Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha has emphasised the acceleration of clarifying abnormal results of the national high school examination in the northern mountainous provinces Ha Giang, Son La and Lang Son.
Speaking at a meeting on July 19, Nha stressed that every person found to have violated regulations would be strictly punished, saying the Ha Giang scandal is a ‘wake-up call’ to all test organisers – Vietnamnet reports
He added that over the past four years, the new format of the high school examination has been improved in many aspects, helping reduce pressure and save time and costs for students, their families and the whole of society.
Although technical aspects of the exam have been getting better, the “human factor is still the decisive element.”
“If the people involved in the process are not of pure integrity, then such unfortunate incidents could still happen no matter how modern the grading system has become,” the minister said.
“We are resolved to give justice to students and regain public trust in the exam,” he noted.
The results of the national high school examination, which determine whether students can enter universities and were released on July 11, showed suspicious signs as the rate of good scores in Ha Giang was unusually high compared with previous years and other localities that traditionally do better.
On July 13, the Authority of Examination and Quality Management under the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) decided to set up an inspection team.
The inspection revealed that 330 multiple-choice tests of 114 students in Ha Giang were adjusted up by more than 1.0 points each. One examiner has confessed his role in the cheating scandal.
The investigation bureau of the Ha Giang police on July 19 started criminal proceedings into the exam cheating scandal in the province.
On July 18, Nha also established two inspection teams to clarify test results in Son La and Lang Son.
On July 19, the inspection team led by Mai Van Trinh, head of the Authority of Examination and Quality Management, had a working session with representatives from the Son La provincial Department of Education and Training.
The test sheets were re-graded on July 19 night and the results are expected to be announced soon.
According to statistics, Son La recorded the lowest average score for all six subjects in the high school examination. However, the rate of students scoring nine and above in the maths and physics tests was much higher than other localities with a history of good scores.
The authorities in Hanoi have turned down a proposal to build a cable car system across the Red River.
Ngo Manh Tuan, deputy head of the Department of Transport, said on July 19 that they had submitted a report about the project to the Hanoi People’s Committee. According to Tuan, the project does not suit the city’s urban planning. The city construction and transportation plans also don’t have any cable system projects – Dtinews reports
Moreover, the cable route coincides with the urban railway line 1 route which will affect the cityscape.
Several experts also opposed the project. Bui Danh Lien, deputy head of Hanoi Transport Association, said to VNExpress that the project’s goal was to reduce congestion across the Red River but it was impossible since it could transport a maximum of only 7,000 passengers every hour.
Investment and maintenance costs will make it more costly than going by bus. Lien said the cable system was not suitable as public transport.
The cable car was proposed by the Poma Group, a French ropeway transportation firm, and would have connected Long Bien Bus Station in Hoan Kiem District with Gia Lam Bus Station in Long Bien across the Red River.
Vietnam immediately captivates travelers with its rich heritage and striking natural beauty. Bordered by mountains and the South China Sea on the west, with the deltas of the Red River and the Mekong set towards the country’s north and south ends, Vietnam’s diverse landscape encompasses white-sand beaches, enchanting rice paddies, and lush jungles. Here are some of the most beautiful towns you need to see in this fascinating country.
Hoi An
Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Vietnam’s most important tourist destinations. With wonderful cuisine, intriguing history, and irresistible charm, Hoi An best matches many travelers’ ideal visions of Vietnam. A major port between the 16th and 18th centuries, the town owes its beauty to a unique combination of Chinese, Japanese, and European influences. Small enough to explore on foot, Hoi An’s lantern-lit streets are dotted with Chinese temples, lively food markets, and wooden-fronted shophouses. Galleries selling local artwork and laid-back open-air cafes add a charming, bohemian element.
Once a sleepy fishing village, Mui Ne is now a favorite weekend getaway destination for expats living in nearby Ho Chi Minh City. Despite its increasing popularity with tourists, the town retains an invitingly low-key atmosphere. Its nine mile beach is lined with low-rise resorts, restaurants, and shops. The bay is a well-known hot spot for wind and kite surfing, thanks to wind levels that are relatively consistent throughout the year. If you need a break from the beach, take a tour of the surrounding sand dunes. These dunes actually help create the town’s pleasant microclimate, causing rainfall to be relatively minimal even during the country’s wet season.
Set at an altitude of 1,500 meters, Dalat offers year-round cool weather and serene mountain scenery. This quaint town was once a favorite retreat of Vietnamese emperors and French colonials eager to escape the country’s summer heat. These European influences are still noticeable in the French colonial architecture found in the town’s central area, where the streets are lined with red-roofed stone buildings. With lovely churches, markets, winding streets, and colorful gardens, the town is a wonderful place for strolling. The surrounding area offers lakes, forests, and waterfalls, perfect for trekking, biking, and rock-climbing.
