Vietnam Today

Germany's Robert Koch-Institute (RKI) on March 1 decided to remove 60 countries and territories across the world, including Vietnam, from the list of the countries that are highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With Russia disconnected from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), Vietnam, like many other countries, will face payment troubles in doing trade with Russia as the two countries have long-standing economic relations, said economist Assoc. Prof., Dr. Dinh Trong Thanh.

Digital transformation has become a trend in the wake of COVID-19 as it is a new engine driving the country’s socio-economic development and facilitating virus response and economic recovery. Digital technology has found its way into every governmental, economic and social activity.

In the first two months of the year, the Government has allocated more than 22,426 tons of rice to relieve hunger on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, caused by the between-crop season in early 2022 and the floods in late 2021 across 18 provinces.

The Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT)’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering under the Vietnam National University, HCM City (VNUHCM) has earned the Agency for Quality Assurance (AQAS)'s accreditation for three more of its training programmes.

(CPV) – Vingroup supports 500,000 Realtime PCR tests and 450,000 quick tests for COVID-19 testing; BCG Foundation Group, a subsidiary of BAMBOO CAPITAL Group, donated 160,000 Molnupiravir anti-viral tablets to treat COVID-19, with a total value of more than VND80 billion.

The northern province of Bac Ninh raked in more than 1.3 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first two months of this year, making it the country’s largest FDI recipient during the period, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh talked over the phone with CEO of Adidas Kasper Rorsted on March 1 to discuss measures for promoting the German sportwear firm’s operations in Vietnam.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has urged the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance and its provincial/municipal chapters to strengthen market supervision and monitoring in the face of COVID-19 and armed conflict in Ukraine.

Infrastructure development, including transport infrastructure, is a strategic breakthrough of the Party and the State, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at a meeting between the Government and localities on March 1.

Over the past two years, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries and territories have temporarily suspended entry, causing a deep drop in the number of foreign workers. However, recently, many markets have gradually opened their doors to receive Vietnamese workers and interns.

Activities to implement the Vietnam-Laos and Laos-Vietnam Friendship Year 2022 are gradually being implemented in Laos.

Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh has requested inter-sectoral inspections in ensuring aviation security, as well as in preventing and combating terrorism and illegal intervention in civil aviation activities in provinces and cities with airports.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has asked domestic airlines to prepare resources and set out plans to repatriate Vietnamese citizens in Ukraine.

The northern mountainous province of Lao Cai is working to host some 4 million visitors and get more than 15 trillion VND (657.6 million USD) from tourism in 2022, according to its freshly issued culture-tourism development plan for 2020 – 2025.

There is large room for Vietnam to promote coffee exports to Algeria, said the Vietnam Trade Office in the African country.

An inter-ministerial working group has been established to operate and upgrade the Vietnam Free Trade Agreement Portal (FTAP) for 2021-2025 with a vision towards 2035.

Ho Chi Minh City’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) in February picked up 0.86 percent from the previous month and 1.09 percent from the same period last year, data from the municipal statistics office shows.

Vietnamese rice, spices, and fruit have been increasing their presence in demanding markets worldwide as local businesses are taking advantage of free trade agreements.

Vietnam’s economy is forecast to grow beyond expectation in 2022 as domestic demand rebounds and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows remains stable.

(CPV) - The launch of the Joint UNDP-MOLISA-DFAT project: “Programme development and policy advising on multidimensional and sustainable poverty reduction, 2021 – 2023”; and signing the memorandum of understanding between UNDP and National Coordination Office for Poverty Reduction, Ministry of Labour – Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), took place in Ha Noi on February 28th 2022.

The southern province of Kien Giang welcomed over 1 million tourists, including over 18,600 foreigners, in the first two months of 2022, up 27 percent year-on-year.

The Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu has brought into full play its advantages like the river network and large-scale rice fields in the northern part of National Highway 1A to promote its tourism.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina Duong Quoc Thanh has recently paid a working visit to the southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego, at the invitation of Governor Gustavo Melella.

Vietnam is among the five countries newly selected to receive mRNA vaccine technology transfer from a global biomanufacturing training hub established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in South Africa.

Vietnam’s export-import turnover hit an estimated over 108.5 billion USD in the first two months of 2022, up 13 percent compared to the same period last year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported on February 28.

Increases in petrol prices, and those of food, food stuff, restaurant food and public transport services during the Lunar New Year led to a rise of 1 percent in the consumer price index (CPI) in February compared to that of the previous month, the General Statistics Office (GSO) announced on February 28.

The target of 3.8 billion USD in export revenue of cashew nuts for this year set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is quite feasible given the forecast on high demand for the product in the time to come, according to experts.

The State visit to Singapore by Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, with many agreements inked, has laid an important foundation for the two countries to develop and be more inter-connected to become role models for Southeast Asia, according to Assoc. Prof. Vu Minh Khuong.

Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Thi Bich Thao recently had working sessions with Croatian State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs Frano Matušić and State Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports Tonči Glavina.