Việt Nam’s tax system reviewed

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The collection of indirect taxes in Việt Nam is forecast to increase in the future while direct taxes is predicted to account for a smaller proportion, according to a Fair Tax Monitor Index report released by Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) yesterday.

Associate Professor Nguyễn Đức Thành, VEPR head said the report on tax fairness presents a thorough assessment on the country’s State budget collection and spending.

The report pointed out that direct tax, which includes tax paid by individuals, organisations and property tax, made up less than 35 per cent of tax collection in 2016 compared with 65 per cent of indirect taxes. The indirect taxes include value added tax, export-import tax, special consumption tax and environmental protection tax.

Việt Nam’s percentage of direct tax ranks the second lowest among ASEAN-5 group (Việt Nam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines) and smaller than that of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In contrast, Việt Nam’s indirect taxes rank the second highest in ASEAN-5 group and higher than OECD countries.

Source: Finance Ministry and World Development Indicators

There are fears that low income people will have to pay higher income tax than people who earn more if the trend continues.

The fact that direct taxes account for less and less proportion in the tax system shows that Việt Nam’s collection depends much on consumption taxes, said Associate Professor Vũ Sỹ Cường from Academy of Finance, one of the report’s researchers.

Any proposal of increasing consumption taxes should be considered carefully, he said, warning negative impacts of consumption taxes on the balance between collecting and spending.

According to the report, in 2016, tax collection accounted for nearly 25 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while budget spending over-exceeded collection, making up nearly 29 per cent of GDP.

The research team from VEPR and Oxfam said that Việt Nam is facing difficulties in how to balance State budget collection and spending. Reduced State budget collection from export-import activities and low crude oil price put pressure on State budget.

In 2017, the finance ministry considered increasing value added tax, however, finance experts were worried that this move would increase percentage of indirect taxes and go against tax system fairness.

To cut down on State budget overspending, the report recommended two measures: increasing collection and reducing spending. The Government should tighten regular spending by streamlining its workforce, re-organising its apparatus and cutting spending of organisations.

Public spending fairness has been also reviewed in the report.

Spending on health care sector remains less than on education. Spending on education was reported to account for 18 to 20 per cent of State budget during 2014-16 compared with about 7 per cent for health in 2016.

The report recommended spending on health care should be lifted up combined with health insurance policy.

Spending on agriculture – the sector with the highest number of poor people in Việt Nam – remains very low (only 6 per cent in 2012). Researchers proposed Government construct more roads and irrigation works in rural areas.

Source: VNS

Vietnam proposes beer advertisement ban to curb drinking

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The health ministry wants to clear promotional images of beer from TV and social networks.
Vietnam’s health ministry has proposed an advertisement ban on beer in an attempt to cut consumption in one of the world’s heaviest drinking populations.

The ministry is seeking public opinions for its proposal to impose a ban on beer advertisement, an extension from a current ban on wine advertisement, Tran Thi Trang, deputy head of the ministry’s legal department, said at a meeting on Friday.

Under the proposal, beer and alcoholic beverage companies would be banned from any form of promotions of products with more than 15 percent alcohol. Products with lower alcohol volume would be banned from advertisements in public places, televisions and movies, those which are exposed to children audiences.

“Vietnam has been considered an interesting beer market. But we currently do not have strict regulations to restrict the consumption among children and teenagers, who now have all-time access to beer advertisements,” Trang said.

The ministry also recommended that all beer and wine products not be advertised on social networks, and that alcoholic drinks not allowed to be given as gift to consumers, or used as prize for contests.

The proposal is part of a draft law on preventing adverse affects of alcoholic drinks, which will be reviewed by lawmakers this October. Currently, the advertisement law only prohibits using booze with more than 15 percent alcohol in promotional programs and advertisements. But the ministry said that too much consumption of beer or booze is harmful all the same.

As part of the bill, the ministry has also suggested options aimed to restrict the sale of alcohol at night, specifically after 10 p.m.

