supply source of human resources for marine economic development, said that one of the key driving forces to promote and maintain the sustainable development of the city’s sea-based economy is to intensify the research and application of marine science and technology in association with the protection of natural resources and the environment, in which scientific human resources play a core role.

According to him, the city needs to make forecasts on human resource demands for marine economic sectors, and determine the change in employment structure, in order to design new, specific and suitable mechanisms and policies suitable to human resources development in this sector.

Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Van Tung said that Hai Phong is promoting studies on sustainable marine economic development associated with the safeguard of sovereignty over sea and islands, national defence and security.

In addition, the city also directs relevant units to research, manage and effectively exploit marine resources, study and apply new technologies in the development of important marine economic sectors of the city such as ports, port and maritime services, tourism services, shipbuilding industry, fishery logistics services, aquaculture, fishing, and seafood processing./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Many farmer households in the northern province of Bac Ninh have benefited from soft loans to develop their production and increase income thanks to the support from the provincial Fund for Farmer Support.

The family of Nguyen Van Dinh in Long Chau commune, Yen Phong district is among households accessing capital from the fund and successfully improve their economic production.

Already having land and labourers, but Dinh’s family did not have capital for production. In 2019, after receiving a loan of 100 million VND (4,273 USD) from the fund, the family invested in raising ducks and goats as well as fish.

Currently, each year, Dinh’s family sells 10,000 ducks and 300 goats, earning billions of VND.

Dinh said that although the loan was not too big, it was of great help to his family at that time, enabling him to buy equipment for his duck and goat farm. So far, Dinh has paid off the loan and contributed to the fund with a hope to help other farmers gain access to capital for expanding their production, thus escaping from poverty.

A safe vegetable cooperative in Lien Ap hamlet, Viet Doan commune of Tien Du district is also a successful model in making effective use of the capital provided by the Bac Ninh Fund for Farmer Support.

Director of the cooperative Nguyen Van Hiep said that the cooperative was established in 2018 with 134 member households and a total nearly 40 hectares of farming land. At that time, most members of the cooperative lived on vegetable farming and did not have capital for expanding production.

Thanks to the help of the provincial Farmers’ Union, the cooperative received a loan of over 1 billion VND (42,730 USD) from the Fund for Farmer Support, which it used to purchase equipment and machinery to expand VietGAP vegetable growing and livestock raising activities. At present, the cooperative’s revenues from safe agricultural production hit 6-7 billion VND (about 300,000 USD) per year.

Tran Dang Sam, President of the provincial Farmers’ Union affirmed that the Fund for Farmer Support has made great contributions to promoting household economic development, minimising usury in rural areas.

Sam said that as of the end of June 2022, more than 1,600 households had borrowed money from the fund, with a total value of more than 112 billion VND (4.78 million USD).

The capital has been used effectively, helping develop many economic models with high economic efficiency.

In order to bring the fund closer to local farmers, in the time to come, the Bac Ninh Farmers’ Union will popularise support policies for farmers, while choosing feasible projects to receive loans from the fund.

With an aim to further enhance the efficiency of the fund, last year, the People’s Committee of Bac Ninh approved a project to renovate, improve the effectiveness and promote the development of the fund in the 2021-2030 period.

The project aims to increase farmers’ access to soft loans from the fund to develop household economic activities and strengthen the application of science and technology into their production, contributing to the implementation of the new-style rural area building programme.

Under the project, in the 2021-2025 period, Bac Ninh will ensure that the provincial budget will allocate at least 10 billion VND (427,304 USD) to the fund per year, and at least 15 billion VND (640,998 USD) per year in the 2026-2030 period.

The fund will provide loans in short and middle terms. Short-term loans have a maturity of up to 12 months, while middle-term loans will have a maturity from over 12 months to 36 months. A household can borrow up to 100 million VND (4,273 million VND) at maximum, while a projects involving a group of household can borrow up to 2 billion VND (85,466 USD)./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports Doan Van Viet attended the 11th Tourism Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which kicked off in Bangkok, Thailand on August 19.

In his opening remarks, Thai Minister of Tourism and Sports Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has had severe and long-term impact on the global tourism industry.

As the host of APEC 2022, Thailand has an ambition to promote future tourism policy recommendations via this meeting and related working groups, towards paving the way for the future of tourism across the Asia-Pacific region, igniting the enthusiasm of all APEC member economies to pursue a strong, balanced, secure, safe, sustainable and inclusive growth as outlined in the APEC Vision Putrajaya 2040, he said.