Nha Trang is one of Vietnam’s most popular seaside resort towns, home to some of the country’s top beaches and dive sites. The town’s six kilometer, crescent-shaped beach is set against a picturesque mountain backdrop. Aside from soft sands, the shoreline offers a pleasant promenade, sculpture parks, and scenic gardens. Dozens of local companies offer day-trips to the more than 20 islands found just off the coast, where you can enjoy hiking and snorkeling. Towards the center of town, you’ll find some fantastic restaurants as well as the centuries-old Po Nagar Cham Temple.
The largest town in the Mekong Delta, Can Tho sits at the meeting point of several different waterways. It’s an ideal base for visiting the nearby floating markets, with canals and rivers filled with an astonishing variety of boats and ships. Can Tho’s lovely riverfront is lined with sculpture gardens and some of the region’s best restaurants. The backstreets give rise to a few unique temples and a buzzing night market, plus a short trip outside town will bring you to beautiful countryside landscapes covered with rice fields.
One of northern Vietnam’s most well-known tourist destinations, Sapa is set in a magnificent location on the western edge of a high plateau. The town overlooks a beguiling scene of mountains and rice terraces, often shrouded in mist. It’s a popular base for trekking in the Hoang Lien Son Mountains, as well as for exploring rice paddies and minority villages. Sapa has been a gathering place for local hill tribes for hundreds of years. Although the increasing number of tourists visiting the town’s market has altered the atmosphere somewhat, hill-tribe people still come here to sell handicrafts and traditional clothing.
Located 120 kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City, Vung Tau is a popular beach destination for locals and expats looking to escape the city. Set in a gorgeous location on a peninsula, with ocean on three sides, the town is pleasantly scruffy with wide boulevards and grand colonial-era buildings. The boardwalk along Bai Sau, along known as Back Beach, is attractively lined with seafood restaurants and shops. The town has a fairly large population of Christians, accounting for the unusual statue of Jesus set towards the north, a smaller version of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer.
Set at a meeting point of a tributary linking the Bassac and Mekong Rivers and the Bassac River itself, Chau Doc is the closest large town to the Vietnamese-Cambodian border crossing. Locals are known for being especially friendly with the town’s pastel-colored shop fronts adding to its already-cheerful ambiance. With large Khmer, Cham, and Chinese communities, the town is also interesting from a cultural perspective. Check out the vibrant main market, and then wander along the pretty waterfront promenade nearby. Take the ferry across the river to visit Chau Doc’s largest mosque.
A popular day-trip from Sapa, Bac Ha also serves as a more low-key base for exploring the country’s northern highlands and hill tribe villages. Set at 1,200 meters above sea level, the town is fringed by cone-shaped mountains. This quiet town comes to life on Sundays when ethnic-minority villagers such as the Dao, Flower H’mong, Tay, Nung, and Giay, come to the town for its bustling market. Everything from textiles and handbags to livestock is bought, sold, and traded. On many days, Flower H’mong singers perform captivating songs to entertain market-goers.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hue was Vietnam’s Imperial City and later the capital of the country’s Nguyen emperors. Although the town was devastated by wars with the French and the Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries, it’s still filled with enthralling tombs, temples, and palaces. The Perfume River (Song Huong) winds through the city, with the Forbidden City looming over its north bank. Dating back to the early 19th century, this citadel stretches for three miles along the town’s waterfront. The Perfume River itself is delightfully atmospheric, dotted with houseboats, long-tail vessels, and dragon boats.
According to a recent study, wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain by 7.5%.
Sporting a tie can also raise the intraocular eye pressure, increasing your risk of glaucoma and cataracts.
Doctors’ ties have also been shown to be breeding grounds for pathogens in hospitals, where infections can easily be spread.
Synonymous with professionalism, it’s widely accepted that ties are a mandatory (if not slightly uncomfortable) component of workplace attire.
Many — like Richard Branson, who described the suit and tie as an ” anachronism”— can attest to the fact that ties serve little functional purpose, but few would think a seemingly innocuous item of clothing could damage your health, until now.
Far from the smart image ties have had before, scientists at Kiel University Hospital have recently described the act of wearing a tie as “socially desirable strangulation” — as a study published in New Scientist investigated how ties affect blood flow to the brain, and the results weren’t good.
Wearing a tie results in a significant dip in blood flow to the brain
In the study, 15 men wearing ties and 15 men without were scanned using MRI to measure the blood flow to the head. The researchers found that the brains of tie-wearers were, on average, receiving 7.5% less “cerebral blood flow” than the brains of those subjects within the control group.
The scientists attributed the lower blood flow to the narrowing of the carotid arteries, which carry blood away from the heart, under the pressure of the tie.
While a 7.5% reduction in blood flow may not appear substantial enough to cause noticeable health problems, people who already suffer with other health issues should be cautious: whether you have high blood pressure, are a pensioner or a smoker, you could end up suffering with headaches, dizziness, and nausea if you wear a tie for too long.