Vietnam is famous for its beer drinking culture. It is widely believed that business deals in Vietnam tend to go more smoothly over a few drinks at the negotiating table. Vietnam is the biggest beer market in Southeast Asia, consuming nearly four billion liters last year.

The country spends on average $3.4 billion on alcohol each year, or 3 percent of the government’s budget revenue, according to official data. The figure translates to $300 per capita, while spending on health averages $113 per person, according to the health ministry.

As much as 40 percent of traffic accidents in Vietnam are linked to excessive drinking, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), an alarming rate for a country where road crashes kill an average one person every hour.

Source: VNExpress

Huge opportunities for business acquisitions in Vietnam: seminar

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There are huge opportunities across ASEAN for mergers and acquisitions in almost every sector, particularly in Vietnam, though challenges remain like regulatory hassles and how to add value to companies after inking an deal, experts told a seminar on M&A in HCMC, Vietnam on Friday.

According to VNS’ report, M&A activities are increasing across Southeast Asia, capitalising on the investment boom in the emerging markets in the region, Theng Bee Han, president of the Malaysia Business Chamber Vietnam, said.

There were a lot of M&A activities in Vietnam last year, particularly in the real estate sector where transactions amounted to nearly US$1.5 billion, he said.

The deals involved major players from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and mainland China, he added.

“Vietnam, Malaysia and [generally] ASEAN’s wider integration with the global economy offers many new opportunities for M&A.”

Ralf Pilarczyk, head of M&A for ASEAN, Standard Chartered Bank, said last year there were over 4,200 global cross-border M&A transactions valued at over $100 million and they were totally worth $5.1 trillion.

North America and Europe accounted for 76 per cent of the global deals (by value) and the Asia Pacific for 18 per cent, driven by China.

ASEAN accounts for 9 per cent of the world’s population and 2 per cent of global M&A. The bloc saw 116 deals worth $78 billion last year, including four deals in Vietnam valued at $6 billion.

Research by Pilarczyk and Tina Tejwaney, an M&A expert from his bank, found that some of the main drivers for Việt Nam’s M&A deals are its market size with more than 90 million people, strong growth prospects and the Government’s strong efforts to push for State firms’ equitisation.

“Privatisation is an extraordinary programme,” Pilarczyk said.

It provides tremendous opportunities for foreign investors to buy into the Vietnamese economy across various sectors, and Việt Nam would have huge opportunities to develop its capital market and attract foreign investment, he said.

But the country needs to adjust its regulatory framework in the next few years to engage foreign investors better in accessing information and negotiating deals before they invest.

“Bridging ASEAN” was hosted by Standard Chartered Bank in collaboration with the Malaysian Business Chamber Việt Nam and Singapore Business Group.

The seminar attracted more than 100 business executives from Việt Nam and other countries. The bank held a bridging event last May.

E-Invoice Use Rises In Vietnam Ahead Of Mandate

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In Vietnam, eInvoice use is on the rise: The number of firms in the country using eInvoices has skyrocketed from 800 in 2016 to more than 9,000 today. Overall, Vietnamese firms have created more than 600 million eInvoices, VietNamNews reported.

Even so, that number is relatively small compared to the more than a half a million companies in the country. While the country’s General Department of Taxation (GDT) currently allows companies to use either eInvoices or paper invoices, that will soon change: With the exception of small firms, all Vietnamese organizations will have to use eInvoices by 2019. Through the use of eInvoices, the GDT says companies can save time and money while reducing fraud and administrative work. In all, the agency estimated that firms could save about $44 million if they change over from paper invoices to eInvoices.

The news comes as the U.S. government readies for its own eInvoice mandate, meaning the 19 million invoices government agencies pay every year will have to be electronic by the end of fiscal year 2018. At present, about 12 million of those invoices (40 percent) are received in the form of paper.

In a “U.S. Adoption of Electronic Invoicing: Challenges and Opportunities” report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 2016, government officials noted the role eInvoicing plays in the broader effort to improve the U.S. payments system as outlined in its “Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System” report.

