Low tech building

Dragon fruit cultivation in Long An Province. Farming households in the Mekong Delta have been urged to apply hi-tech agricultural practices to develop value-added products that can enter global value chains. — VNA/VNS Photo Vũ Sinh

HCM CITY — Farming households in the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta need to apply high-tech practices to develop value-added agricultural products that can enter global value chains, Lê Minh Hoan, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has said.

Hoan said it was vital to offer incentives and loans to farmers who use sustainable and climate-friendly production processes.

Millions of small-scale farming households, which are the most critically affected by climate change, need access to innovative technologies and practices as well as market information.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global supply chains, posing risks to farmers and exporters of farm produce. The most affected products have been fresh fruits, vegetables and aquatic products, according to the Việt Nam Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

To cope with the outbreak, major firms including the Lộc Trời Group, Vingroup, PAN Group and Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, have invested in high-tech applications.

Firms are also working with cooperatives and farming households to create “clean and safe food sources”. They are training farmers in brand management and offering technical and seed support to improve quality control during processing and before harvesting.

Challenges

In the future, the Mekong Delta will face a growing population and rising urbanisation. Pollution, landslides, coastal erosion and loss of natural forest land are all expected to increase.

Because arable land and harvests will shrink worldwide, productivity and a sufficient supply of quality food must increase, while natural resources remain protected.

Since more than 70 per cent of Việt Nam’s agricultural products are from 22 million smallholder farmers, local agri-businesses should not depend solely on major corporations to promote innovative solutions, experts have said.

Other challenges include farmers’ limited capital. Switching to high-tech agriculture requires a considerable up-front investment.

Another major issue is market and consumer confidence. Building brands and winning customer confidence are essential for Vietnamese brands so they can take advantage of major export markets like the EU under the new EU-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

According to the White Book on Vietnamese Businesses 2020, the Mekong Delta currently has more than 55,000 enterprises, accounting for only 7.26 per cent of the country’s total number.

Most of the businesses in the Mekong Delta region are small and medium-sized, and most lack long-term business strategies in technology investment, human resources training, and branding.

Solutions

Amid deep global integration, Vietnamese products face strong competition from foreign-made goods.

Solutions must be identified, especially for smallholder farmers, to apply technology so they can enter mass markets. But it will take time to change farmers’ methods that have existed for hundreds of years, experts said.

Nguyễn Minh Hải, deputy chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Việt Nam (EuroCham), said that exporters should continue to take advantage of the EVFTA to boost agricultural products such as rice, seafood and fruit.

As many as 39 Vietnamese Geographical Indications (GIs) exist in the EU, providing an adequate framework for further promotion of imports of quality products, he said.

The EU maintains some of the highest sanitary, phytosanitary, origin tracing and sustainable standards in the world. Hải said that exporters should raise local standards and develop new value-added products to compete internationally, particularly in the EU with its population of 450 million.

The elimination of tariffs under the EVFTA is expected to benefit farm produce from the Mekong Delta, but technical barriers to trade will be raised, imposing challenges for products and services.

The Mekong Delta region contributes 54 per cent of rice output, 70 per cent of aquaculture output and 60 per cent of fruit output to the country’s total output. — VNS

Derek Ong, Electronic Industrial Software Solutions manager, Keysight Technologies

Squeezing every last drop of productivity from invested manufacturing equipment on the factory floor was the goal, and hence a lot of focus was on downtime and throughput. Predictive maintenance and asset utilisation are important business outcomes from any successful Industry 4.0 implementation.

Then COVID-19 happened. Other than the race to 5nm chips, 5G, and cloud computing, some sectors of the electronics manufacturing industry have seen a drastic drop in volume, leading to a surplus of production assets on the floor. For some, machines have idled. For others, COVID-19 has caused massive supply chain disruptions.

The necessary steps taken by governments around the globe to manage and halt the spread of this epidemic, has restricted movement of factory employees and subsequently lowered productivity and output. The trade situation between the US and China has forced manufacturers to shuffle operations for business continuity. There are everlasting shifts in manufacturing paradigms as a result of COVID-19. The new “norm” needs a rethink on how Industry 4.0 technology enablers will be used to address the new challenges.

Quality over quantity

Before COVID-19, Industry 4.0 adoption mostly revolved around asset utilisation. In the current situation, it may be better to ensure that every single manufactured product is of the highest quality the process allows. Due to shortages of materials and parts, rising logistics costs and restricted factory employees, manufacturers will have to minimise Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMA) even more than before. Better quality may also prove to be a compelling value differentiator to win more business.

Quality has always been one of the most important manufacturing performance metrics but rather than the usual narrative of adopting Industry 4.0 technologies such as big data analytics, AI, and the Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIOT) to maximise asset utilisations, will need to pivot to adding more focus on improving the quality of the product being manufactured. Keeping machines up and running with minimal downtime gives less Return of Investment (ROI) if product recalls are happening or assets are loaded only half the time most days.

Manufacturing analytics is quickly rising to prominence

Qualitative and quantitative data on products – usually from test and measurement equipment on the floor – is an important source of insights for any big data analytics implementation. They allow engineers to maintain process parameters that yield the highest quality and they provide a real-time barometer of gross reproducibility and repeatability of equipment and processes, which is important for the predictable quality standard of the products.