The meeting focused on holistic approach strategies to develop and promote tourism by taking into account all potential impacts on the local environment, culture and lifestyle.

Participants discussed key strategies that can be applied to promote post-COVID-19 recovery of travel industry; how APEC economies can work together to contribute to and support the recovery; the role of tourism in improving the well-being of the people of APEC economies; regenerative tourism and the future of APEC tourism.

The meeting is expected to adopt the APEC Policy Recommendations on ‘Regenerative Tourism’ and a TMM11 statement on the same day./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

More than half a million students across Vietnam have been taught critical digital skills and how to stay safe on cyberspace over the last three years, according to a report by the Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences (VNIES).

The report was announced at a workshop on digital skills education at schools in Vietnam jointly held by the VNIES, the Vietnet Information Technology and Communication Centre (Vietnet-ICT) and Meta – Facebook’s parent company – in Hanoi on August 19. The hybrid event attracted some 380 participants, about 300 of whom were attending via teleconference.

In his opening remarks, VNIES Director Prof. Le Anh Vinh underscored the increasing importance of digital skills education today since the robust evolution of technology is impacting every aspect of life and changing the ways people teach and learn.

Students should be equipped with digital skills so they will be able to seize the opportunity to become pioneers, he said, adding that they must also be connected with the world of opportunities and provided with necessary skills to succeed in a digital world.

Those with good skills are likely to be more comfortable and confident in learning and their Internet safety will be enhanced as threats are always present, Vinh explained.

It is also crucial for the students to be taught about the importance of ethics of online communications and information exchange, he continued, as they are now facing challenges related to copyright, plagiarism, cyber-bullying, fact-checking and responsible interaction with others. It will nurture a generation of more responsible netizens, he emphasised.

The report provides an impact assessment on the “We Think Digital” programme, a key component of the #fb4Safety and Digital Literacy pillar of the Facebook for Vietnam campaign launched in 2020. The pillar includes programmes and partnerships to raise awareness about online safety and promote digital skills needed to build a generation of strong citizens.

Under “We Think Digital,” Meta in partnership with Vietnet ICT trained more than 3,000 teachers from secondary and high schools in 39 cities and provinces nationwide, who passed on what they had learnt to over 20,800 fellow educators, from 2019 to June 2022.

A manual exclusively developed for teachers was also introduced at the workshop, providing instructions on how they can design exciting lessons to educate students about digital skills and Internet safety.

Ruici Tio, Policy Programmes Manager for Asia-Pacific at Meta, said over the last three years, the partnership with Vietnet ICT has enabled the development of a model able to reach students and teachers on a large scale.

He believed the launch of the impact assessment report and the manual book on digital skills and Internet safety for teachers will offer more opportunities for the incorporation of digital citizen lessons into classes and extracurricular activities.

Dr. Ta Ngoc Tri, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET)’s Department of Primary Education, called for better coordination among schools, families and society in ensuring a safe and healthy cyberspace for students.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A startup festival (Techfest) for the south-central and Central Highlands region is being held in Khanh Hoa province, aiming to promote the startup spirit of research institutes, universities, colleges, the business community, organisations and individuals, and encourage innovation in production and business.

The festival, the first of its kind to be held in Khanh Hoa, is intended to create and promote the innovative startup ecosystem in the province and the south-central and Central Highlands regions at large, and connect it with the national and global ecosystems.

It will also offer an opportunity for State management agencies and all-level authorities to review policies for startups and innovation.

The two-day event, which is part of Techfest Vietnam 2022, is being co-organised by provincial People’s Committee and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Addressing the festival’s opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung said that the south central and the Central Highlands regions have held activities to support the development of the ecosystem, especially in some localities including Quang Nam, Da Nang and Phu Yen.

He said that extra efforts and coordination from government agencies are needed to develop the ecosystem, adding that in the coming years, the establishment of startups and innovative support centres at universities and research institutes will be the main pillars to encourage the development of regional and national innovative ecosystems.

Le Huu Hoang, Standing Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, expressed his hope that the event will create a breakthrough for innovative startups in the province in particular and the south-central and Central Highland provinces in general.