Ties may raise the risk of glaucoma, cataracts and other injuries
Kiel’s study is far from the first to investigate the effects of ties on the head; according to research published in The British Journal of Ophthalmology, wearing a tie can restrict the blood flow through the jugular vein as well as through the carotid arteries.
This restriction can end up causing a backup of blood along the system to the eye, thus raising eye pressure. Raised intraocular eye pressure is considered a risk factor for glaucoma and cataracts, and could possibly increase the risk of worsening existing glaucoma, according to the study.
Ties can raise intraocular eye pressure, which is considered a risk factor for glaucoma and cataracts. e_monk/flickr
You can even increase your risk of musculoskeletal trauma just by wearing a tie, according to research by researchers at Yonsei University: those who wear ties often find their range of motion “significantly decreased when wearing a tight necktie compared to without it”.
This leads to an increase in certain muscles, causing tension to accumulate in the upper trapezius and raising the risk of injuries.
Ties may even contribute to the spread of hospital-borne disease
Perhaps more worrying than spraining muscles in the office is the fact that wearing a tie in health-focused workplaces could be putting others at potentially lethal risk: a study carried out by Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine showed that among 42 male surgical clinicians at the New York Hospital, nearly half had managed to accrue infection-causing pathogens on their ties.
“Hospital-acquired infections account for a large proportion of high rates of morbidity, mortality, and costs,” according to Eyal Zimlichman, Daniel Henderson, and Orly Tamir, who carried out the study. “We estimated there are approximately 440,000 of these infections annually among US adult inpatients and that their annual costs are $9.8 billion.”
Considering hospital-borne infections are placing such a big strain on healthcare systems, ties harbouring pathogens could be making a serious contribution to an increasingly concerning healthcare problem.
It looks as if we may need to call time on the deceptively dangerous garment and do away with ties altogether.
Adrian Cronauer, the man whose military radio antics inspired a character played by Robin Williams in the film “Good Morning, Vietnam,” has died. He was 79.
Mary Muse, the wife of his stepson Michael Muse, said Thursday that Cronauer died Wednesday from an age-related illness. He had lived in Troutville, Virginia, and died at a local nursing home, she said. Ben Finley reported on pressherald.com
During his service as a U.S. Air Force sergeant in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, Cronauer opened his Armed Forces Radio show with the phrase, “Goooooood morning, Vietnam!”
Williams made the refrain famous in the 1987 film, loosely based on Cronauer’s time in Saigon.
The film was a departure from other Vietnam war movies that focused on bloody realism, such as the Academy Award-winning “Platoon.” Instead, it was about irreverent youth in the 1960s fighting the military establishment.
”We were the only game in town and you had to play by our rules,” Cronauer told The Associated Press in 1987. “But I wanted to serve the listeners.”
The military wanted conservative programming. American youths, however, were ”not into drab, sterile announcements” with middle-of-the-road music, Cronauer said, and the battle over the airwaves was joined.
In the film, Williams quickly drops Perry Como and Lawrence Welk from his 6 a.m. playlist in favor of the Dave Clark Five.
Cronauer said he loved the movie, but he said much of the film was Hollywood make-believe. Robin Williams’ portrayal as a fast- talking, nonconformist, yuk-it-up disc jockey sometimes gave people the wrong impression of the man who inspired the film.
“Yes, I did try to make it sound more like a stateside station,” he told The AP in 1989. “Yes, I did have problems with news censorship. Yes, I was in a restaurant shortly before the Viet Cong hit it. And yes, I did start each program by yelling, ‘Good Morning, Vietnam!”‘
The rest is what he delicately called “good script crafting.”
When the film was released, the presidential campaign of Democrat Jesse Jackson called asking if Cronauer would help out. The conversation died quickly after Cronauer asked the caller if she realized he was a Republican.
In 1992, George H. W. Bush’s re-election campaign taped a TV ad slamming Bill Clinton’s draft record. In the ad, Cronauer accused Clinton of lying.
“In many ways, I’m a very conservative guy,” he said. “A lifelong, card-carrying Republican can’t be that much of an anti-establishment type.”
Cronauer was from Pittsburgh, the son of a steelworker and a schoolteacher. After the military, he worked in radio, television and advertising.
In 1979, Cronauer saw the film “Apocalypse Now” with his friend Ben Moses, who also served in Vietnam and worked at the Saigon radio station.
“We said that’s not our story of Vietnam,” Moses recalled Thursday. “And we made a deal over a beer that we were going to have a movie called ‘Good Morning, Vietnam.”‘
It wasn’t easy. Hollywood producers were incensed at the idea of a comedy about Vietnam, said Moses, who co-produced the film and wrote the original 30-page story.
“I said ‘It’s not a comedy – it’s the sugar on top of the medicine,” Moses said.
Writer Mitch Markowitz made the film funny, and director Barry Levinson added the tragic-comedy aspect, Moses said. Williams’ performance was nominated for an Oscar.