This means that lower Cost-of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) is going to be something Industry 4.0 technology adoption has to address quickly.

Dangers of anomaly detection and things to look out for

Since the launch of Keysight’s PathWave Manufacturing Analytics in 2018, more manufacturers are embracing the new “normal” and using big data advanced analytics on test and measurement that are generated every second on the production floor.

A core fundamental analytics insight from the platform is being able to predict potential quality issues before they happen. The machine learning tool usually used to do this is around anomaly detection. We have seen a lot of examples of factories investing in setting up a generic big data platform and using publicly available open-source anomaly detection algorithms in production.

What is eventually evident is that these algorithms tend to be low in accuracy when dealing with test and measurement data, as opposed to continuous signals from sensors. This is what drove us to develop our own anomaly detection machine learning model at Keysight, which is tuned to provide the highest accuracy on test and measurement data from the floor.

We also identified “Alert Fatigue” in manufacturing industries that use anomaly detection as a predictor. Hundreds of thousands of measurements are taken in real-time in productionand a large number of anomalies are being alerted to operators or engineers every minute of the day. It is an impossible task for the users to decide which anomaly is most important and what are the most urgent actions to take.

Ultimately, this fatigue leads users to ignore the alerts, and the slow but sure demise of the entire advanced analytics project begins. If the right actions to prevent losses cannot be taken, then the ROI cannot be realised. This is important as, in order to make any investments in big data advanced analytics implementation in the factory worthwhile, it has to directly correlate with business outcomes.

Last year, we put together a team of data scientists and test and measurement experts in Keysight to develop an alert scoring machine learning model that works seamlessly with our anomaly detection algorithms to score measurement anomaly alerts in real-time, and we are planning the release of the new Alert Scoring feature in our upcoming PathWave Manufacturing Analytics 2.4.0 release in the spring of 2021. Alerts are labelled and sorted by the machine learning model as either high, medium, or low severity. The interpretation of the machine learning model of severity required supervised learning that Keysight’s test and measurement were able to provide.

With this first-in-industry alert scoring model, we were able to reduce the number of alerts sent to users for disposition by 90 per cent, in real-life testing. Instead of a hundred alerts, the engineer or operator will only receive ten of the most severe or important alerts.

The ability to combine domain knowledge and data science, sets companies such as Keysight, apart from generic big data platform partners, and we look forward to helping manufacturers achieve more tangible business outcomes with our 2021 roadmap.

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By Bich Thuy

Agricultural production has been affected by abnormal weather conditions, climate change, and diseases over recent years. Many farms in southern Dong Nai province have applied high-technology in agricultural production in order to cope with the situation, helping increase quality and output.

High-tech production requires massive investment, not just capital but also technology, equipment, and “grey matter”, to adapt to cutting-edge manufacturing methods.

High-tech manufacturing models have been expanded around Dong Nai, especially in animal husbandry and on poultry farms.

Dong Nai has more than 46,000 hectares of crops using water-saving technology and the province has gradually changed to green breeding in accordance with Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practice (VietGAP) standards.

Agriculture accounts for 8.3 percent of Dong Nai’s economic structure and agro-forestry-fisheries value currently stands at nearly 1.8 billion USD. The results reflect the province’s large-scale manufacturing development investment and high-tech application to adapt to unfavourable conditions and meet market demand.

Vietnam’s growth outlook to depend on authorities’ response to new outbreak: WB

Vietnam’s growth prospects will depend on how well and how quickly the authorities will bring the new coronavirus outbreak under control and how quickly international and national vaccinations will proceed, according to the World Bank (WB).

In its Vietnam Macro Monitoring report issued earlier this month, the WB said January’s industrial production index jumped by 24.5 percent year on year, the highest growth rate since the beginning of 2019. Merchandise exports and imports respectively grew 51.8 percent and 41.8 percent from the same period last year.

The preliminary January goods trade surplus is estimated at 1.1 billion USD. Exports to the US and China continued the robust growth of 2020 while those to the EU, ASEAN, Japan and the Republic of Korea (RoK) bounced back strongly. Similarly, imports from the RoK, ASEAN and the US joined those from China, Japan and the EU to stay in expansionary territory.

In the first month of 2021, the Government spent a total of 99.6 trillion VND, which is slightly, 1 percent, higher than a year ago. Public investment reached 15 trillion VND, making the disbursement rate of 3.25 percent.

However, the WB added, while Vietnam’s economy has been extremely resilient to the COVID-19 crisis, preliminary results from the COVID-19 World Bank high frequency household survey of January show that almost half of households still reported lower household income than the year before. About 9 percent of households took loans and 15 percent reduced their consumption.

If persistent, this prudent behaviour will negatively affect aggregate domestic demand in the future, according to the bank.

It held that growth prospects for 2021 will be affected by how well and how quickly the authorities will bring the new outbreak under control and how quickly international and national vaccinations will proceed.

If the crisis lingers, the authorities may consider further monetary and fiscal support. Yet, special attention will have to be given to the fiscal space, the health of the financial sector and possible social effects as lasting loss of income among some households may create new inequalities and tensions, the report noted.

Jacques Morisset, WB Lead Economist for Vietnam, said the WB expects with many positive signs like the considerable progress in vaccine development and gradually resumed trading activities, the country can obtain growth of 6 percent in 2021./.

