Finland

The Hanoitimes – The Water Safety Plan (WSP), developed by Finland to reduce risks in water supply, has been piloted in Hai Phong and Da Nang cities, and Dong Nai province.

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The event drew the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Construction’s Technical Infrastructure Agency, Finland’s Poyry Company and Aalto University, the World Health Organization, and many representatives from UN members.

The Water Safety Plan (WSP), developed by Finland to reduce risks in water supply, has been piloted in Hai Phong and Da Nang cities, and Dong Nai province. The useful tool for ensuring safe drinking water has been adjusted to suit Vietnamese water plants and the country’s regulations.

Many experts described this as a vivid illustration for the sounding public-private partnership with Finland in the research on water safety plan as recommended by the WHO.

Vietnamese representatives affirmed that the pilot projects are in line with the water plants’ capacity, and the WSP helps the plants ensure steady operation as well as have effective measures to prevent and address interruption in the supplying system.

The move will contribute to the realization of Indicators 6.1 and 6.2 on drinking water and sanitation and hygiene under the Sustainable Development Goal 6, they said.

The Hanoitimes – The daily turnover in Vietnam’s stock market has been extremely high for the last several months, said the head of independent Finish fund manager Pyn Elite Fund.

Vietnamese listed companies’ first quarter earnings reports in April will indicate strong earnings growth for many businesses in the year 2021.

Petri Derying, portfolio manager of Finland-based Pyn Elite Fund. Source: arvopaperi.fi

Petri Derying, portfolio manager of Finland-based Pyn Elite Fund, wrote in a note, discussing the prospect of Vietnam’s economy this year.

“Covid crisis is still slowing down many economies, but it is likely, that in the year 2021 we will see strong growth globally due to last year’s poor numbers,” said Derying.

According to Derying, there is already evidence of the robust growth in Vietnam’s exports in the first six weeks of the year with a turnover of US$38.57 billion, up 36% year-on-year.

“These numbers indicate very strong growth for the whole year, while the strongest growth was in exports to China,” he said.

Meanwhile, the daily turnover in Vietnam’s stock market has been extremely high for several months already, Derying added.

“The turnover and the spike we’ve seen in VN-index are thanks to the local investors,” he stated, noting in January the foreign investors were net sellers for US$74 million.

However, in February the tide turned and the foreign investors have been net buyers for US$62 million. “We expect this trend to continue,” he concluded.

In early February, Derying stated the year 2021 “looks very good for the Vietnamese stock market”, saying the economy is ready to achieve a record expansion, the listed companies’ earnings growth will surprise on the positive side, and stocks are priced attractively.

Pyn Elite Fund expected the Vn-Index to soon reach 1,800 points, thanks to the companies’ earnings growth forecasts, the strong outlook of the Vietnamese economy and the opportunities presented by the modernization of the stock market.

If the earnings grow as expected, the stock market’s P/E ratio would be in the range of 15–16 to equal index level of 1,800 points. Even thereafter, Vietnam’s economic growth will surely support even higher valuations and index levels, it added.

The Finnish fund believed that the Vietnamese stock market can surprise investors with a “big year” of returns during the 2020–24-time frame.

The Hanoitimes – Vietnam continues repatriating its citizens at a time when the country has undergone 5 days without local transmission.

Vietnam has been continuing repatriating its citizens from countries affected by the novel coronavirus, bringing home as many as 1,000 people on June 4-6.

Repatriating citizens remain one of Vietnam’s priorities currently. Photo: Vietnam Airlines

Passengers of the repatriation flights remain those of priority list, including children under 18, the elderly, the sick, people with pre-existing diseases, students without dormitories, stranded visitors, and people of special cases.

Within three days, national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines safely carried home 310 passengers from Finland and Sweden, more than 340 from Japan, and nearly 340 from the UK.

Passengers are from Finland and Sweden. Photo: Vietnam Airlines

The latest repatriation flight landed in Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on June 6 from Helsinki and Stockholm.

Passengers who were on Vietnam Airlines’ most modern airplane Boeing 787-10 are the first Vietnamese citizens repatriated from Finland and Sweden. At present, Sweden is one of the hotspots of coronavirus outbreak in Europe with 43,887 cases.

Sweden is among few countries that have approached the pandemic in their own ways.

