Aviation industry news

Chợ Lương pumping station, Yên Bắc District, Hà Nam Province is stinking. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has announced plans to strengthen inspections of industrial production models with risks of environmental pollution and strictly handle violations in 2021.

A representative of the ministry said unexpected inspections would help promptly detect violations as businesses tend to try and avoid inspectors.

In the southern province of Long An, environmental pollution in rural areas is getting more and more serious, according to local media, while the awareness of environmental protection of local people is limited. Indiscriminate littering is a problem, while waste collection, treatment and classification are not synchronised.

Wastewater from factories and enterprises has not been treated and has been discharged to rivers causing water pollution and impacting public health.

The ministry has inspected more than 3,000 industrial parks and production units, detected more than 1,300 violation cases and levied fines of VNĐ275 billion (US$11.9 million) over the last five years nationwide.

The ministry is also carrying out annual inspections on environmental protection at industrial parks and production units.

The revised Law on Environmental Protection 2020 makes the chairmen of district People’s Committees and of communal People’s Committees responsible for working with environmental inspectors and accelerating the local inspection process.

The law also states that environmental protection must be based on the rational use of resources, minimising waste generation and increasing reuse and recycling of waste to maximise the resource value of waste.

The law for the first time stipulates the principle of classifying daily-life solid waste generated from households into types: reusable or recyclable solid waste, food waste and other domestic solid waste.

The law also assigns provincial People’s Committees to decide on specific classification for domestic solid waste in their locality and to encourage the separate classification of hazardous waste in daily-life solid waste generated from households.

The ministry has submitted to the Prime Minister a number of urgent solutions to strengthen solid waste management and solutions to prevent and reduce environmental pollution, focusing on the classification of waste at the source, applying advanced waste treatment technology and using waste as raw materials for production when possible.

The ministry will develop technical guidelines on the collection and classification of waste at the source suitable to each region.

The ministry will submit to the Prime Minister for approval a pilot programme on waste collection and classification in selected localities with different natural and socio-economic conditions with the goal of later spreading it nationwide. VNS

Head of Publications Department Nguyen Nguyen (third from right) at the seminar

A seminar on reading culture amid digital transformation trends was the first activity within the framework of the 8th Vietnam Book Day on HCM City’s Book Street.

The speakers participating in the seminar were Nguyen Nguyen, Director of the Publications Department (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism); Le Hoang, Deputy Director of Vietnam Association of Publishers; Diem Phuong from the HCMC General Publishing House; Hoang Thach, co-founder of Voiz FM; and Dinh Bao, CEO and Founder JoiKid.

In Vietnam, digital transformation began 10 years ago when publishers began digitizing their data stores and some operations, such as accountancy and sales units.

They are now in the second stage of digital transformation, using technologies in management and administration of all activities, and AI in book editing.

They are about to enter the third phase – shifting to digital publishing houses.

According to Nguyen, there are great advantages for publishers to go digital. He cited a report as showing that more than 70 million out of 145 mobile phone subscribers in the country as of 2020 used data on internet, higher than the average level of 50 percent in the world and 44 percent in developing countries.

Internet users should pay more attention to reading culture and use the internet to access knowledge, rather than use it just to access Facebook, he said.

Nguyen believes that the capability of Vietnamese publishers is quite good.

Regarding copyright protection, Nguyen said this is a common challenge for the publishing industry all over the world. The top US publishers have recently joined forces to combat piracy.

What is happening in the world’s publishing industry shows that digital transformation doesn’t mean ‘killing’ printed books. On the contrary, the two areas create interactions and help each other develop.

Nguyen believes that solutions to help a reading culture include changing people’s perceptions; setting up institutions for copyright protection; and investing in technology and creating a new-generation workforce for the publishing industry.

At the seminar, Hoang Thanh from Voiz FM introduced an app that helps people listen to books. Voiz FM staff has applied AI to audiobooks. The AI voice is recorded from real voices and is so perfect that 70 percent of people attending a survey could not tell if was a real voice or an AI voice.