Moses said the film was a pivotal moment in changing the way Americans thought about the Vietnamese and the war.
Muse, the wife of Cronauer’s stepson, said the movie “helped open dialogue and discussion that had long been avoided.”
“He loved the servicemen and servicewomen all over the world and always made time to personally engage with them,” she said.
She added that he was “a loving and devoted husband to his late wife Jeane (as well as a) father, grandfather and great-grandfather.”
Cronauer attended the University of Pennsylvania’s law school and went into the legal profession, working in communications law and later handling prisoner-of-war issues for the Pentagon.
“I always was a bit of an iconoclast, as Robin (Williams) was in the film,” Cronauer told the AP in 1999. “But I was not anti-military, or anti-establishment. I was anti-stupidity. And you certainly do run into a lot of stupidity in the military.”
Foreign corporations operating in Vietnam can operate as a branch office without the need to incorporate. However, it is generally advisable to incorporate rather than set up a branch office in Vietnam, given the numerous drawbacks associated with having a branch office. However, generally, branches are not a common form of foreign investment given they are only permitted in a few sectors.
As a matter of practice, apart from the culture, education and tourism, banking, tobacco, legal services and airline industry, there have been very few branches established in Vietnam.
A foreign company can establish a branch office in Vietnam provided it has obtained prior approval from the government. The Branch will have to apply and obtain the establishment license, and possess a seal bearing the name of the Branch. The conditions for obtaining a Branch license are quite simple. Normally, a Branch license shall be granted if the foreign entity satisfies the following conditions:
(i) It possesses a legal certificate of business registration, in accordance with the laws of applicant’s country;
(ii) Has been established for a period of not less than 5 years, from the business registration.
The application needs to be filed with the MoIT ( Ministry of International Trade) Approval is location specific and subject to guidelines issued in this regard. There are eligibility criteria and procedural guidelines for establishment of a branch office by foreign entities in Vietnam.
The branch’s operating license expires five years from the licensing date and is renewable.
Advisory services
GBS – one of the best business law firms in Vietnam with a network South East Asia, Middle East, Japan, HongKong, Malta and Poland – offers simple direct advice to start your operations in Vietnam. They provide the help you need to understand your options, obtain your business license and complete the registration of your branch office in Vietnam.
Vietnam has warned of floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains after tropical storm Son Tinh made landfall in northern coastal areas, although no casualties were reported on Thursday.
A long coastline makes Vietnam prone to destructive storms and flooding, with 389 people last year in natural disasters such as floods and landslides, the General Statistics Office said. Reuter reported.
Son Tinh weakened to a tropical low pressure event by the time it reached Vietnam late on Wednesday, curbing fears of immediate and widespread damage, but raising concerns of flooding.
“Heavy rain is forecast to continue in northern and central provinces, and threatens to cause flash floods and landslides in Hoa Binh, Son La, Lai Chau and Lang Son provinces,” the national weather forecaster said.
The Southeast Asian country had ordered vessels back to port and prepared evacuation plans ahead of the storm, which soaked parts of the Philippines on Tuesday.
Heavy rain of up to 350 mm (13.8 inches) flooded some coastal provinces, affecting nearly 64,000 hectares of rice and 3,200 hectares of cash crops on Thursday, the government’s disaster management agency said.
Floods limited road access to many parts of Nghe An province, 300 km (186 miles) south of Hanoi, state media said.
Last month heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides that killed 24 people in the remote and mountainous northern provinces of Lai Chau and Ha Giang.
Nghi Son refinery, not far from Son Tinh’s path, was spared. On Wednesday, a company safety official had said it had no plan to suspend operations.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by James Pearson and Clarence Fernandez)
A cyclo driver in Hanoi has denied having given votive money as change to two French tourists.
On Wednesday morning, Nguyen Van Chinh, 39, said he took the two tourists on an one-hour tour around the Old Quarter in Hoan Kiem District for an agreed price of VND 600,000 (USD26) and they paid exactly the sum – reported in an article from Vietnamnet
“It was about 6pm on July 16 and the two tourists were standing by Hang Da Street,” Chinh said. “I approached and invited them to take a tour around the Old Quarter. They agreed with the price I proposed.”
Chinh said that after touring four streets on his cyclo, the two tourists asked him to stop at Hang Gai Street to have dinner.
“One of them gave me one VND500,000 note and one VND100,000 note which was exactly the agreed tour fee,” Chinh said. “They then also gave me a VND20,000 note as bonus. There was no change I had to give them so I don’t know why they were talking about votive money here.
The cyclo driver admitted that the fee of VND600,000 for this tour was higher than normal prices but he was not cheating as the two tourists had agreed with the fee.
“Now I was shocked when seeing the video clip of the two tourists accusing me of giving them votive money as change,” he said. “I have also been criticised by many people. But I swear I did not do that. I’m willing to meet and talk to the two tourists and local authorities about that.”
