40 million people pay respect to President Ho; Child drownings ‘an urgent matter’; Hanoi schools to take in ASEAN information; Vietnam, Sweden discuss gender equality

40 million people pay respect to President Ho

As many as 40 million people, including 7 million foreigners, paid tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum in Hanoi over the past 35 years.

The figure was revealed by Colonel Dang Van Dien, Political Commissar of the Command of Guards of the mausoleum on July 13.

Standing out as a symbol of the nation’s vitality, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum will mark its 35 th founding anniversary on August 29.

Preparing for the anniversary, the Command of Guards of the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum will organise a meeting for those who have taken part in preserving and safeguarding the embalmed body of the late President.

It plans to hold a talk on the mausoleum, which was built at the wish of the people and the Party, and screen documentaries on the process of building and maintaining the mausoleum.

The activities aim to contribute to promoting the movement of “studying and following the moral example of President Ho Chi Minh”, Dien said.

He also noted that these activities also aim to highlight the Command of Guards’ mission in safeguarding the mausoleum and the late President’s embalmed body since he passed away in 1969.

First PALME to take place in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City will host the international PALME exhibition from July 22-27, making it the first of its kind to be held in the country.

PALME is the largest annual event of the entertainment technology industry in Southeast Asia as it dedicates to professional sound, light, music, audio visual and systems integration.

Rosalind Ng, Executive Director of the Asian IIR Exhibitions Company, commented that the participation of over 200 companies from 20 countries and territories in the first-ever PALME in Vietnam proved that the Southeast Asian country is a “fertile land” for foreign businesses.

She said she hoped this PALME will offer chances for Vietnamese businesses to access advanced technologies and equipment in the entertainment industry.

PALME has been held in the Philippines , Thailand , Malaysia and Singapore.

Child drownings ‘an urgent matter’

The leadership of local authorities has played an important part in successfully reducing the number of child drownings, Dam Huu Dac, the Permanent Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, has said.

“Child drownings have become an increasingly urgent social matter. I am sorry to say that it hasn’t received proper attention [in the past] at the local level, ” he told Viet Nam News.

Speaking at the launch of a campaign to highlight the problem in Ha Noi yesterday, Dac said local communities and local leaders needed to promote awareness about the issue.

Representatives from 15 provinces with the highest rates of child drowning attending the meeting said steps needed to be taken to improve waterway safety.

Ngo Thi Minh, vice chairwoman of the National Assembly’s Culture and Education for Adolescent and Child Committee, said: “It is important that we deliver on our promises and commitments. It’s always easier said than done.

“We need to raise awareness about child drowning. We need to identify all the situations where children are at risk. The more specific the better.”

Le Minh Chau, deputy director of the Ministry of Transport’s Traffic Safety Department, said that in coastal provinces and regions that were criss-crossed by numerous waterways, children often travelled to school by boat. River transport safety needed to be improved in these areas, she said.

Chau said that in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Ca Mau, about 31,000 students travelled to school by ferryboat. However, she said only about 10,000 out of 100,000 boats were registered, while about 80,000 pilots had received no formal training.

She said her department and the Ministry of Education and Training would determine just how many children travelled to school by ferryboat.

Meanwhile, free life jackets have been given to students in Ca Mau and An Giang provinces. She said more would be distributed to students in Dong Thap Province in the near future.

Pham Van Tuan, deputy director of An Giang Province’s Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the province was among 15 with the highest rates of child drowning.

Since 2003, more than 100,000 children in the province aged between 6 and 11 have been taught to swim. The province has also set up childcare centres for the rainy season.

Drowning is the largest cause of injury-related child mortality in the country. Viet Nam has the highest fatal drowning rate in the region. On average, in 2008, every day 10 children died from drowning.

The highest mortality rate was in Ha Noi and the provinces of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An.

Hanoi schools to take in ASEAN information

From July 15, students and staff from 80 high schools across Hanoi will study ASEAN and its Charter to improve their knowledge about the grouping.

The programme was launched by the municipal Service of Education and Training as a step towards a united and prosperous Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

From now until the end of July, the pilot schools will focus on making plans and conducting information campaigns about the 10-member grouping.