Binh Duong sees high trade growth

The southern province of Binh Duong achieved impressive growth in exports in January.

They grew 61.7 percent year-on-year to 2.98 billion USD.

Many of its main export items such as computers, electronics and components (75 percent) and wooden products (89 percent) saw high growth.

The textile-garment and footwear sectors, which struggled last year due to COVID-19, picked up pace as businesses began receiving more orders.

Exports to the US, which accounted for 65.2 percent of the province’s total exports in January, grew by 68.9 percent.

Exports to other markets such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan also saw growth.

Notably, Hai Duong province achieved 37 percent growth despite being severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic./.

Hotel occupancy rates in HCM City at less than 10 per cent

More independent trips, “free & easy” tours and guided small group tours will be high on travellers’ agendas for 2021, the HCM City Department of Tourism has said.

Staycations and luxury leisure vacations have been popular this year, the department said in a report. Short-distance itineraries to the southeastern region and Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta, following health and safety protocols, have been favoured by travellers.

Independent trips, including self-drive itineraries located near the city such as Vũng Tàu, Đà Lạt and Phan Thiết, saw a rise in visitors during the Tết holiday.

Lại Minh Duy, general director of TST Tourist, said domestic tours could be customised for each group or family, with socially-distanced and mask-wearing guidelines.

Many Tết tours had been delayed until the Reunification Day holiday on April 30, when COVID-19 outbreaks were expected to be contained by that time, Duy said.

Travellers scrambled to cancel trips and get refunds for tours during the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday due to COVID-19 outbreaks in late January, just a few days ahead of Tết.

Around 500 customers cancelled Tết tours worth a total of VNĐ 6 billion (US$260,400) at leading travel firms in the city. Most of them required full refunds and refused to delay trips, firms said.

Travel demand during Tết was nearly at a standstill. During the holiday, popular tourist and entertainment sites in the city such as Đầm Sen Park, Suối Tiên Theme Park, Văn Thánh and Bình Quới tourist sites were closed to contain the spread of the virus.

Hotels in HCM City are now operating at occupancy rates of less than 10 per cent, according to the department. Many hotels prepared special F&B programmes and offered promotions to meet rising demand during the Tết season but were then affected by the new outbreaks.

As many as 29 hotels with a total of 2,053 rooms have been approved to serve as hotel quarantine areas, and four more, with a total of more than 440 rooms, are waiting for approval from city authorities.

Investor begins building ICT service chain in Đà Nẵng

Trung Nam Group has started construction of five factories at the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) Service Zone in Đà Nẵng to host the moves of global supply chains.

The general director of Trung Nam Group, Nguyễn Tâm Tiến said the factory chain would be built on 9.3ha at Đà Nẵng Information Technology Park with an investment of VNĐ1.5 trillion (US$65.2 million).

The group would also develop an apartment and villa zone for expert and engineers and an eco-park project on 26ha with a total of VNĐ2.1 trillion ($91.3 million) for accommodation facilities for investors and their families in the near future, he said.

Tiến said the group planned to build 23 more ICT factories and R&D zones to meet increasing demand from global partners

“We debuted the first surface-mount technology (SMT) factory with a capacity of 6.2 million electronic products per year at the Đà Nẵng Hi-tech Park last year after three months of research,” he said.

He said the operation of the SMT factories chain will be a key step in building the Đà Nẵng IT Park as central Việt Nam’s ‘Silicon Valley’, and call for investors from Silicon Valley and the US to invest in high-tech industries, artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation.

Trung Nam completed the first investment phase on 131ha at Đà Nẵng IT Park with an investment of $47 million. It plans to develop the second phase on another 210ha with estimated funds of $74 million.

Universal Alloy Corporation – a leading global manufacturer of aircraft components for aerospace companies – from the US launched its factory for aircraft components worth $170 million, at the city’s Hi-Tech Park last March.

Alton Industry from the US also plans to build a robot manufacturing project in the city’s Hi-tech Park.

In 2019, two of the first Silicon Valley-based businesses – Meritronics AMT Inc and Ai20X Silicon Valley – agreed with Trung Nam Group to develop the Đà Nẵng IT Park.

Last year, South Korea’s LG Electronics and Trung Nam Land JSC inked an agreement with a vision to transform Đà Nẵng into the centre of technology and R&D in Việt Nam.

Kien Giang expands lucrative shrimp-breeding models

The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Kiên Giang plans to expand its brackish-water shrimp farming areas this year in an aim to increase farmers’ incomes and adjust to soil, water and climatic conditions.

Quảng Trọng Thao, deputy director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that intensive industrial shrimp breeding with advanced techniques would be done in areas that have sufficient infrastructure and investment capacity, primarily in the Long Xuyên Quadrangle.

The province will also review and turn unproductive rice fields into rice – shrimp farming fields that rotate the cultivation of shrimp and rice on the same fields, he added.

The province is encouraging farmers to breed shrimp using advanced two-stage and three-stage industrial farming models, and apply Vietnamese good agricultural practice (VietGAP) standards and other international farming standards to meet export requirements.

The province is developing rice – shrimp farming areas in the districts An Biên, An Minh, Vĩnh Thuận, U Minh Thượng, Gò Quao, Hòn Đất, Kiên Lương and Giang Thành.

