Authority and responsibility

According to the Government Inspectorate, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has yet to pay due attention to the legitimate rights and interests of people employed abroad and come up with suitable measures to help reduce worker costs.

“For a long period of time, the ministry has not been able to manage or control official and brokerage fees of businesses running the service, which had caused workers (who in fact are all poor) to pay a large amount of money even when the policy of receiving markets (Japan and Taiwan) does not require them to pay.”

The conclusion of the inspectorate was announced at a Thursday meeting by its deputy head Tran Ngoc Liem.

Government inspectors had looked into what had been achieved and what had been done wrong in sending workers abroad under contracts from six provinces in northern and central regions, including Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Nghe An and Ha Tinh, in the 2013-2018 period.

They pointed out fee regulations applied to Vietnamese workers in Japan are not in line with Japanese policies or the agreement signed between the two countries, which had affected laborers.

Due to the loose management of the ministry’s Overseas Labor Management Department, workers had been made to pay a “very high fee of $7,000-8,000 per month,” the inspectorate stated.

In many cases, the high fee had forced many Vietnamese to remain abroad after their contracts and visas had expired to recover their costs, it noted.

As for the six provinces, the inspectors said authorities there had also failed to fulfill their duties, while companies providing “study abroad” consultancies in fact feeded the foreign labor market.

Inspectors also discovered laborers that had voluntarily, or through a broker, gone abroad to “travel, visit relatives or get married”, then stayed behind to work illegally.

In most cases, destinations include Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Angola and Eastern European countries.

In 2019, as many as 134,482 of the 147,387 Vietnamese workers who went abroad in 2019 were hired in Japan and Taiwan, official statistics show.

Last year, the number of Vietnamese workers going abroad dropped to 78,000 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Deputy PM, who is also head of the Steering Committee, stressed that safety must be as high as possible and that if something goes wrong it must be handled calmly.

Though COVID-19 has been largely brought under control in Vietnam, relevant agencies must continue to maintain readiness and vigilance, he said.

Deputy PM Dam called on people to strictly follow the Ministry of Health’s “5K” message: Khau trang (facemasks) – Khu khuan (disinfecting) – Khoang cach (distancing) – Khong tu tap (no gathering) – Khai bao y te (health declaration).

Schools, health facilities, factories, markets, supermarkets, and accommodation establishments, he went on, need to actively self-assess their safety level in disease prevention and control and update information on the COVID-19 Safe Living Map System (www.antoancovid.vn).

He praised the efforts of the ministry in accessing foreign sources of COVID-19 vaccines and promoting vaccine research and production in the country.

The Ministry of Health is responsible for organising vaccinations in a safe and effective manner and promoting communications to raise public awareness.

He underlined the need to accelerate domestic vaccine research, production, and testing, noting that these must comply with all steps in the fastest time possible.

Vietnam is expected to have sufficient vaccines for 100 million people if research and development is successful, he said, adding that this is an opportunity for the country to lift its vaccine research capacity to a new level, enabling it to respond to other diseases that may strike in the future.

The Deputy PM also ordered the Ministry of Health to coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to urgently build and issue relevant instructions and guidelines to create favourable conditions for those that have been given COVID-19 vaccines abroad to enter Vietnam.

In Gia Loc district in Hai Duong province on March 2, the roads were very quiet even though in a few hours the social isolation order would expire (at 0:00 on March 3).

Somewhere in the fields were farmers who were still doing their daily work. For them, their fields must be taken care of every day.

With more than 93,000 hectares of agricultural land, accounting for 56.5% of the total area, Hai Duong is among provinces with a large agricultural production area. Its main agricultural products are vegetables, fruits, livestock and poultry.

Before the pandemic, the biggest difficulty for local farmers was the connection between producers and consumers. During the pandemic, because of the blockade and restriction of means of travel, the difficulties multiplied.

Born into a family with a farming tradition, like many previous generations, the life of Mr. Do Van Chung (a resident of Quang Bi village, Pham Tran commune, Gia Loc district, Hai Duong) has been associated with the field.

Chung’s family grows vegetables such as kohlrabi, cabbage, cauliflower, gourd, squash, melon and others, with an average output of about 2 tons per acre and yield VND7-8 million ($300-400) per acre each year.

As Hai Duong was under isolation, the transport of farm produce from Hai Duong to other provinces was affected. Earning his living by cultivating vegetables for many years, Chung complained that he has never faced such difficulties. In previous years, he harvested 4 tons of cabbage and earned VND14-16 million from two sao (1 sao = 360m2) of cultivation area. But he cannot find buyers and is not sure if he can earn VND2 million from each sao.

Mr. Phung Danh Ut, the owner of Ut Them organic melon garden in Gia Loc district, was luckier than Chung as he had signed a melon sales contract with a local agricultural cooperative.

In addition to growing melons in a net house, the farmer also grows kohlrabi and cabbage. Though he was able to sell his agricultural produce, his profit dropped because the prices of agricultural products this year are not as good as in previous years, and consumption is also sluggish.

To solve the problem, Hai Duong provincial authorities decided to utilize IT to boost the distribution of products. Some groups have been set up on Zalo, with the participation of farmers and businesses inside and outside the province. Farmers can advertise their products on these groups to find buyers. Thanks to these “bridges”, hundreds of tons of vegetables, fruits and poultry in Hai Duong have been sold to the market.

In order to fully solve the problem of Hai Duong’s agricultural produce, a delegation of Viettel Post Corporation led by General Director Tran Trung Hung paid a field visit to Hai Duong to observe the consumption of agricultural products in the area.

Based on its strong delivery services, Viettel Post is trying to help Hai Duong farmers to change the way of selling their products by using digital technology. This can be performed through its Voso e-commerce platform.

Viettel Post uses a smart logistics system which delivers vegetables directly to consumers within a short time after harvesting to ensure the freshness of produce. The consumption of agricultural produces in this way will help stabilize the output for the farmer. The value that farmers receive will also be higher thanks to direct access to the end users. This is considered the most effective solution to solve the root of the common “problem” for Vietnamese farmers.

Trong Dat