Gia Bao

ST25 , a high-end rice variety produced in Vietnam, is said to have been registered for trademark protection in the U.S., a trade promotion office told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday evening.

Vu Ba Phu, director of the Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that he had heard about the ST25 rice protection registration by some U.S. companies.

But Phu has yet to be able to confirm the accuracy of the information, he added.

Unconfirmed report

If such registration is confirmed to be true, it will be hard for Vietnamese businesses to directly export the ST25 rice to the U.S., Phu claimed.

This case gives a warning to Vietnamese enterprises about protecting their brands abroad, he remarked.

Enterprises should proceed with necessary steps on trademark protection when they ship goods overseas, especially in their key markets, he said.

Nguyen Trung Kien, vice-president of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), also said he had yet to receive official information about American enterprises having registered for the protection of the ST25 rice trademark in the U.S. market.

The VFA had contacted the group that created the ST25 rice variety as well as some rice businesses for clarification but it has not received any official reply, Kien said.

“We have also kept in touch with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which is said to be the origin of this information, but the ministry said such information is not clear,” said Phu.

“This issue still needs verification before any response is taken by concerned parties, so it is necessary to avoid causing confusion.”

This striking report has drawn great attention since the Vietnamese premium fragrant rice ST25 was honored as the best rice variety in the world at the 2019 World’s Best Rice contest.

In last year’s contest, the rice was named the world’s runner-up after its Thai rival.

Commenting on this matter, a director of a company specializing in exporting farm produce to the U.S. said that it is not uncommon for Vietnamese products to be registered by foreign enterprises for trademark protection in the U.S..

In the U.S., there are companies or importers that specialize in identifying the best-selling or promising brands of goods exported to the U.S. from other countries, the director said, adding that they will then carry out procedures to register for the protection of such trademarks in the U.S. market to gain a advantage in trade.

“Such registration is not unlawful but it must satisfy many relevant regulations before it is approved,” the director said.

“So there are still ways for Vietnamese businesses involved to struggle to reclaim their brands.”

“Businesses should register their trademarks in their potential export markets to avoid possible disadvantages or disputes.”

ST24 on the horizon

Meanwhile, Lao Dong (Labor) online newspaper reported on Wednesday that both Vietnamese varieties of ST25 and ST24 have been filed for trademark protection in the U.S by four American enterprises.

That means the exportation of these rice varieties from Vietnam to the U.S. would have to be subject to the approval of the American owners of ST25 and ST24 brands; otherwise, Vietnamese exporters would violate intellectual property (IP) rights over the two products, Lao Dong claimed.

“When exporting any products to any markets, Vietnamese enterprises must register for IP protection of their goods in those markets,” Lao Dong quoted Hoang Minh Chien, deputy director of the Trade Promotion Agency, as saying in an interview.

Currently, the ST24 and ST25 have been registered for IP protection in Vietnam only, Chien said.

In the event that the four U.S. businesses are granted protection over the two rice varieties, Vietnamese exporters must get a nod from these foreign enterprises for shipping such rice to the American market, the official told Lao Dong .

“Or Vietnamese exporters must change the names of such rice,” he said.

“Foreign enterprises act very fast.

“When we still focus on exporting new goods, they may have proceeded with registration of such commodities.”

Speaking to Lao Dong about whether a Vietnamese company may be the fifth registrant for IP protection for the two rice varieties, Chien said this requires a careful review of the records and the relevant provisions of the Law on Intellectual Property.

“Currently, the enterprise that owns the ST24 and ST25 rice brands in Vietnam has yet to contact us, so the progress of the IP registration by the American enterprises remains unknown,” Chien said.

“If they contact us, we may give them more specific consultancy.”

Local agricultural engineer Ho Quang Cua has bred and improved Vietnam’s ST rice varieties for over 20 years.

In 2017, the ST24 rice won second prize at the World’s Best Rice contest in Macau, China.

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