Kiên Giang, which is the country’s largest rice producing province, has turned thousands of hectares of unproductive rice fields in coastal areas into rice-and-shrimp rotation models in recent years.

With a coastline of more than 200 kilometres, the province has advantages to develop rice – shrimp farming models in coastal areas.

Hòn Đất District alone has conditions to develop its rice – shrimp farming area to 20,000ha. The district plans to expand the area to 16,000ha by 2030.

Under the rice – shrimp farming model, farmers rotate growing rice in the rainy season and breeding shrimp in the dry season in the same fields, or intercrop breeding shrimp in ditches around rice fields and growing rice at the same time.

The rice – shrimp farming model offers farmers an average profit of VNĐ70 – 100 million (US$3,000 – 4,400) per hectare a year, two to three times higher than only rice cultivation, according to farmers.

Farmer Huỳnh Văn Bạc has intercropped cultivating mùa rice and giant river prawn on 3ha in Châu Thành District’s Vĩnh Hòa Phú Commune since 2017.

He has earned an average profit of more than VNĐ160 million ($7,000) a crop.

Mùa rice is planted only in the rainy season and lasts about six months each crop.

“The cultivation of mùa rice helps farmers reduce production costs and get high prices. I also earn additional income from harvesting giant river prawn,” Bạc said.

He said that farmers need help from local agencies to access soft loans and advanced farming techniques.

Since early this year, farmers have received high prices for shrimp varieties because of high export demand.

The price of white-legged shrimp, for instance, increased to VNĐ150,000 – 198,000 ($6.5 – 8.6) a kilogramme early this year, up VNĐ10,000 – 15,000 against the end of last year.

Farmers who breed giant river prawn had a bumper harvest of shrimp before and after Tết (Lunar New Year). Traders are buying giant river prawn at a high price of VNĐ130,000 – 180,000 ($5.7 – 7.8) a kilogramme, depending on their size.

The brackish-water shrimp farming area will be expanded to 136,000 ha with an annual output of 98,000 tonnes this year, according to the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Of the figure, industrial and semi-industrial farming models will cover 4,000ha, shrimp – rice farming 104,500ha, and advanced extensive farming 27,500ha.

Last year, the province bred 134,235ha of brackish-water shrimp with an annual output of 92,490 tonnes.

HCM City to fill 30,000 job vacancies after Tet

There will be some 30,000 job vacancies in Ho Chi Minh City after the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, according to the city’s Human Resources Forecast and Labour Market Information (Falmi) Centre.

Most recruitment will be in business-trade, services, garment-leather footwear, food processing, chemical-plastic-rubber, customer service, transport-warehouse-port services, IT, and tourism-restaurant-hostels.

Falmi Centre Vice Director Do Thanh Van said that 85.8 percent of the total vacancies are for trained and skilled employees.

According to head of the Ho Chi Minh City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority Hua Quoc Hung, businesses at local export processing and industrial parks need to employ some 12,000 workers to satisfy their production plans, 2,540 of whom must hold university degrees and 4,700 secondary education certificates or college degrees.

Vacancies are seen in the garment and leather footwear sector and from enterprises at Tan Binh, Linh Trung 1 and 2, and Tan Tao processing and industrial zones, to cover for workers who left their jobs last year.

The Falmi Centre said that the city will have around 70,000-75,000 job vacancies in the first quarter, mostly in business-trade, services, garment-leather footwear, food processing, chemical-plastic-rubber, customer service, and IT, among others./.

Vietcombank offers interest reduction on COVID-19-affected customers

The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) – one of the major banks in Vietnam – on February 22 announced that it will reduce the interest rate on all existing loans for three months until May 22.

The decision is part of the bank’s effort to support its customers amid impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, Vietcombank will lower interest rate for COVID-19-hit enterprises by 10 percent, and 5 percent for remaining customer groups that suffer negative impacts from the pandemic.

For individual customers, Vietnambank will reduce interest rate by 0.2 percent per year for those who take loans for production and business.

According to the bank, 105,000 customers will benefit from the programme with total credit of 350 trillion VND (15.18 billion USD), accounting for 40 percent of the total outstanding debt balance of the bank.

In 2020, Vietcombank offered five interest reduction programmes to support enterprises and people affected by COVID-19 and flooding, becoming the credit institution to offer largest reduction in many years, and bringing the loan interest to the lowest level in the banking system.

The total amount of loans covered by interest reduction programmes was 441.7 trillion VND, while the total value of interest reduction in 2020 was nearly 4 trillion VND.

Alongside, Vietnambank has restructured the payment date and maintained the debt group classification on over 5.15 trillion VND worth of loans.

Sustainability the goal for agricultural goods

The consumption of agricultural products will move towards diversity and sustainability, according to a newly-approved plan.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently approved a plan to change agricultural product consumption in 2021 – 2025, with a vision to 2030.

The plan, designed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, aims to reorganise agricultural production on a large scale in accordance with the planning and requirements of the market, accelerating the use of science and technology, and applying traceability of agricultural products.

Along with that, trade and services cooperatives will be consolidated and developed as a necessary intermediary between farmers, businesses and banks to organise consumption for farmers.

The plan will build a binding mechanism linking the main parties in the agricultural product consumption channel and supportive policies to encourage all parties to link organically from material supply, production to the consumption of agricultural products.