Analysis of the benefits of eInvoicing included in the report points to cost-savings, boosted efficiency and faster payments to suppliers, among other upsides.

“E-Invoicing is an important part of an efficient financial supply chain, optimizing the end-to-end process of B2B transactions, as it links the internal processes of enterprises to payment systems,” the Fed has stated. “As a result, eInvoicing is a vital component of the overall goal of making the end-to-end process (procure-to-pay and order-to-cash) more efficient.”

Australian Foreign Minister to open new bridge in Vietnam

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There are hopes a new bridge over a river in the Mekong Delta will help lift Vietnamese people out of poverty.

Australia contributed $160 million in aid money towards the project, which then prime minister Julia Gillard announced in 2010. 9news.com.au reported

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will travel to Vietnam this weekend to open the Cao Lanh Bridge, in Dong Thap Province alongside Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

“The Cao Lanh Bridge is a visible symbol of the depth of the Australia-Vietnam relationship,” she said.

The bridge is the largest single Australian aid effort in mainland Southeast Asia.

An estimated 170,000 people are expected to use the bridge daily.

She said project will help connect 18 million people with regional markets and drive economic growth.

The Asian Development Bank and Korean government also contributed to the project.

Ms Bishop is also expected to have bilateral meetings with her Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh.

@ AAP

Jury tells Samsung to pay big for copying iPhone design

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A federal court jury on Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $533 million for copying iPhone design features in a patent case dating back seven years.

Jurors tacked on an additional $5 million in damages for a pair of patented functions. The award appeared to be a bit of a victory for Apple, which had argued in court that design was essential to the iPhone.

The case was keenly watched as a precedent for whether design is so important that it could actually be considered the “article of design” even in a product as complex as a smartphone.

“We don’t think it is supported by the evidence,” Samsung attorney John Quinn told US District Court Judge Lucy Koh after the verdict was read in her courtroom in Silicon Valley.

“We have every concern about the determinations about the article of manufacture.”

Quinn declined an offer by the judge to send jurors back for further deliberation, saying Samsung would pursue post-trial motions to address its concerns about the verdict.

Juror Christine Calderon said the panel agreed that one of the design patents — the grid of coloured icons — did represent the whole phone, while the other two at issue in the trial were seen as the display assembly that gave the iPhone its look.

She compared it to the Mona Lisa: “you use the paint, but it is not the article of manufacture.”

“I had to really think about it,” the 26-year-old Calderon, a technical writer, said after Koh dismissed the jury.

“We kind of felt like we ended up at a happy medium.”

Long legal road

The case had been sent back to the district court following a Supreme Court decision to revisit an earlier $400 million damage award.

Apple reasoned in court that design was so integral to the iPhone that it was the “article of manufacture” and worth all the money Samsung made by copying the features.

The lower figure sought by the South Korean consumer electronics titan would have involved treating the design features as components.

The jury had been asked to determine whether design features at issue in the case are worth all profit made from Samsung smartphones that copied them — or whether those features are worth just a fraction because they are components.

Apple argued in court that the iPhone was a “bet-the-company” project at Apple and that design is as much the “article of manufacture” as the device itself.

The three design patents in the case apply to the shape of the iPhone’s black screen with rounded edges and a bezel, and the rows of colorful icons displayed.

Samsung no longer sells the smartphone models at issue in the case.

Two utility patents also involved apply to “bounce-back” and “tap-to-zoom” functions.

An original trial finding that Samsung violated Apple patents preceded a lengthy appellate dueling over whether design features such as rounded edges are worth all the money made from a phone.

Technology vs Style

Samsung challenged the legal precedent that requires the forfeiture of all profits from a product, even if only a single design patent has been infringed.

The US Supreme Court in 2016 overturned the penalty imposed on the South Korean consumer electronics giant.

Justices ruled that Samsung should not be required to forfeit the entire profits from its smartphones for infringement on design components, sending the case back to a lower court.

“Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favour of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages,” the South Korean company said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.”