Chinh said he has been doing this work for three years and claimed he has never had problems with his customers.
The story has badly affected the cyclo drivers in the area who said they wanted local authorities to quickly announce the results of the investigation and assure visitors that this was only one particular case.
Cyclo drivers in Hanoi say they want local authorities to quickly announce the results of the investigation and assure visitors that this was only one particular case
A driver, Le Van Bien stressed the need to strictly punish the drivers who cheat customers to prevent future wrongdoings.
“Their actions are badly affecting the image of cyclo service here,” Bien said. “But I believe such incidents are very rare as we all want to develop our image to have more customers and continue this work for a long time.”
Bien also said that even if the cyclo driver did not give votive money to the tourists, he should also be criticised for charging too high a price for an Old Quarter tour.
“We usually take VND200,000-300,000 for an one-hour tour around the Old Quarter. But that driver had asked for too much.”
Meanwhile, the Hoan Kiem District People’s Committee said they were still working with the local Tourism Department on the investigation but there was so much unofficial information about this.
On July 17, a video clip about the two tourists talking about being given votive money after an one-hour tour around the Old Quarter went viral on the internet.
According to the tourists, they called a cyclo for an hour tour around the Old Quarter in Hoan Kiem District for an agreed price of VND 600,000 (USD26).
The votive money shown by the two French tourists. Photo from video clip
After the tour, they gave the cyclo driver VND1.5m and the driver gave them the change with one VND500,000 and two-VND200,000 notes.
On the morning of July 17, the two tourists tried to use the notes to pay for a taxi ride and were told that it was votive money.
A common sight you will come across while traveling along Vietnam is that of local ladies donning the Non La (Vietnamese conical leaf hat), walking gracefully along the sidewalk. Here is the story of the Non La.
The Non La is a traditional symbol of Vietnam, which like many other traditional costumes of the country, has an origin story that comes from a legend. The legend here pertains to the history of rice-growing in Vietnam.
The story goes that once upon a time, during a torrential downpour of rain that lasted weeks, flooding lands and homes and causing unfavorable disturbances to the rural life, a graceful goddess descended from the sky. She was wearing on her head a giant hat made of four large leaves stitched together by bamboo sticks. This hat was so large that it guarded the people against all the rain, and she was able to dispel the clouds and rain, allowing the people to return back to a normal life.
The goddess even taught the people how to grow crops among many other things, and one day during one of her educational stories, mankind fell asleep listening to her soothing voice. When they woke up, the goddess was gone.
To honor her, a temple was built, and not only that, but everyone followed suit and took her lessons to heart. People went into the forests to find leaves similar to the ones that the goddess had on her head, which they then stitched together on a bamboo frame. This then became an indispensable item, a daily essential for the farmers on the paddy fields, boat-women rowing passengers across rivers, and those traveling miles under the scorching sun.
Ever since this original version that appeared thousands of years ago, the Non La has evolved greatly and now has many variations. As a rule, women don a broad-rimmed version of the hat, whereas for men, the cone is higher and the rims, smaller. Different versions were made for the upper class, for children, for the army troops, for the religious monks, for different regions even, and so on. There are over 50 types in total. The material can change too, as people utilize what is around them, however one typically uses palm leaves, bark of Moc tree and bamboo to make them.
The two best known are the Non La of Chuong Village near Hanoi and the Bai Thohat of Hue, the old imperial capital. The Non Bai Tho, also known as the poem hat, usually has a picture of bamboo or poetic verses under the leaf layers, which can only be seen under the sun.
The Non La is used as protection from the sun and rain, a basket for vegetables to use when shopping at the market, or even as a bowl to relieve thirst when passing by a well. You may even come across young couples shielding their kisses form the public behind this traditional hat during their dates. It also makes for a great souvenir to take home, to show the rest of the world that this traditional symbol of Vietnam remains without age, sex, or racial distinctions.
Government agencies have reported a high number of fruit exports to China, considering it a great achievement of Vietnam’s agriculture. But a significant amount of fruit exports to China are from Thailand.
The latest report of the General Department of Customs (GDC) said that fruit exports in the first six months of the year brought turnover of $2 billion, an increase of 20 percent over the same period last year.
China alone consumed $1.2 billion worth of products, up by 18 percent. The US imported $51 million worth of fruits from Vietnam, up by 15 percent, Japan $47 million, South Korea $46.5 million, up by 15 percent, and Thailand $26.1 million, up by 26 percent.
The figures showed China remains the major export market for Vietnam’s fruits, consuming 74.6 percent of Vietnam’s total.
However, GDC pointed out that Thai fruits have ‘contributed’ to impressive growth in exports. Some Vietnamese enterprises exported Thailand-sourced fruits to China, mostly rambutan, dragon fruit, jackfruit, durian and longan.
Nearly 100 percent of mangosteen, durian and longan imported to Vietnam have been re-exported to China.
Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), 90 percent of Thai fruit imports are re-exported to China and the trend began in 2014.