The plan is also set to promote communication and raise awareness of organisations and individuals about innovating methods of trading and consuming agricultural products.

In addition, the management of safe production processes and product quality control will be strictly enhanced before selling to the market, ensuring agro-products meet not only domestic standards but also standards of importing countries.

The plan states the modernisation of production and business will focus on trade promotion, agricultural branding activities gradually, domestic and international market expansion to limit dependence on certain markets to reduce risks and improve the values of agricultural products; research, and science and technology application enhancement./.

Public investment disbursement must be sped up: minister

Speeding up the disbursement of public investment from the start of this year was an important solution to accelerate economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung has said.

The global economy was expected to embark on the recovery process after a deep downturn in 2020 due to the pandemic. However, the recovery would be different from country to country, depending on the developments of the pandemic and efforts to contain the virus.

“It is necessary to drastically implement measures to accelerate the disbursement of public investment in 2021, right from the first months of the year to create the impetus for economic growth to meet and even exceed targets,” the minister said.

Accountability must be enhanced, he stressed.

To make public investment a pillar for economic growth, the finance ministry is developing a programme with a focus on removing legal bottlenecks to disbursement of public investment.

Inspections would also be enhanced to ensure the allocation and use of public investment to follow National Assembly and Government plans while close watch would be kept on the process to tackle problems.

Regarding the disbursement of public investment from foreign loans, Dung said the progress remained stagnant, partly due to the pandemic.

There were also subjective reasons for the stagnation, including slow site clearance, a lack of accountability and poor preparation which required adjustments and slowed disbursement, he said.

He said that to fulfil the public investment plan for 2021-25, it was important to enhance the accountability of all parties relevant to the use of public investment in all stages, from preparation to implementation and settlement.

Projects which failed to meet planned progress should have their capital revoked, he stressed.

Statistics of the Ministry of Planning and Investment showed the disbursement of public investment was estimated at 398 trillion VND (17.3 billion USD) as of the end of December, meeting 82.8 percent of the Government’s plan – the highest rate in the 2016-20, thanks to the Government’s determination to speed up the disbursement of public investment as a major driver for economic growth.

According to the General Statistics Office, every increase by 1 percent in public investment disbursement would push GDP by 0.06 percentage points.

The Vietnamese economy expanded at 2.91 percent in 2020, the lowest rate in the past decade but this was considered a big success in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic./.

Binh Duong sees high export and import growth in January

Binh Duong Province achieved impressive growth in exports in January to rank third in the country behind only HCM City and Bac Ninh Province.

They grew 61.7 per cent year-on-year to US$2.98 billion.

Many of its main export items such as computers, electronics and components (75 per cent) and wooden products (89 per cent) saw high growth.

The textile-garment and footwear sectors, which struggled last year due to COVID-19, picked up pace as businesses began receiving more orders.

Exports to the US, which accounted for 65.2 per cent of the province’s total exports in January, grew by 68.9 per cent.

Exports to other markets such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan also saw growth.

HCM City led the country with exports of $8.9 billion, and Bac Ninh followed with $7.7 billion.

Notably, Hai Duong Province achieved 37 per cent growth despite being severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sustainability the goal for agricultural product consumption

The consumption of agricultural products will move towards diversity and sustainability, according to a newly-approved plan.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently approved a plan to change agricultural product consumption in 2021 – 2025, with a vision to 2030.

The plan, designed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, aims to reorganise agricultural production on a large scale in accordance with the planning and requirements of the market, accelerating the use of science and technology, and applying traceability of agricultural products.

Along with that, trade and services co-operatives will be consolidated and developed as a necessary intermediary between farmers, businesses and banks to organise consumption for farmers.

The plan will build a binding mechanism linking the main parties in the agricultural product consumption channel and supportive policies to encourage all parties to link organically from material supply, production to the consumption of agricultural products.

The plan is also set to promote communication and raise awareness of organisations and individuals about innovating methods of trading and consuming agricultural products.

In addition, the management of safe production processes and product quality control will be strictly enhanced before selling to the market, ensuring agro-products meet not only domestic standards but also standards of importing countries.

The plan states the modernisation of production and business will focus on trade promotion, agricultural branding activities gradually, domestic and international market expansion to limit dependence on certain markets to reduce risks and improve the values of agricultural products; research, and science and technology application enhancement.

HCM City developers move to provinces on cheaper prices, improving transport infrastructure

While the HCM City housing market has gone quiet after the renewed outbreak of COVID-19, the market in neighbouring provinces like Dong Nai, Long An and Binh Duong has seen robust growth this year, experts said.

Distance is no longer a problem for developers in and around HCM City thanks to improved transport infrastructure, and they are increasingly looking at neighbouring provinces where prices are more reasonable and have potential for property development.

A recent report by the Viet Nam Association of Realtors (VARS) said the development of Long Thanh International Airport in Dong Nai and Thu Duc City and the construction of new roads and bridges connecting the south-eastern region with HCM City have led to increased activity in the real estate market.

This is creating a wave of investment in emerging markets while traditional markets are reaching saturation point, general director of real estate services firm DKRA Viet Nam, Pham Lam, said.