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The key question of the value of design patents rallied Samsung supporters in the tech sector, and Apple backers in the creative and design communities.

Samsung won the backing of major Silicon Valley and other IT sector giants, including Google, Facebook, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, claiming a strict ruling on design infringement could lead to a surge in litigation.

Apple was supported by big names in fashion and manufacturing. Design professionals, researchers and academics, citing precedents like Coca-Cola’s iconic soda bottle.

The case is one element of a $548 million penalty — knocked down from an original $1 billion jury award — Samsung was ordered to pay for copying iPhone patents.

Trung Nguyen brand is threatened from domestic competition

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Dragged down by the three-year divorce proceedings between the main owners, Vietnam’s famous coffee brand Trung Nguyen not only seems farther away from its dream of dominating the global coffee market but is also at risk of falling from grace on the domestic market.

Rising competitors and more strict competition

Along with Vinacafé and Nestlé, the Vietnamese coffee market welcomed a range of new brands, including Highlands, The Coffee House, and Starbucks.

zing.vn stated that currently the number of Trung Nguyen coffee shops is 60, less than half the number of Highlands stores (150). Furthermore, new coffee brand The Coffee House raised its stores to 80 and has started exporting coffee bought from Cau Dat Farm.

Additionally, the domestic market also saw the entry of a brand that was previously entirely alien to coffee—NutiFood. In 2017, NutiFood announced pouring VND1 trillion ($44 million) into growing coffee plants in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. This firm is also a strategic shareholder of Phuoc An Coffee JSC, a coffee company in Dak Lak that has an export turnover of $12-15 million per year.

Tran Thanh Hai, chairman of NutiFood’s Board of Management, said that the firm will boost processing and exporting organic coffee, targeting the Japanese and the US markets.

Previously, three years after entering Vietnam, in early 2016, Starbucks officially started offering its Vietnamese “DaLat Blend” in 56 markets. These high-quality coffee beans are sourced from Dalat (Central Highlands province of Lam Dong).

Regarding domestic instant coffee processing segment, Trung Nguyen proves to be more inferior than its long-term competitors Vinacafé and Nestlé.

Since merging with Masan one year ago, Vinacafé’s output has increased by 30 per cent and the firm’s products have been exported to Russia and East European countries. A report released by market research company Nielsen stated that in 2015 Vinacafé led the domestic instant coffee market by holding 41 per cent, equaling the cumulative market shares of Nescafé and Trung Nguyen.

Masan currently owns 68.5 per cent of Vinacafé’s shares and offered to purchase Vinacafé entirely for VND1.7 trillion ($74.9 million).

According to giaithuong.org.vn, a website specialised in national brands, as of November 2017, Vinacafé made up 50 per cent of the domestic instant coffee market.

According to data released by Euromonitor—a global market research company—Vinacafé and Nescafé in 2015 made up 37.5 and 38.3 per cent of the domestic instant coffee market, while Trung Nguyen only took up 4.7 per cent.

Three-year divorce endangers Trung Nguyen
Despite having been a Vietnamese coffee empire, Trung Nguyen is hugely affected by the overlong divorce dispute between chairman Dang Le Nguyen Vu and his wife Le Hoang Diep Thao.

After Thao’s complaint sent to the Binh Duong People’s Court in 2015, Trung Nguyen’s G7 instant coffee products were suddenly pulled from the market due to “equipment maintenance.”

Afterwards, on December 12, 2015, Trung Nguyen announced resuming selling G7 instant coffee products on the market.

Three years after the divorce proceedings started, Trung Nguyen Group has been reporting weak growth.

According to dantri.com.vn, its net sales in 2015 and 2016 were VND3.846 trillion ($169 million) and VND3.813 trillion ($167.9 million), respectively, and its profit was VND809 billion ($35.6 million) and VND768 billion ($33.8 million).