Five students of best knowledge about the issue in each school will represent their schools at a contest of speakers on ASEAN scheduled for late August.

Teachers will also attend relevant training courses, including measures to study documents.

ASEAN groups Brunei , Cambodia , Indonesia , Laos , Malaysia , Myanmar , the Philippines , Singapore and Thailand plus Vietnam which this year holds the presidency./.

Vietnam, Sweden discuss gender equality

A Vietnamese female high-level delegation led by Ha Thi Khiet, Head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Mass Mobilisation, has visited Sweden to discuss experience in building and implementing gender equality policies.

During the visit from July 12-15, the delegation had working sessions with leaders of the parliament, the ruling party coalition and officials from ministries of foreign affairs, integration and gender equality, and relevant agencies.

Ha Thi Khiet briefed her hosts of Vietnam ’s socio-economic achievements and affirmed the country’s consistent policy of attaching importance and wanting to increase traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Sweden.

Swedish leaders, including Parliament Secretary General Anders Forsberg and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Gunnar Wieslander, spoke highly of Vietnam ’s renewal policy and resolve, expressing their pleasure with the southeast Asian nation’s achievements.

They were pleased with the development of friendship and cooperation fostered by both leaders and peoples during the past 40 years. They emphasised the need to lift the level of bilateral ties as Sweden proved its role as an important member of the European Union and Vietnam affirmed its regional and international position.

The two sides need to increase exchanges of visits of high-level delegations and expand trade and investment ties, the leaders agreed.

The visit was part of a project on enhancement of female leadership capacity carried out by Vietnam ’s Foreign Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme.

This was the first visit to Sweden by a Vietnamese female high-level delegation to discuss gender equality as well as to contribute to increased bilateral cooperation in the future.

HCM City hosts e-government conference

Vietnam will build a public and private cooperation mechanism in building e-government, and rank 63 provinces and cities in terms of information technology (IT) application and e-government implementation, said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan.

Deputy PM Nhan, who is also Head of the National IT Steering Committee, made the statement at a conference entitled “ Towards high impact e-government and e-governance during 2011 – 2015 period” in HCM City on July 15.

The conference heard that positive results have been recorded in schemes to simplify administrative procedures in State management during the 2007-2010 period and apply IT in State administrative agencies during the 2008-2010 period.

A total of 5,700 administrative procedures and more than 9,000 regulations and guidance on administrative procedures have been digitised.

Administrative reform has helped save around 5.7 trillion VND (300 million USD) per year for organisations, businesses and individuals in the country.

Vice President of the Vietnam IT Association Le Truong Tung cited the United Nations’ report as saying that Vietnam ranks 90 out of 192 countries in IT application in the public sector in 2010.

The participants also focused their discussion on public-private cooperation for the fast development of e-services.

Twenty projects of the national programme on the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in State agencies during the 2011-2015 period are considered an important part of the Government’s commitment to turn Vietnam into a strong ICT nation, said the conference./.

Seminar promotes new gender equality strategy

A seminar seeking ideas to create a draft national strategy on gender equality for the period of 2011-2020 was held by the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in Ho Chi Minh City on July 15.

At the seminar, participants expressed concerns over domestic violence, the trafficking of women and children, marriages between Vietnamese women and foreigners, and gender imbalance.

According to MOLISA, Vietnam has gained numerous achievements on gender equality, posting the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) of 0.554, ranking 62 nd out of 109 countries.

However, MOLISA said the gender gap is still large in numerous fields, leading to gender inequality and gender imbalance in the country.

For instance, the proportion of female leaders in ministries and local authorities is still low while the current number of woman legislators accounts for only 25.7 percent of the total, failing to meet the National Assembly target of 33 percent.

The retirement age for females, five years earlier than males, is considered one of the reasons behind the low proportion of female leaders in the country, explained some participants.

The government has assigned MOLISA to build the strategy, aiming to ensure all ministries, ministerial-level agencies, agencies under the government and people’s committees at all levels have female leaders.

Also, the strategy seeks to create more jobs for poor women in rural areas and for ethnic minority women, reduce teen abortions by half, and highlight the problems women suffer from domestic violence, and the trafficking of women and children./.