In Binh Duong Province, land in areas adjacent to HCM City which have potential for economic development, such as Thuan An and Di An cities, have become ideal for affordable apartment projects, a product the city lacks.

VARS said apartment prices in Binh Duong increased sharply last year despite Covid-19 — from VND25-30 million (US$1,080-1,300) per square meter to VND30-35 million (US$1,300-1,500) — but remain much lower than in the city.

In Dong Nai, land prices in areas close to the eastern part of HCM City have also increased, especially thanks to the construction of the airport in Long Thanh.

In 2019 the average land price was VND12-14 million per square metre, and rose to VND22 million last year. In Long Thanh Town, the price has surged to VND100 million in some areas.

The real estate market in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province is also hot since it is adjacent to HCM City and has great potential for tourism development.

Investors also are keen on Long An Province, which too borders HCM City. Some projects with high potential go for VND21-26 million per square metre while in other areas is VND13-15 million.

No land is available in recent projects at less than VND15 million.

Covid-19 causes insolvency of real estate enterprises

The real estate industry has accounted for about 4.42% of Vietnam’s total gross domestic product in 2020.

Nearly 1,000 real estate enterprises have completed dissolution procedures in 2020 in Vietnam due to the impact of Covid-19, according to the Ministry of Construction.

A number of real estate enterprises had to go bankrupt due to Covid-19 in 2020. Photo: Doan Thanh

Last year, many real estate enterprises had to improve their capacity and increase adaptability to the pandemic. The number of the newly-established enterprises in the sector in 2020 was 6,694, down 15.5% compared to 2019.

In the last quarter of 2020, the sector slightly expanded compared to growth in the first quarter mainly thanks to the rapid recovery of the housing and industrial segments. This led to a positive growth for the whole year of 2020.

According to the Ministry of Construction, the real estate credit kept expanding in the whole year of 2020, except for the first quarter because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

In addition to bank credit, which was the main source of capital, the real estate market lured inflows from other sources such as individuals, remittances and capital from the issuance of stocks, bonds of listed companies and foreign-invested enterprises.

Bình Dương sees high export and import growth in January

Bình Dương Province achieved impressive growth in exports in January to rank third in the country behind only HCM City and Bắc Ninh Province.

They grew 61.7 per cent year-on-year to US$2.98 billion.

Many of its main export items such as computers, electronics and components (75 per cent) and wooden products (89 per cent) saw high growth.

The textile-garment and footwear sectors, which struggled last year due to COVID-19, picked up pace as businesses began receiving more orders.

Exports to the US, which accounted for 65.2 per cent of the province’s total exports in January, grew by 68.9 per cent.

Exports to other markets such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan also saw growth.

HCM City led the country with exports of $8.9 billion, and Bắc Ninh followed with $7.7 billion.

Notably, Hải Dương Province achieved 37 per cent growth despite being severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

HCM City developers move to provinces on cheaper prices, improving transport infrastructure

While the HCM City housing market has gone quiet after the renewed outbreak of Covid-19, the market in neighbouring provinces like Đồng Nai, Long An and Bình Dương has seen robust growth this year, experts said.

Distance is no longer a problem for developers in and around HCM City thanks to improved transport infrastructure, and they are increasingly looking at neighbouring provinces where prices are more reasonable and have potential for property development.

A recent report by the Việt Nam Association of Realtors (VARS) said the development of Long Thành International Airport in Đồng Nai and Thủ Đức City and the construction of new roads and bridges connecting the south-eastern region with HCM City have led to increased activity in the real estate market.

This is creating a wave of investment in emerging markets while traditional markets are reaching saturation point, general director of real estate services firm DKRA Việt Nam, Phạm Lâm, said.

In Bình Dương Province, land in areas adjacent to HCM City which have potential for economic development, such as Thuận An and Dĩ An cities, have become ideal for affordable apartment projects, a product the city lacks.

VARS said apartment prices in Bình Dương increased sharply last year despite Covid-19 — from VNĐ25-30 million (US$1,080-1,300) per square meter to VNĐ30-35 million (US$1,300-1,500) — but remain much lower than in the city.

In Đồng Nai, land prices in areas close to the eastern part of HCM City have also increased, especially thanks to the construction of the airport in Long Thành.

In 2019 the average land price was VNĐ12-14 million per square metre, and rose to VNĐ22 million last year. In Long Thành Town, the price has surged to VNĐ100 million in some areas.

The real estate market in Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu Province is also hot since it is adjacent to HCM City and has great potential for tourism development.

Investors also are keen on Long An Province, which too borders HCM City. Some projects with high potential go for VNĐ21-26 million per square metre while in other areas is VNĐ13-15 million.

No land is available in recent projects at less than VNĐ15 million.

Enhancing added value for rice industry

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has just approved a project on restructuring the Vietnam’s rice industry until 2025 with a vision to 2030.

Accordingly, Vietnam will continue to restructure the rice industry in the direction of improving efficiency and sustainable development towards the objectives of fully meeting domestic consumption demand, being the core in ensuring national food security, and enhancing the efficiency of the rice value chain.

Under the project, Vietnam also expects to adapt to climate change and mitigate the impacts of climate change, make efficient use of natural resources and protect the ecological environment, and increase income for farmers and benefits for consumers, in addition to exporting high quality and high value rice.