It will feature seminars with the participation of domestic and foreign experts on topics such as digital transformation in healthcare and education, a contest seeking startup and innovation talents, and an exhibition displaying 500 technology and OCOP products./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The following is a brief review of the day’s events as reported by the Vietnam News Agency on August 19.

-President Nguyen Xuan Phuc received former Special Ambassador for Vietnam-Japan Sugi Ryotaro in Hanoi on August 19.

The State leader thanked the former Special Ambassador for Vietnam-Japan for his active contribution to the relations between the two countries over the past 30 years, particularly through the organization of major cultural exchanges.Read full story

-Vietnam’s public debt in the 2017-2021 period decreased dramatically from 61.4% of its GDP to 43.1%, according to the latest information released by the Ministry of Finance.

Government debt, government-guaranteed debt and local government debt also decreased. Specifically, government debt,  government-guaranteed debt and local government debt dropped from 51.7%, 9.1%, and 1.1% of GDP in 2017 to 39.1%, 3.8% and 0.6% in 2021, respectively. Read full story

-Vietnam exported roughly 4.08 million tonnes of rice in the first seven months of 2022 to earn over 1.99 billion USD, up 17.3% and 6%, respectively, against the same period last year, customs data shows.

Despite a hike on export turnover, the average export price dropped 9.6% during the period to 488.9 USD per tonne. It is likely that rice prices will not increase in the coming time as a result of low demand and abundant supply from major exporters. Read full story

-The capital city of Hanoi ranked third among cities and provinces nationwide in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first seven months of this year with 979.7 million USD, affirming its attractiveness to foreign investors.

According to local authorities, this is the result of the city’s efforts to ensure an open and smooth investment and business environment and administrative procedures. Read full story

-Vietnam’s economy has recorded spectacular development across fields in recent years, especially in trade, according to scholars from the European Institute of Asian Studies (EIAS).

CEO of EIAS Axel Goethals and Senior Advisor of the institute Xavier Nuttin made the remarks during a meeting with Vietnamese officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Brussels on August 18. Read full story

-Ten Vietnamese working in the country have been listed among the world’s best scientists by research.com, a reputable scientist ranking website.

The ranking is based on D-index (Discipline H-index), which includes papers and citation values for an examined discipline. It analysed the data of 166,880 scientists in 24 areas on Microsoft Academic Graph.Read full story

-Natural disasters are becoming more unpredictable and extreme due to climate change, causing more extensive damage to people and property.

In Vietnam, since the beginning of this year, natural disasters have been increasingly irregular, with unseasonal rains and flooding accompanied by thunderstorms, strong winds and storms.Read full story/.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Exporting fresh fruit in the context of China implementing Decrees 248, 249 and strengthening cold-chain food imports control were the topics of discussion at a workshop in the south central province of Binh Thuan on August 19.

The event was co-organised by the Vietnam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point (Vietnam SPS) and the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

According to the Vietnam SPS, China is currently the main market for Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable export. However, it is setting higher requirements for agricultural imports, especially regarding traceability, food safety and hygiene, and COVID-19 prevention and control.

China’s Decree 248 on regulations on the registration and administration of overseas producers of imported food requires that all overseas food manufacturers, processors, and storage facilities be registered with the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) to export product to the country.

Meanwhile, under Degree 249 on administrative measures on import and export food safety, exporters are responsible for food safety even if their products have been shipped to China.

Both decrees took effect on January 1, 2022.

Vietnam SPS Director Le Thanh Hoa said the workshop aims to inform local firms on the decrees so that they can come up with suitable solutions and orientations to ensure export to this big and potential market.

Reports presented gave information on a series of matters, including fresh fruit exports, food safety management, plantations, packaging and plant quarantine, among others.

Currently, Vietnam has 11 kinds of fruits that are exported via official channels to China. Of these fruits, Vietnam has signed with China protocols on phytosanitary requirements for three kinds, including mangosteen, passion fruit and durian.

Last year, Vietnam exported 3.55 billion USD worth of vegetables and fruits, up 8.6% from a year earlier. Of the figure, 1.9 billion USD came from shipments to China, an increase of 3%.

However, vegetable and fruit exports plunged 9.6 percent year-on-year to 508 million USD in the first two months of 2022 due to a sharp decrease in shipments to China, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Shipments to China fell nearly 26 percent year-on-year to worth 261 million USD in the period as a result of the neighbouring country’s stricter rules on imported food, causing severe backlogs at shared borders in the north./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency