Cross borders

The proposal submitted to the Ministry of Transport envisages that the railway, built after 2030, would connect with a high-speed rail route in China’s southern region of Guangxi, which borders Lang Son.

The province suggests that the railway be built alongside the existing National Highway 1A to reduce road traffic.

With China being the second largest buyer of Vietnamese goods after the U.S., and the largest seller to Vietnam, there is large demand for cross-border transport between the two countries.

However, exporters prefer roads over railways because the latter has been under-developed for decades and lacks a comprehensive network of routes to ensure convenience.

This has resulted in frequent container truck congestion at border gates, especially when exporters need to ship perishable goods like fruits to China.

Vietnam currently has over 3,000 kilometers of railway tracks, none of them high-speed.

Last year, railways accounted for just 0.3 percent of total cargo transport, compared to 76 percent on roads, according to the General Statistics Office.

The transport ministry is currently studying the feasibility of a North-South high speed railway route with speeds up to 320 kilometers per hour.

Police officers hold the rescued babies. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Hà Nội police announced Friday they have arrested three people in a “major ring” charged with trafficking Vietnamese infants to China and rescued four babies last night.

The three are Mai Minh Chung (born in 1985) and Đặng Trương Đào Nguyên Anh (born in 1996), both residing in Ngọc Hồi Commune, Thanh Trì District, Hà Nội, and Ninh Thị Hải Yên (born in 1988), residing in Quán Thánh Ward, Ba Đình District, Hà Nội.

According to police, in 2019, Chung worked in Fujian Province, China, and met a man named Tính, who claimed to be from the central province of Thanh Hoá and served as a middle man to bring Vietnamese to China to work in factories.

Chung learned Tính had been selling Vietnamese infants to buyers in China and asked to be involved in the ring.

Chung was tasked with finding pregnant mothers who cannot afford to provide for the babies or those who want to put their babies for adoption, police said.

Via social media, Chung reportedly colluded with people identified only as Lương Ngọc and Hải Nga (whose identities remain unknown) to have these two people receive the pregnant women in the border province of Cao Bằng and then guide them to China through unofficial routes and hand them over to Tính.

For every successful handover, Tính is thought to have paid VNĐ30 million (US$1,300) to Chung and VNĐ80 million ($3,400) to the mother.

From 2020 November to January 2021, Chung allegedly colluded with three Vietnamese people known only as Út, Loan and Sáu, and found seven pregnant women who wished to sell their babies – including one who had crossed over to China to give birth to the baby and sell it to Tính, two women who came to Cao Bằng Province but could not cross the border, and four others that they lost contact with.

On January 31, 2021, Chung rented an apartment in Hà Nội and worked with Ninh Thị Hải Yến to find four pregnant women. Two went to China to give birth and handed the babies to Tính while two had given birth but were waiting to bring their babies to China.

In addition, through his girlfriend Đặng Trương Đào Nguyên Anh, Chung learned about a woman in the southern province of Cần Thơ who was eight months pregnant and brought her to Hà Nội, waiting for the day to go to China.

Tính is thought to have paid Chung VNĐ66 million for this case.

This is a major infant trafficking ring that the criminal police has been following for a long time, Colonel Phan Mạnh Trường, deputy head of the Ministry of Public Security’s Criminal Police Department said.

The police raided locations related to the ring’s activities on Thursday night and rescued four babies that were about to be brought to China.

Four mothers have been arrested, including the eight-month pregnant woman.

The police also managed to identify two other expecting women who had been brought to China, Trường told the media.

The investigation is ongoing.  — VNS

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — Government investigators warned of dangerous overcrowding at more migrant facilities on the southwest U.S. border, publishing photos on Tuesday of packed cells in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley where some children have no access to showers or hot meals.

A report issued by investigators for the Department of Homeland Security said supervisors raised concerns for the health and safety of detainees and agents, warning that the overcrowding represented a “ticking time bomb.”

The DHS watchdog issued the report after June visits to five U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency facilities in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector, the busiest area of the border for migrant arrests.

It came as President Donald Trump’s administration pushed back against criticism of its migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Conditions at the centers have been a flashpoint since May when the watchdog warned of similar conditions at facilities in the El Paso, Texas sector, west of the Rio Grande Valley, with migrants held for weeks instead of days, and adults kept in cells with standing room only.

Security incidents among men at RGV facilities included detainees clogging toilets in order to be released from cells, migrants refusing to return to cells, and special operations teams brought in to show that Border Patrol was prepared to use force, the report on Tuesday said.

Migrants banged on cell windows and shouted when investigators visited. Most single adults had not had a shower despite several being held as long as a month. One photo showed a man in a cell with 88 men, that was built to hold 41, holding a message reading: “Help 40 Day(s) Here.”

The watchdog’s report recommended CBP accelerate transfer of single adults to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for long-term migrant detention.

Border Patrol stations have been overwhelmed after migrant apprehensions hit a 13-year high in May during a surge in Central American families.

Migrant flows have since dropped after Mexico deployed thousands of militarized police as part of a deal with the United States to avoid U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods.

Border-wide apprehensions fell 30% to 100,037 in June from 144,278 in May, including people who appeared at border crossings and were deemed inadmissible, the Mexican government said on Tuesday, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Drink out of toilets

Members of a congressional group visiting facilities in El Paso on Monday said migrants were being kept in deplorable conditions.

The delegation had been told to surrender its phones ahead of the tour, but Democratic U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro smuggled a device into a Border Patrol station and took video of women in a cramped cell.

Some said they had been held for 50 days, some separated from children, denied showers for up to 15 days and in some cases, medication, Castro tweeted.

According to Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, women were told to drink out of a toilet.

“I don’t know what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is talking about,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in an interview with Fox Business Network, calling members of CBP “some of the bravest men and women on the planet.”

“They provided three meals a day to people who are here illegally and unlawfully, two snacks in between,” Gidley said.

Trump has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda and 2020 re-election bid. But his efforts to build a wall on the southern border have been blocked in Congress, and he was forced last year to backtrack after his “zero tolerance” border policy of separating migrant children from their parents provoked widespread outrage.

A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration policy that would have kept thousands of asylum seekers in custody while they pursued their cases.

The American Civil Liberties Union, and other immigrant rights groups, sued the government to stop the policy of denying bond hearings to asylum seekers.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that people detained after entering the country to seek asylum were entitled to such hearings.

In New York, several hundred people gathered on Tuesday to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants, part of a planned nationwide day of protests by rights groups targeting members of the U.S. Congress.

The demonstrations were fueled by fears the Trump administration is preparing a roundup of immigrants who are in the country illegally. Trump last month delayed the raids by two weeks.

With the world’s most open economy (import and export equal to 200% of GDP), heavily dependent on the international market, the Vietnamese economy was projected to be risky and vulnerable.

However, toward the end of the year, the economy’s import and export activities became more vibrant and reached numbers that satisfied the most skeptical economic analysts.

“I am very happy to know that in difficult conditions in 2020, we have 31 export items worth over $1 billion, with nine items with export revenues of over $5 billion and six items with over $10 billion,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the total import and export turnover in 2020 reached nearly $544 billion, up 5.1% year on year; and trade surplus hit a record of $19.1 billion, much higher than $10.9 billion of the previous year.

Trade surplus in 2020 is higher than that of 2019 ($10.9 billion) and 2018 ($6.8 billion), nine times higher than 2017 ($2.1 billion) and nearly 11 times higher than 2016 ($1.8 billion).

Vietnam had trade surplus mainly with developed countries, which have strict quality requirements for imported goods such as the US (trade surplus of nearly $62.7 billion) and the EU (nearly $20.3 billion).

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasized that Vietnam has become the 22nd largest export economy in the world, with the export growth rate 4 times higher than the world average.

According to the Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, Vietnam has participated in negotiation and signed 15 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), becoming an economy with large openness and having trade relations with over 230 markets in the world.

He said that the EU- Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) has an economic scale of up to 30% of global GDP, and the economies in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have the same size. By joining these agreements, Vietnam has penetrated into an economic region which accounts for 60% of global GDP.

“With the commitment to cutting tariffs deeply under these agreements, Vietnam’s products and services have an unprecedented opportunity to access foreign markets,” he said.

Not only open the door with zero tariff rate, the new generation FTAs also include a multitude of behind-the-border reform commitments, in line with Vietnam’s self-reform efforts.

Extensive reform

For example, according to the commitments in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and EVFTA, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) must be placed in a competitive environment in both the domestic market and the markets in the agreements. The State is not entitled to give incentives to, finance, offer debt write-offs or debt guarantees, or cross-offsetting for SOEs, including those operating in monopolistic sectors.

In terms of government procurement, public investment procured by state agencies will be implemented through bidding in member countries. Member countries also have to ensure transparency in bidding, setting up an electronic bidding system.

Workers also have the right to form trade unions at the grassroots level, the right to join trade unions, and unite trade unions.

In terms of e-commerce and telecommunications, regulations are very broad and open, and not just limited to buying and selling commercial goods, but all digital transactions.

The basic content is the freedom to circulate and store information without being controlled or prevented (content related to national defense, security, and ensuring social order and safety). No tax is imposed on cross-border e-transactions, and servers are not required to be located in a specified location, even within a country.

The commitment to internal reform and the unprecedented opportunity to reach the global market are all very good for Vietnam in all cases.

With the success in implementing the dual goal of anti-epidemic and economic development, the national brand value has increased by 29% compared to last year, to $319 billion. As a result, Vietnam’s position in the Top 100 most valuable national brands in the world has increased by nine spots to stand at 33rd.

This is thanks to the Government’s efforts to reform the business investment environment, improve export and import performance, support the building of product and enterprise brands, and maintain macro stability and more positive forecasts on economic growth in the near future.

Tu Hoang

Two resolutions for reform

The Government has issued Resolutions 01 and 02, showing the spirit of reform and steadfast effort over the years to remove barriers in the business environment, helping people and businesses to thrive.

Concerns for reform

A strategic advisory body on reform and development is essential in the transitional economy in Vietnam.