The country also plans to keep its rice area at 3.6 to 3.7 million hectares by 2025, with rice production of 40 to 41 million tonnes per year.

The rice industry also aims at exporting 5 million tonnes of rice each year by 2025, including 40% fragrant rice, specialty rice and japonica rice, 20% sticky rice, 20% high quality rice, 15% medium and low-grade rice, and 5% products processed from rice. The percentage of branded rice exports is over 20%.

The country sets the target of exporting 4 million tonnes of rice by 2030, including 45% fragrant rice, specialty rice and japonica rice, 20% sticky rice, 15% high quality rice, 10% medium and low-grade rice, and 10% products processed from rice, with over 40% branded rice exports.

A notable aspect of the project is that the rice export volume has decreased gradually in each period, but the criteria for specialty rice, high quality rice, processed products from rice, and percentage of branded rice exports sees increases year by year.

This shows that the future direction of the rice industry is to reduce the area and output for export towards a focus on improving rice quality and selling prices.

This is the right target which is suitable to the current situation of rice production and export, particularly in the context that Vietnam has signed many free trade agreements (FTAs) with international partners, such as the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the UK-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UKVFTA).

To make the best use of the advantages from FTAs, the rice industry has to constantly improve product quality to meet the increasingly strict requirements of importing countries.

Rice is a strategic commodity of our country, not only contributing to the economic development but also playing an important role in ensuring national food security. Therefore, promoting the restructuring of this industry is essential to better boost the achieved results while igniting untapped potential.

The solution for the coming time is to develop concentrated rice production areas with identified varieties and the links between production, consumption and export. It is also important to strictly control the production process, obey the limit of pesticide residue, and ensure traceability.

The rice industry also needs to apply advanced technology in terms of post-harvest preservation and processing to reduce losses, ensure uniform quality of rice products, and fully satisfy food hygiene and safety regulations.

EVN gets nod to develop major thermal power plant in Quang Binh

The estimated investment for the project, which was designed to have a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, will include EVN’s equity of more than VND9.6 trillion and loans of over VND38.5 trillion, the local media reported.

The first generator of the plant is expected to be put into commercial operation in 2028 and the second generator in the following year.

The prime minister has urged the government of Quang Binh Province to accelerate the issuance of the investment registration certificate, the handover of land for EVN and the conversion of the land use purpose as well as to supervise the execution of the project. The Government leader has also asked the province to coordinate with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and EVN to assess the possible impacts of the project on the environment.

Meanwhile, EVN must be responsible for capital mobilization solutions of the project. It must also ensure the effectiveness of the State capital poured into the project.

Vietnam urged to increase added value for rice industry

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has granted approval to a project aimed at restructuring the Vietnamese rice sector by 2025 and 2030, with a primary focus on improving the sector’s added value.

Under the scheme, the local rice sector will boost restructuring, meet domestic consumption demand, constantly ensure national food security, improve the quality and nutritional value of products, and establish.

Furthermore, restructuring operations will aim to adapt to and mitigate climate change, whilst making use of natural resources in an effective manner, protecting the environment, increasing farmer income, and exporting high-quality rice.

With regards to rice exports, the sector has set the aim of exporting five million tonnes of rice by 2025 and four million tonnes by 2030, of which fragrant, specialty and japonica rice will account for the largest proportion with 40% and 45%, respectively.

Most notably, despite the rice export volume enduring a downward trajectory, the quality and price of rice has significantly improved in recent times.

According to experts, to take full advantage of free trade agreements (FTAs) such as the EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the UK-Vietnam FTA (UKVFTA), the rice sector will be required to improve product quality to meet the stringent requirements of importers.

They also emphasised the necessity of developing rice farming areas that grow high-quality rice varieties, with a specific focus on boosting connectivity among production, consumption, and export, whilst strictly controlling the maximum limit of pesticide residue and origin traceability.

The sector has been advised to apply preservation and processing technologies in the post-harvest period to churn out high-quality products that are in line with food hygiene and safety regulations.

HCM City: Korean bank proposes investment study for Metro Line No. 5

The Export-Import Bank of the Republic of Korea (KEXIM) has asked Ho Chi Minh City’s authorities for permission to conduct an investment study for Phase 2 of Metro Line No. 5, set to be carried out in the public-private partnership (PPP) format.

In its letter sent to the Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee and the city’s Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR), KEXIM said it will soon provide funding for the update of the project’s pre-feasibility study, which covers technical, financial, and legal aspects, according to the MAUR.

The bank noted that members of the research group and participating investors have experience in building and operating urban railway routes, including Metro Line No. 9 of the RoK’s Seoul capital, in the PPP format.

The MAUR said it had a working session on January 19 with some investors and consultancies from the RoK to discuss the study and related orientations for the project.

The Korean side, including KEXIM and some businesses and consultancies, presented the plan to update the pre-feasibility study, whose final version is expected to be submitted by the end of 2021.

The pre-feasibility study for Phase 2 of Metro Line No. 5 was previously financed by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). However, due to certain objective reasons, the project was unable to be funded through official development assistance (ODA) loans, but the PPP format.

The 23.39km-long Metro Line No. 5 is developed in two phases.

The first one, from the Bay Hien intersection to Sai Gon Bridge, is about 8.8km long and invested with around 1.66 billion USD. It is funded with ODA capital from the Spanish Government, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the German development bank KfW.