Previously, in 2014, Trung Nguyen Group’s revenue and before-tax profit reached VND4 trillion ($176 million) and VND1.3 trillion ($57.2 million). In fact, this came from the 2012-2014 profits of its main subsidiaries (Trung Nguyen JSC specialised inexporting coffee to aboard markets and Trung Nguyen IC specialised in instant coffee processing ) transferred to the parent company Trung Nguyen Group.

With the slowdown in growth and the fierce competition from old nemeses and newcomers, Trung Nguyen Group has its work cut out for it to balance the damage wrought by the divorce dispute.

Source: VIR

Robots, smart factories now more common in Vietnam

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Contrary to all predictions, Vietnamese enterprises are willing to spend big money to use robots and advanced technologies in their production lines.

Lavifood, a fruit processing and exporting company, has been using AI to organize a closed value chain, from providing seedlings and fertilizer to processing high-quality farm produce.

Pham Ngoc An, deputy general director of Lavifood, said AI is an efficient tool to control the cultivation process, helping improve the quality of farm produce used as input materials for its modern factory.

At Samsung’s factory in Bac Ninh province, 6,000 robots are working on the assembly line. Vinamilk, the nation’s leading dairy producer, has spent VND2.4 trillion to organize an automatic production line. At its factories, the transportation and sorting of goods are done by robots.

Vinasoy (soybean milk manufacturer), URC (consumer goods), Habeco (brewer) and many other manufacturers all use robots in their production.

Huynh Phong Phu from ABB Company confirmed that the demand for robots is on an upswing in Vietnam. In 2015 and earlier years, ABB could sell 200-300 robots a year, while the figure increased by many times in 2016-2017.

The big spenders

An analyst commented that manufacturers now tend to allocate big budgets on technology.

In the automobile industry, Truong Hai Automobile is known as a big spender on technology. It opened a modern factory recently with investment capital of VND12 trillion.

Huynh Dung Sang from Duhal, a lighting equipment manufacturer, said at a workshop on 4.0 industry revolution recently that the company invested $30 million in the last three years on its two factories in Tien Giang and Ben Tre.

According to Trinh Thanh Nhon, CEO of ICC, a cosmetics company, said the toothpaste production line in his company alone costs VND50 billion. With modern technology, the number of workers has been cut by 2/3, while the output has increased by three times.

To boost sales, the company uses sales management software worth VND4 billion, which has allowed its products to have large coverage at 20,000 shops in cities and provinces throughout the country and has helped sales increase by 20 percent.

Not only manufacturing companies which run large production lines, but trade and service companies, not only big corporations, but small enterprises have also utilized high technology.

Color Life, a website selling flowers at hoayeuthuong.com, has also been applying technology to run a closed process from order taking, delivery, and accountancy to post-sale service.

Color Life’s founder Pham Hoang Thai Duong said that utilizing modern technology is a must now for everyone. “Only when utilizing technology can I handle hundreds of orders a day,” he said.

By Kim Chi

Source: VietNamNet

Vietnam verifying news of woman jumping to death in Poland’s police raid: report

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Photo: pexels.com/ Mateusz Dach

The incident happened when she was reportedly being held captive during a tax evasion crackdown.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry is working with Polish authorities to verify reports that a Vietnamese woman had jumped from her apartment and died during a police crackdown against tax evaders, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

The foreign ministry said the Vietnamese embassy in Poland has reached out to authorities in Warsaw, where the incident was reported, and will take necessary protection measures regarding the citizen and her family, the paper said.

BBC on Wednesday cited a report by Polish news site Tvn24.pl as saying that the woman jumped out of the window from the third floor of the apartment building on Wednesday morning, when local police were chasing down tax evaders.

The Polish site said this woman was arrested at her apartment before she jumped, got injured and died on the way to the hospital, without revealing her identity.

Her lawyer was quoted by Tvn24.pl as saying that it is hard to understand why she could do that when the police had already held her captive. The lawyer also blamed the police for being irresponsible.

Polish authorities say the arrest of the woman is part of their investigation on tax evasion that was launched in 2017, according to BBC.

Around 40,000 Vietnamese are living in Poland.