HIV/AIDS epidemic changes in gender, age group

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has changed significantly in gender and age groups, deputy head of Vietnam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control Chu Quoc An said on July 15 at an online meeting to review the fight against the disease in the first six months of the year.

By June 30, the whole country had 176,436 people with HIV/AIDS.
Ho Chi Minh City records the highest number of patients in the nation with 25.9 percent of HIV-infected people, he said.

According to the statistics, there was a major change in the gender ratio among the infected with 70 percent being men and 30 percent being women in 2010. In 2009, the rate was 82 and 18 percent, respectively.

The 20-29 age group makes up 39 percent while the 30-39 age group accounts for 42.6 percent in 2010, against 52 percent and 31 percent in 2009.

An affirmed that HIV/AIDS prevention work has achieved positive results in the first six months of the year, covering 494 districts across 61 cities and provinces, drawing 4,600 collaborators, setting up 315 points for anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment and treating over 42,000 AIDS patients.

However, the work still faces problems, including the overload of patients at ARV treatment facilities, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, the shortage of qualified staff and difficulty of access to HIV infection preventative service for high-risk groups.

At the event, representatives from 18 provinces put forward proposals such as promoting training of HIV/AIDS field staff and providing equipment and human resources for HIV prevention centres in the provinces.

Strong growth in online labour market

The online labour market saw a strong growth in the second quarter of this year, according to the country’s leading provider of online employment services, VietnamWorks.com.

On July 14, VietnamWorks.com released a report with the demand index up by 28 percent over the first quarter and the supply index, up by 27 percent.

The report also said that the demand index has seen a year-on-year increase of 40 percent.

The General Director of VietnamWorks.com, Chris Harvey, said that the 40 percent growth rate means the economy is developing faster and enterprises are more self-confident about recruiting workers to expand their business.

In the second quarter of the year, civil construction, accountancy/auditing, banking, electrical/electronics and engineering had the highest demands for personnel. This was the first time, engineering has made it into the top five leading sectors, replacing aviation/tourism/hotels.

In the reviewed period, Hanoi continued to have the heaviest demands, 10 percent higher than that of Ho Chi Minh City./.

VN-Laos Telecoms connect schools to Internet

Unitel, a joint deal between the Laos Asia Telecoms Company and Vietnam ’s military telecom group, Viettel, will connect 1,295 schools in Laos to the Internet.

The agreement was signed by Unitel and the Laotian Education Ministry on July 14.

Unitel’s Vice Director General Kongphet Nhongvongsitthi said that the project will help Laotian pupils and students, especially those in rural and remote areas.

Unitel will provide transmission lines and modems to connect the schools to the Internet from July 2010 to July 2015.

At present, Unitel is the largest telecoms service provider in Laos , having about 1,200 transmission stations, close to 11,000 km of optic cable, and more than 1 million subscribers.

UN helps southern region improve agriculture

A training course on reducing risks from pesticides and developing production under Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) opened in the southern province of Tien Giang on July 14.

According to Director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s (MARD) Southern Plant Protection Centre Ho Van Chien, the three-month course, which is held for 30 officers from southern provinces and cities, will cost 42,000 USD and is funded by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The course will introduce new inventions in the field of plant protection which serve agricultural production using the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) technology.

The trainees will learn about the consequences of climate change on plants and intensive farming techniques to build up sustainable methods of cultivation.

They will be equipped with knowledge of Vietnam ’s and ASEAN’s Good Agricultural Practices and the Global Partnership for Good Agricultural Practices.

After the course, the graduates will teach other farmers the skills they have learned.

Vietnam honours UK-based Medical Aid

Vietnamese Ambassador to the UK and Northern Ireland Tran Quang Hoan has handed over the certificate of merit of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem to the UK-based Medical and Scientific Aid for Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia (MSAVLC) on the occasion of its 45 th founding anniversary.

The Vietnamese diplomat also presented the certificate of merit of the Presidium of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations to MSAVLC’s former Secretary General Madeline Sharp in recognition of her assistance to Vietnam , especially in the medical sector, over the past 40 years.