Passengers queue to fly home from Japan. Photo: Vietnam Airlines

On June 5, more than 340 citizens arrived in the central city of Danang on a flight from Japan. So far, Vietnam has operated several repatriation flights from Japan.

Japan has become one of major markets for Vietnamese workers, students, and visitors over the past years.

Passengers on a repatriation flight from the UK. Photo: Vietnam Airlines

On June 4, a repatriation flight by Vietnam Airlines landed in Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City with nearly 340 passengers from the UK.

The UK is current the fourth largest coronavirus  epicenters with 286,294 infected people, following the US with 1.92 million, Brazil 645,771, and Russia 458,102.

As of June 7, Vietnam has confirmed 329 coronavirus infections and zero deaths.

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Improving the capacity of hydro-meteorological monitoring and forecasting as well as strengthening international cooperation are identified as two major tasks of the national hydro-meteorological sector in the future.

Professor Tran Hong Thai, Director General of the Vietnam Meteorological and Hydrological Administration said the sector needed to develop, focusing on investing in science, technology and human resources.

It was also advised to fully apply the nation’s scientific and technological achievements and look at other technological achievements from around the world, he said.

The sector should continue perfecting the network of national hydro-meteorological monitoring stations, especially automatic monitoring stations to get more accurate data serving natural disaster prevention and control, socio-economic development and national security and defence, he added.

Collecting data from satellites to forecast weather developments on a large scale such as typhoon, tropical low-pressure system and monsoon should be strengthened, he said.

The equipment for weather radar networks was imperative so the sector could issue more accurate warnings on small-scale weather phenomenon including tornados, hail and flash floods, he said.

The sector’s computer systems should be upgraded to meet the requirements of processing, calculating, storing and exploiting data to serve hydro-meteorological forecasting in the future, he said.

Talking about international cooperation, Thai also said Vietnam would continue taking advantage of foreign aid to develop new methods and technology as well and training human resource staff.

Hoang Duc Cuong, deputy head of the administration said Vietnam already committed to supporting the region in two programmes of the World Meteorological Organisation – Dangerous Weather Forecasting Project and Flash Flood Warning Indicator System for the Southeast Asia.

Vietnam also actively participated in the activities of the Asian Regional Meteorological Association, which connected with the members of the regional office of the World Meteorological Organisation, the Technical Committees and Regional Associations, he said.

The country was also eager to receive technology support as well as experience from other countries, especially in strengthening its capacity for warning and forecasting, he said.

Through international cooperation, the sector had made many efforts to help Laos and Cambodia in training professional staff, developing the hydro-meteorological station network for a long time, he said.

During the period of 2010-20, the sector had completed tasks in the framework of multilateral cooperation (with the World Meteorological Organisation, Storm Committee, ASEAN Sub-committee on Meteorology and Geophysics) and bilateral cooperation with Meteorological Agency of the Republic of Korea, China, Laos, Japan, Finland, Italy and Norway, he said.

Joint efforts

Director of the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting Mai Van Khiem said although natural disasters appeared with high frequency at the end of 2020, but by its efforts and close cooperation with all relevant ministries and localities, the centre had forecasted and warned quickly and accurately about natural disasters through thousands of forecasts and warnings on websites www.nchmf.gov.vn, www.kttv.gov.vn, www.thoitiet vietnam .gov.vn and via mass media.

The centre also constantly updated weather forecasts via its Facebook and Zalo pages so people could react to warnings quicker, he said.

Data showed the centre had tracked and forecast 13 storms, one tropical low-pressure system, 24 cold spells, 13 heat waves and 19 large-scale torrential rain storms last year, he said.

It also warned very early of drought and saltwater intrusion in the central region and the Mekong River Delta; and torrential rains in the central region, contributing to proactive response, prevention and control of natural disasters from the central to local-level authorised agencies between September and November 2020, he said.

Mai Thi Thu Suong, an observer of the Thach Han Hydro-meteorological Station in the central province of Quang Tri, said day or night, sunny or rainy, observers of the station would work monitoring the information.

Accurate data would produce accurate warnings of natural disasters, she said.

Phan Ngoc Tinh, head of the station said they knew that early and accurate warnings would help reducing damages caused by natural disasters for the people and potentially save lives./.