By Vu Minh, Source: Vnexpress

Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek to enter Viet Nam

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Indonesian ride-hailing and online payment firm Go-Jek on Thursday said it would enter Việt Nam. — Photo Jakarta Post

SINGAPORE — Indonesia’s ride-hailing start-up Go-Jek announced on Thursday that it will invest about US$500 million to move into four new markets in the next four months – Singapore, Việt Nam, Thailand and the Philippines.

The move will heighten its rivalry with Singapore-based Grab, which already operates in Indonesia, South-east Asia’s largest ride-hailing market.

The expansion into the four countries will start with ride-hailing services, but the company is also aiming to replicate its other services offered in Indonesia to its new markets, Go-Jek added.

It said it is currently working with regulators and other stakeholders across the region to pave the way for the new operations.

Go-Jek also said it will seek out local partners with interests and expertise in each of the new markets.

Go-Jek has reportedly been in talks with Singapore taxi giant ComfortDelGro to explore a tie-up. Both companies said last month they would not comment on rumours or speculation.

Go-Jek raised about US$1.5 billion in a fund-raising round in February, higher than its initial target of $1.2 billion.

The company said on Thursday that its latest fund-raising round brought investment from Astra International, Google, JD.com, Meituan, Tencent and Temasek among others.

Go-Jek chief executive and founder Nadiem Makarim said: “Consumers are happiest when they have choice, and at the moment, people in Việt Nam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines don’t feel that they’re getting enough when it comes to ride-hailing.

“We hope that as we arrive in new markets, we will quickly become everyone’s go-to lifestyle app. That is our aspiration. In the meantime, we hope our presence will provide the welcome competition markets need to thrive.” — The Straits Times

Source: Vietnamnews

Vietnam ranks 84th among world’s most powerful passports

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According to latest statistics of Henley Passport Index 2018 released on May 23, Vietnam ranks 84th among the most powerful passports in the world with 51 visa-free destinations.

Japan surpasses Singapore to top the global ranking, offering its citizens visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a record 189 destinations.

The Singapore passport ranks second place, tied with Germany, with a total of 188 destinations accessible without a prior visa.

The third places go to the Republic of Korea, Finland, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, while the US and UK are at fourth places.

According to The Straits Times of Singapore, the Henley Passport Index is formulated based on data from the International Air Transport Association, which maintains the world’s largest database of travel information

The index surveyed a total of 199 different passports against 227 different travel destinations, including countries, territories, and micro-states.

Source: VOV

North Korea ready to talk ‘at any time’ with Donald Trump

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North Korea has said it is still willing to talk “at any time in any form” after US President Donald Trump abruptly cancelled his meeting with Kim Jong-un.

Vice-foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan said Mr Trump’s decision was “extremely regrettable”.

President Trump blamed the North’s “open hostility” for the cancellation.

The summit would have been the first time a sitting US president had met a North Korean leader.

The details of the meeting in Singapore on 12 June were unclear. But talks would have focused on ways of denuclearising the Korean peninsula and reducing tensions.

Just hours before Mr Trump’s announcement, North Korea said it carried out its promise to dismantle tunnels at its only nuclear test site.

Mr Trump announced the cancellation in the form of a letter personally addressed to Mr Kim.

A senior administration official in the US later gave further details, saying North Korea had shown “a profound lack of good faith”.

There were a series of “broken promises” from Pyongyang, the official told reporters, including when the White House sent the deputy chief of staff to Singapore to meet North Korean diplomats ahead of the summit.

“The North Koreans didn’t show up. They simply stood us up.”

The official also said President Trump had “dictated every word” of his letter to Kim Jong-un.

What did Mr Trump’s letter say?

Mr Trump said he had been “very much looking forward” to meeting Mr Kim.

“Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have the long-planned meeting,” Mr Trump said in a letter to Mr Kim.

“You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” he added.

But he called the meeting a “missed opportunity”, saying “someday, I look very much forward to meeting you”.