In 2017, a report from the national ASEAN One-stop-shop Office, belonging to GDC, said $0.9 billion worth of fruits were imported to Vietnam and then went to China, which accounted for one-fourth of total vegetable and fruit export turnover.
Another report of GDC showed that besides Thailand, China is also a big exporter of fruits to Vietnam. The total import turnover from the two markets was $384 million, or 64 percent of the total import turnover of this product.
Of this amount, $274 million worth of products from Thailand and $110 million from China.
Considering that, on average, 25 percent of vegetables and fruits from Thailand are re-exported to China, one would see that Vietnam exported $7 million worth of fruits for Thailand.
Meanwhile, the figure was included as Vietnam’s fruit export achievements.
Some exporters said they exported Thai fruits to China simply because Vietnam’s fruits did not satisfy demand and requirements set by China.
The director of a Hanoi-based company attending Vietnam’s fruit trade fair in Thailand in 2017 said some kinds of Thai fruits have uniform size and quality. Therefore, some Vietnamese exporters chose to import Thai products for re-export. It would be more costly if they cooperated with farmers to organize production chains.
Some analysts said that by counting export turnover of Thai fruits, agencies showed false information about Vietnam’s agriculture that could lead to unreasonable policies.
Trade war between the US and China have escalated, causing concerns about a negative impact on the world economy. Professor Tran Ngoc Tho from the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City discusses how Vietnam is likely to be affected and how the country can take advantage of opportunities from the movements of goods and capital inflows from impacted countries.
Trade volume and transactions between China and ASEAN countries increased by 66 per cent between mid-April 2017 and March 2018, while the whole of Asia saw 26 per cent growth during the same period. Asia’s trade volume is currently experiencing the fastest growth of any region in the world.
Numerous trade organisations predict that as a result of the US and China trade war, China will reduce the volume of agricultural produce it imports from the US and simultaneously increase the amount it imports from other markets.
This movement from China will open opportunities for Vietnam’s agricultural produce market to access China as well as other potential markets in Asia, which may be easier to satisfy than markets in more developed countries.
The trade war will have different impacts on the high-tech sector. For example, the war will impact Apple’s facility in China, opening a chance for other foreign-invested companies, including Samsung, to rise. Multinational companies will have to recalculate their business strategies, including moving their facilities in China to other countries.
In general, when a trade war occurs, trade and investment flows will be redistributed, flowing out of one place and into another. The question is where will this flow go? Institutional reform, in collaboration with macroeconomic stability and an attractive investment environment are prerequisites for Vietnam to take advantage of a global trade war.
However, a trade war can also be a factor that leads to a currency war. Currency devaluation wars have occured between the great powers in an attempt to create gains for export markets which have been saturated for many years. It is yet to be seen whether these currency wars will accelerate when the trade war officially begins.
Vietnam should choose a different path and remain cautious regarding positive statistics. In reality, the exchange rate has never been a solution to address problems within the economy. Adjusting the exchange rate of USD/VND to support exports or to offset slumps in trade may work as a temporary solution for a few months, but will also create unpredictable risk and uncertainty.
The most effective policy to address this crisis is for the State Bank of Vietnam to confirm that the exchange rate will only be adjusted to meet the supply-demand relationship and to create a flexible market for Vietnam. Uncertain moves will only make the market more disoriented.
At present, the media and social media are full of negative stories about the trade war and the currency war, causing investors to lose direction. Thus, if Vietnam deliberately adjusts the USD/VND exchange rate to increase exports, the effect will be like a shock wave created by the country itself.
Finally, a well-functioning economy is due to a nominal anchor. The nominal anchor is the 4 per cent inflation target committed by the government. Inflation in the first half of 2018 was still under control, however there are signs of accelerated growth for the remainder of 2018.
Thus, from this moment on, the government must issue more powerful messages, while simultaneously building specific solutions to control inflation. At first, the trade war may not directly impact Vietnam, but if the inflation anchor abruptly broke, the Vietnamese economy boat would likely be submerged by the waves.
The party chief of Ha Giang Province, Trieu Tai Vinh has claimed that he played no role in the adjusted marks for over 330 tests in the recent national high school exams conducted by local education officials.
Answering Dantri/Dtinews about his daughter and two nephews were among the 114 students in the province who have been found to get higher marks than what they should have received after an investigation, Vinh explained that he knew nothing about it.
“Many people know that my daughter did well at school,” Vinh noted. “She had won many awards at local and national contests during her school time.”
When being asked about the children of some local officials being in the list of those who got their marks raised, Vinh doubted they might be victims of some people who tried to get the province’s leaders in their trick to ensure their success.
The official vowed to co-operate with police to investigate the case and will strictly punish those involved in the scam.
The northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, which has never got high records in education compared with other localities nation-wide, suddenly announced high results in the national high school exams this year.