Addressing the awards ceremony in London on July 13, Ambassador Hoan highlighted Sharp’s contributions to Vietnam , confirming that MSAVLC and her activities have helped broaden the mutual understanding between the two peoples.

Set up in 1965 as the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam , MSAVLC provided medical equipment and organised blood donations for Vietnam during the latter’s struggle against US aggressors.

Additionally, it assisted the nation in carrying out a number of medical, scientific and educational projects in the northern mountainous provinces of Tuyen Quang, Son La and Lai Chau and the central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri.

New rules promote agriculture lending

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has decided to reduce the mandatory reserves maintained by commercial banks engaged in agricultural lending.

The new decision aims to encourage further lending for agricultural activities. State Bank Governor Nguyen Van Giau said at a conference held in HCM City last week to launch new credit policies for agricultural and rural development.

Giau said that the decision would take effect next month.

Banks that have at least 40 percent of their outstanding loans given for agricultural production will be allowed to reduce their reserves from the current 3 percent to 1.5 percent.

Those that have agriculture loans accounting for 60 percent or more of their total lending need to maintain reserves of just 1 percent.

The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) will benefit from the new decision as its agriculture lending rate is already up to 70 percent.

Since compulsory reserves attracted no interest, reducing them would help banks cut capital costs and facilitate reduction of lending rates as well, Giau said.

He pledged that the central bank would use part of the money that it pumps into the market annually to help bank engaged in agricultural lending source long-term capital.

Under Decree No 41 issued recently by the Government, the amount of bank loans farmers and fishermen can get without collateral has increased five folds.

Those benefiting from the decree include: households and businesses in rural areas; farm owners and cooperatives in rural areas; organisations and individuals providing services for cultivation, animal husbandry, consumption and export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products and salt; and firms processing farm produce.

It also applies to enterprises involved in industry and trading and provision of non-agricultural services based in rural areas.

All the above-mentioned entities can borrow between 50 million VND (2,600 USD) and 500 million VND (26,000 USD) without collateral. These sums are five times higher than previous limits.

Firms engaged in agriculture, forestry, fishery and salt production can get bank loans of up to 50 million VND while cooperatives and farm owners can access loans worth 500 million VND.

Governor Giau also revealed at the conference that the Government was considering a pilot agricultural insurance programme by relevant ministries and other agencies.

The programme might provide financial support to farmers to help them pay premiums, he said.

Priority would be given to poor farmers, organisations and individuals engaging in large-scale production of main crops.

Central province gets supports for mine clearance, gender equality

The German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs will grant of 374,000 EUR to help clear mines and reduce poverty in Quang Loi commune, Quang Dien district of central Thua Thien-Hue city province.

The provincial People’s Committee held a ceremony to receive the project on July 13.

The project is carried out through the Solidarity Service International (SODI) in one year to clear unexploded ordnance (UXO) on an area of 150 ha in Quang Loi commune and raise local people’s awareness on the danger of UXO.

The same day, the province also received a project on improving gender equality and reducing family violence funded by the Nordic Assistance to Vietnam (NAV), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) giving social and humanitarian assistance to Vietnam .

The project worth over 100 million VND (5,260 USD) will be carried out in Huong Thuy township in 2010.

It will help set up and run two clubs for farmers in Thuy Phuong and Thuy Tan wards to exchange views on gender, family violence, the rights of the child, alcohol abuse and related issues.

The project will also hold training courses for 100 activists of the local Farmers’ Association on laws and regulations on children./.

Ha Tinh builds four schools for Lao provinces

The Vietnam’s central province of Ha Tinh has built four schools as gifts at the cost of over five billion VND for the two provinces of BolyKhamsay and Khammoune of Laos.

The gifts are part of the cooperation in economy, culture, society and healthcare among the three provinces.

In a recent working visit, chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Le Van Chat donated 5,000 USD for the Lao-Viet friendship kindergarten.

The border post 563 supplied medicines and medical equipments for Thoong Pe medical station in Khammuone province which was built by Ha Tinh provincial border guard force to provide check-up and treatment for Lao people in the border area.

PV