HCM City urged to deal with traffic congestion; HCM City holds first ethnic minority congress; Head-on collision kills eight in Soc Trang Province; Khmer kids learn native tongue

Traffic jams are hindering the economic development of Ho Chi Minh City – the country’s largest economic hub, said Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai.

While meeting with local leaders on December 28, he said the current traffic congestion is not only a problem of HCM city but also an issue concerning the whole nation. He asked the city’s leaders to work with relevant ministries and branches to put forward new initiatives and solutions to the issue.

Mr Hai suggested that the city enhance local people’s awareness, strengthen traffic inspection and management work, speed up transport infrastructure development projects and improve its bus service.

According to the municipal Department of Transport, there were 69 serious traffic jams in the past 11months of this year, up 25 over the same period last year. The city now has approximately 4.4 million vehicles.

HCM City holds first ethnic minority congress

The first Representative Congress of Ethnic Minority Groups with the participation of 486 delegates from 26 ethnic minority groups opened in Ho Chi Minh City on December 27.

The congress emphasised the great contribution of ethnic minority groups and religions to the city’s development.

Municipal authorities considered implementation of comprehensive socio-economic development measures for ethnic minority people as the city’s major task in the coming time.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has more than 1,300 ethnic minority Party members, up 154 percent compared with 2004. Ethnic minority people account for almost 12 percent of the total number of members in the city’s political and social organisations.

Khmer kids learn native tongue

Khmer ethnic minority students in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang have been learning their native language as well as Vietnamese as both primary and secondary education levels.

The six boarding schools for more than 1,000 Khmer students in the province have included the Khmer language in their curriculum, according to a report from the provincial People’s Committee.

Khmer students have been exempted from school fees and poor students have been provided with textbooks and schooling aids.

Tran Viet Hung, director of the provincial Education and Training Department, said 6,600 students last year took a test of proficiency in Khmer, and up to 98 percent of them were rated qualified.

The province has more than 68,000 Khmer students learning Vietnamese and Khmer in the current school year.

Head-on collision kills eight in Soc Trang Province

Eight people died and five were critically injured in a head-on collision between two buses in the southern province of Soc Trang at around midnight on Saturday.

Provincial police say the accident happened when a Tuan Hiep bus going from Ca Mau Province to Can Tho City reportedly strayed into the path of a My Duyen bus going in the opposite direction.

The collision left six passengers dead on the spot and two died later at the Soc Trang General Hospital. Five other passengers were rushed to local hospitals in critical condition. All the victims were from the My Duyen Bus.

Five of 60 people on the Tuan Hiep bus sustained minor injures.

As of Sunday, the police had identified five of seven victims and handed their bodies to the next of kin, while Tuan Hiep bus’s driver fled.

PV