Of the 5,400 students in the province who took part in the exams, three was listed among top 11 with highest scores nationwide. Regarding the physics test, 65 students scored nine or higher, accounting for 67 percent. The abnormal result has triggered an uproar.
Following the abnormally high test results in the province, on July 14, an inspection team led by Mai Van Trinh, head of the Authority of Examination and Quality Management under Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), started re-grading all students’ answer sheets.
The inspection revealed that, bar the literature test, all eight others which were taken as multiple-choice test showed signs of cheating.
A total of 102 maths test results were adjusted, as were 85 in physics, 56 in chemistry, 52 in English, eight in biology, eight in history and three in geography and 52 in English.
Several students ended up with results more than 20 marks higher than they should have received. Some even ended up 29.95 marks better off.
Nguyen Cao Khuong from the Ministry of Public Security said Vu Trong Luong, Deputy Chief of the Examination and Quality Management Division under the provincial Department of Education and Training, was mainly responsible for scanning answer sheets into a computer then sending the database of results to the MoET.
Luong then took advantage of his position to download the database of tests to his personal computer.
According to the inspection team, from 12pm to 2.38pm on June 27, Luong was in charge of transferring two boxes of multiple choice answer sheets and a computer to the provincial Department of Education and Training. In only two hours, he broke the seal, pulled answer sheets out and altered answers.
No-one else has been identified as an accomplice of Luong. However, it seems impossible he could have altered all the answer sheets in the period as it took the inspection team of 10 people eight hours to do the same thing. “We are conducting further investigations,” said Khuong.
At a press conference held on July 17, the MoET reported that more than 330 test results of 114 students would have been adjusted.
Vu Van Su, Director of the provincial Department of Education and Training, said that they would take responsibility for the incident.
“We worked all night to reach the final conclusion and reveal the real result in the effort to restore trust among people in Ha Giang,” he said.
At Farnborough International Airshow 2018, the new-age carrier Vietjet and Boeing Commercial Airplanes signed an order contract for 100 B737 MAX aircraft worth $12.7 billion.
Vietjet’s new order will focus on developing the airline alliances across the Asia Pacific region and worldwide, and further enhance the airline’s fleet synchronisation, modernisation and fuel efficiency up to 2025. The deal is also expected to increase bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and the US, the home of Boeing. Tuan Khanh repored in Vietnam Investment Review.
“We are honoured to deepen our strong partnership with Vietjet as they become our newest 737 MAX 10 customer. Today’s agreement for a repeat order from Vietjet validates the best-in-class capabilities of the 737 MAX family of airplanes,” said McAllister. “With this agreement, we take another major step in growing our partnership with Vietjet, one that continues to contribute to the trade relationship between Vietnam and the United States. This agreement also grows Boeing’s presence and partnerships across Asia Pacific, developing win-win partnerships in a region with tremendous development potential.”
As part of this contract, Boeing Commercial Airplanes has committed to deploying a series of strategic partnership programs to develop modern aviation service ecology in Vietnam, inclusive of Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO), training for pilots, technicians, engineers, and more, as well as special programs for enhancing the management and automation capabilities for airlines in Vietnam and the Vietnam aviation industry as a whole.
Vietjet is Vietnamese first airline running as a new-age airline with low-cost and diversified services to meet customers’ demands. It provides not only transport services but also uses the latest e-commerce technologies to offer various products and services for consumers. Vietjet is a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) with the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate.
The airline was listed as one of the Top 500 Brands in Asia 2016 by global marketing research company Nielsen and the “Best Asian Low Cost Carrier” at the TTG Travel Awards 2015, which compiles votes from travelers, travel agencies and tour operators in throughout Asia and Asia’s Best Employer Brand by the Employer Branding Institute and World HRD Congress for many years.
The airline was also rated as one of the top three fastest growing airline brands on Facebook in the world by Socialbakers.
Currently, Vietjet features a fleet of 60 aircrafts, including A320s and A321s, and operates more than 385 flights each day. It has transported more than 60 million passengers on a network featuring 93 routes in Vietnam and across the region including Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Cambodia.
In the long-term plan, the airline will expand its network across the Asia Pacific region.
Featured photo: Vietjet CEO Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao and Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Kevin McAllister represented each side for the signing of this landmark contract at one of the world’s premiere aviation events.
Indonesia’s ride-hailing giant Go-Jek will conduct a five-day trial of two of its services, Go-Bike and Go-Send, in some districts of Ho Chi Minh City on July 18, local media reported.
In June, Go-Jek launched two locally founded companies in Vietnam (Go-Viet) and Thailand (GET) to mark the first wave of its international expansion. Both companies will be run by local founding management teams with Go-Jek providing expertise as well as technology and investment.
Go-Viet will officially launch in Ho Chi Minh City in early September. After the testing, Go-Viet will be widely deployed in Ho Chi Minh City and quickly expanded to Hanoi as well as other provinces in the country.