In a later statement at the White House, Mr Trump said the step was a “tremendous setback for North Korea and the world”, adding the US military was “ready if necessary” to respond to any “reckless” act from North Korea.

What was he referring to?

Mr Trump was apparently responding to statements from a senior North Korean diplomat attacking his administration and casting doubt over the meeting.

Choe Son-hui had said the suggestions from US Vice-President Mike Pence that North Korea “may end like Libya” was “stupid”.

Ms Choe, who has been involved in several diplomatic interactions with the US over the past decade, said the North would not “beg” for dialogue and warned of a “nuclear showdown” if diplomacy failed.

A White House official quoted by Reuters described the comments about Mr Pence as the “last straw”. They stressed, however, there was a “backdoor that’s open still”.

References to Libya have angered North Korea. There, former leader Colonel Gaddafi gave up his nascent nuclear programme only for him to be killed by Western-backed rebels a few years later.

North Korea says that, unlike Libya, it is a fully fledged nuclear state. It is insistent it will not engage in any peace process that jeopardises its leadership or its survival as a state.

What’s the reaction been?

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he was “very perplexed” and that it was “very regrettable” that the summit was not going ahead.

He was not informed of the decision before Mr Trump’s announcement, reports said.

It was South Korean officials who first informed the US earlier this year that Mr Kim was prepared to discuss potential nuclear disarmament.

In April, the leaders of both Koreas had a historic meeting at the border,promising to end hostilities and work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the US and North Korea should not give up, saying “nerves of steel” were required.

In the US, Republican Senator Tom Cotton praised President Trump for “seeing through Kim Jong-un’s fraud”. But Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said the move was what happened “when amateurs are combined with warmongers”.

Source: BBC

Hanoi prepares for potential catastrophes caused by Chinese nuclear plants

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A street in Hanoi is seriously flooded due to heavy rain in late 2008. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Hanoi authorities have launched preparations to mitigate the consequences of hypothetical radioactive leakage from Chinese nuclear plants, as well as other potential disasters such as dam failure, explosions, and urban railway accidents.

The municipal People’s Committee stated that disaster could strike the city if problems occur at any of three nuclear power plants in southeast China, including Fangchenggang in Guangxi, Changjiang in Hainan Province, and Yangjiang in Guangdong Province.

All are located within 500 kilometers of the Vietnamese capital.

In such a scenario, Hanoi and other northern Vietnam provinces would be severely impacted by the resulting air and water contamination.

The city’s administration has tasked the Department of Science and Technology, in coordination with relevant agencies, with establishing detailed scenarios of these disasters and preparing measures to prevent and minimize their consequences.

The request was submitted as part of a recently approved plan on envisaging, controlling, and mitigating the risk of large scale disaster in the Vietnamese capital.

According to experts, if certain dams broke, water levels in the Red River exceed 11.5 meters and cause serious flooding throughout the region, putting million of lives at risk.

In 1971, continuous downpours caused the Red River to reach 14.3 meters, resulting in the failure of three dams. Some 100,000 people lost their lives and over 2.7 million citizens suffered heavy financial damage in the disaster.

Extreme rainfall also inundated many areas of Hanoi in 2008, causing VND3 trillion (US$132 million) in damages.

The Hanoi People’s Committee also identified risks of fire, explosion, and collapse at degraded apartment buildings in the city.

Regarding the city’s urban railway system, a serious error could easily result in a high death toll.

Potential disasters may also occur at places and events with large crowds.

Efforts will be exerted to improve forecast ability and capacity of local search and rescue units.

By Duy Khang, Source: Tuoi Tre News

Vietnam active on sidelines of World Health Assembly in Geneva

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Deputy Health Minister Le Quang Cuong and a Vietnamese Health Ministry delegation had working sessions with foreign partners on the sidelines of the 71st World Health Assembly held in Geneva, Switzerland from May 21-26.

During a working session with the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea, both sides agreed to complete bilateral health care cooperation documents scheduled for signing during the upcoming visit by the RoK Minister of Health and Welfare.

The RoK side also pledged to share experience in granting vocational licenses to Vietnamese medical officials.

In another working session, Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Global Tuberculosis Programme Tereza Kasaeva lauded Vietnam’s achievements in tuberculosis prevention.

She wished Vietnam would share its experience with countries hit by the disease and attend the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending Tuberculosis between now and 2030, scheduled for this September in New York.

The Deputy Health Minister also attended a ministerial meeting on ending malaria in the Greater Mekong Sub-region initiated by China and Sri Lanka. Ministers adopted a statement calling for actions to eliminate malaria in the region between now and 2030.

Director of the Health Ministry’s International Cooperation Department Tran Thi Giang Huong met with representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discussing the IAEA’s support to Vietnam from 2020-2021, including in human resources training, early cancer diagnosis and radiotherapies.

The IAEA and WHO working delegations will arrive in Vietnam in the near future to build a cooperation programme on cancer prevention in the country.

Director of the US’s Resolve to Save Lives Initiative Tom Frieden unveiled a plan to work with Vietnamese partners to build a project on fighting high blood pressure in several Vietnamese cities and provinces.

The initiative’s delegation plans to arrive in Vietnam this July. The project has been successfully piloted in China, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

The Vietnamese Health Ministry delegation met their Thai counterparts to discuss Vietnam’s plan to host the 10th Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on Human Resources for Health Conference slated for this November.

On the sidelines of the World Health Assembly, Vietnam co-sponsored the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Sweden’s initiative to hold an event on antibiotic resistance, during which Huong shared Vietnam’s efforts in fighting antibiotic resistance.

Director of the National Lung Hospital Nguyen Viet Nhung joined an executive board of a sideline event on looking to end tuberculosis to achieve all-population health care coverage initiated by South Africa and Russia.

The Vietnamese delegation made active contributions to the World Health Assembly’s agenda, proving the country’s responsibility and heightened role in the most important forum on global health care, raising developing countries’ voice in building and planning global health care policies.

Source: VNA

Manpower export: benefits, risks

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Vietnam exports laborers to help youth get a good job and to improve the professional qualifications of Vietnamese workers.

Nguyen Van Trung, born in 1996, has been working as metal stamping worker in Japan for two years. He works six days per week at a factory. On weekends, he sells laptops online to earn extra money.

After two years of working, he has remitted over VND200 million to his parents.

Trung, like millions of exported workers, try to earn as much money as they can during their stay overseas to earn a living and help family members.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of VEPR (Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research) said as they have to pay a lot to be able to go abroad, workers have to make every effort to make money to cover expenses and pay debts.

A survey found that workers have to pay about $5,300 to work in Japan, which is lower than Taiwan and South Korea, but still a big amount for the poor. Before going to Japan, each worker had to borrow $4,660, or VND100 million.

“They spend all their time working hard to earn as much money as possible. They don’t have time to practice foreign language skills, professional skills or learn something,” Thanh explained.

When asked what he learned during his two-year stay in Japan, Trung said “endurance, patience and tolerance”. And he gave a negative answer when asked about his working skills and qualifications.

Besides money, foreign language skills and discipline, Vietnamese export workers can obtain qualifications through practice. However, as analysts say, the qualifications and working skills are low.

VnExpress cited a report showing that 50 percent of 500,000 Vietnamese working in foreign countries are untrained workers with low skills. The remaining workers have qualifications, but most of them have only short-term three-month training.

Labor force wasted

A survey of 112 workers in Ha Nam conducted by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and VEPR found that 61 percent of Vietnamese choose jobs which have no relation to their jobs they once took in Japan during an internship period.

A welding worker, for example, after a period of working in Japan, would have enough capital to open a shop to trade or buy a car to carry passengers in Vietnam.

Trung said he plans to open a business after returning to Vietnam, and his friends do as well. They do not plan to apply for jobs at Japanese-invested factories in Vietnam.

By Thanh Lich

Source: VietNamNet

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