“Our strategy is to combine the world-class technology developed by GO-Jek, with the in-depth market knowledge and expertise of the local teams, to create local businesses that really understand consumers. We believe that these in-country teams have the knowledge and experience to make the businesses in Vietnam and Thailand a huge success,” said Go-Jek CEO and founder Nadiem Makarim.
With the aim of becoming the largest multi-service platform in Vietnam, Go-Viet will start with the service of transport and goods delivery first, then food delivery, e-payment and other services, Nguyen Vu Duc, CEO of Go-Viet was quoted as saying by local media Cafe.vn.
In October last year, Go-Jek founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim announced plans for the startup to operate in four other member countries of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) but did not specify the targeted countries.
Apart from Indonesia and the Philippines, Southeast Asia comprises Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, East Timor and Myanmar.
Vietnam would be the third market overall for Go-Jek as it already holds a stake in Bangladesh’s ride-sharing app Pathao.
Go-Jek’s competitor Grab, meanwhile, is continuing to expand its foothold in the region. By the end of June, it launched GrabPay mobile wallet with GrabPay Credits in Malaysia and is eyeing more partnerships with local service providers.
Asian Games venues will be ready before Indonesia hosts the showpiece event in a month, organisers say, but the threat of terror attacks and endless traffic jams still looms over the regional olympics.
An army of labourers has been toiling around the clock to finish building work, widen roads and plant trees in a breakneck bid to beautify Jakarta, a teeming metropolis that many visitors find tough to love.
Map and factfile on the Asian Games co-hosted by Jakarta and Palembang, Aug 18-Sept 2. AFP/Laurence CHU
The athletes’ village looks ready, but some competitors may need nose pegs – it backs out onto a toxic, foul-smelling river.
Jakarta and Palembang in Sumatra are set to host about 11,000 athletes and 5,000 officials from 45 Asian countries for the 18 Aug to Sep 2 Games, the world’s biggest multi-sport event behind the Olympics.
Apart from a still-unfinished squash complex, most venues appear nearly ready AFP/ADEK BERRY
The Gelora Bung Karno main stadium, used when Indonesia last hosted the Games in 1962, has undergone a major renovation for the 30 trillion rupiah (US$2 billion) event.
“I think all the venues, from what I see … 95 per cent should be finished by end of July,” chief organiser Erick Thohir, a media tycoon who is chairman of football club Inter Milan, said last week.
EPIC TRAFFIC JAMS
Indonesia started with less time than most countries. It agreed to host the Games when Vietnam pulled out, citing concerns over preparations and the heavy financial burden.
And then Jakarta moved the Games forward by a year to 2018 to avoid a clash with national elections.
Jakarta moved the Games forward by a year to 2018 to avoid a clash with national elections AFP/ADEK BERRY
But organisers insist it won’t be a repeat of the 2004 Athens Olympics when the main stadium was completed just weeks before the opening ceremony, or Brazil’s 2014 World Cup which went ahead in unfinished venues.
The worst-case scenario remains New Delhi’s 2010 Commonwealth Games, where problems ranged from filthy conditions at the athletes’ village to collapsing infrastructure.
Indonesia had problems with the 2011 Southeast Asian Games following corruption scandals and a deadly stampede at the football final.
But the biggest headache at the Asian Games may be getting athletes to venues on time.
Jakarta has some of the world’s worst traffic, forcing organisers to come up with drastic solutions.
Athletes and officials will travel on dedicated road lanes while Jakarta has put an odd-even licence plate system in place to limit congestion.
Schools will also be closed to take the daily commute of millions of pupils out of the equation.
SECURITY FEARS
Security is another concern with the Games coming just a few months after terror attacks in Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya killed a dozen people and reignited concerns about Islamist militants.
Some 100,000 security staff will be deployed in Jakarta, Palembang and West Java, where several events are taking place.
“All safety elements are already in place,” said national deputy police chief Syafruddin, who goes by one name.
“We did not only think about security of the athletes, but we are also preparing safety measures for all aspects related to the games … of course the main priority is security.”
Police say they have been rounding up terror suspects and petty street criminals in a pre-Games crackdown – and even fatally shooting some who resisted arrest.
Many Jakartans seem unaware that their city is hosting a major event though, with promotion of the Games noticeably lacking.
“What is it (the Asian Games)? I’m not too sure,” said Jakarta-based entrepreneur Widi Astari.
Some who do know about the Games have complained about ticket prices, which range from about 50,000-300,000 rupiah (US$3.5-US$21) in a country where many live on a few dollars a day.
“I think it will be great if the organiser provides tickets for the middle-lower class spectators because I think everybody wants to watch,” said Ari Fajar.
About one quarter of the 40,000 tickets available for the opening ceremonies – the cheapest are 750,000 rupiah – were snapped up in first week of sale on Jun 30.
While the Games may not be picture perfect, Jakartan Nia is betting that her country won’t embarrass itself.
“At least the outside world will know Indonesia has tried its best,” she said.