Meanwhile, Phase 2 is about 14.5km long./.

Aquatic product exports forecast to reach 9.4 billion USD in 2021

Vietnam’s aquatic product exports are expected to rake in 9.4 billion USD this year, a surge from 8.5 billion USD in 2020, driven by a strong rebound in demand of export markets and the support of free trade agreements, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Producers and Exporters (VASEP).

Analysts of FPT Securities JSC (FPTS) predicted Vietnam to continue increasing shrimp output in 2021, reaching 730,000 tonnes, up 4 percent year-on-year.

Stable supply will be an advantage for Vietnamese shrimp exporters to expand their market shares in export markets.

The prices of exported shrimps are also forecast to rise slightly by 5 percent to an average of 9.6 USD per kg, according to an FPTS report.

Meanwhile, experts from BIDV Securities Company said that it is difficult for Vietnam’s shrimp sector to enjoy high export growth in 2021, as the production of competitive countries such as India and Ecuador begin strong recovery, especially when the two countries’ shrimp prices are 10-15 percent lower than that of Vietnam.

However, the shipment of shrimps to the EU, which accounts for 21 percent of Vietnam’s total shrimp export turnover, is expected to be supported by the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

The tariffs imposed on frozen shrimps were slashed to zero percent immediately after the EVFTA became effective on August 1, 2020, while those on processed shrimps will reduce to zero percent from January 1, 2027.

The output of Vietnam’s tra fish is also forecast to maintain uptrend this year.

FPTS expects that the export will bounce back thanks to increasing demand of Vietnam’s main importers such as China, the US, and the EU.

Vietnamese businesses’ efforts to focus on value added processed products which meet all requirements on food safety and origin traceability of products will be paid off, with the export value of processed tra fish to surge in 2021./.

Source: VNA/VNS/VOV/VIR/SGT/Nhan Dan/Hanoitimes

Last year was certainly a challenging one for the healthcare sector. How exactly did Vietnam go about controlling the biggest pandemic in decades?

Nguyen Truong Son, Deputy Minister of Health

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented challenge to public health, negatively affecting economies worldwide and all aspects of socioeconomic development.

There have been great pressures on the healthcare system and related services in the prevention and fight against the pandemic, especially before vaccines and specific treatment drugs were available. Requirements of new technologies in prevention and treatment were needed as well as protection of public health to ensure strong manpower for economic development, social security, and political stability.

Increasing capacity of the public health system was also required, as well as cooperation in research and production of a vaccine in a safe and effective manner.

Vietnam is one of the very few countries to have successfully contained the pandemic. Under the directions of the Party, the government, and the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, the healthcare sector has actively worked with ministries and relevant agencies as well as cities and provinces on implementing strong measures and solutions with the principle of four on-site actions which proves its effectiveness in the fight.

Also in 2020, the sector implemented a telehealth scheme, opening a new period in diagnosis and treatment, helping locals get better access to quality services at grassroot facilities, and narrowing the gap in the number and skills of healthcare practitioners between central and grassroot units. Moreover, Vietnam was one of the first countries to research and manufacture quick test kits for the coronavirus, and has also made initial success in researching and testing Nano Covax – the first Vietnamese-made COVID-19 vaccine on humans.

What policies does the healthcare sector have to further ease administrative procedures and thus create a more favourable business environment for pharmaceutical and medical devices players?

The Ministry of Health (MoH) is actively working on measures to cut investment and business conditions, and administrative procedures in the sector in the 2021-2025 period. On December 31, the MoH issued Circular No.29/2020/TT-BYT amending, supplementing, and removing legal documents issued by the health minister, or jointly-issued ones. This circular amends some regulations of 11 other circulars enacted on management of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, and HIV towards creating favourable conditions for enterprises which have been hit by COVID-19, while intensifying state management on quality of imports.

Along with digital transformation and IT application in healthcare, the circular allows businesses to make e-submission of documents and provide links to enable authorised agencies to make on search and post-check. This circular also abolished 28 other circulars which have invalid regulations and are no longer suitable with all the fields of the ministry.

According to estimates from the Vietnam Institute of Economics, Circular 29 will help enterprises save 2.4 million working days, and VND625 billion ($27.17 million) annually. This reflects the new management mode, making it ready to effectively respond to the unprecedented difficulties caused by the pandemic.

Despite more favourable policies, private and foreign investment into the healthcare sector are still lower than expected. What are the main solutions to be taken in order to increase its attraction?

In this development period, private and foreign investment is an inevitable trend and suitable with socioeconomic development. However, private domestic and foreign investment in the healthcare sector has remained lower than growth potential and social demands.

In order to increase its attraction to the private sector and foreign investors, thus helping ease overloads at public-run health facilities and financial burden from the state budget – as well as create more selections for people in diagnosis and treatment services – the sector will focus on several issues.

Firstly, in order to develop the private healthcare system, we need specific policies to encourage the private sector to invest, especially in non-profit services, because the field is not yet attractive to investors due to high risks and low profitability. Moreover, it needs supporting policies for private and foreign financiers for their investments.

Second is to create a healthy business environment in support policies and technology transfer among private and public healthcare facilities. The incentive policies such as tax, credits, and land should be built to encourage non-profit private healthcare models and facilitate investors to fully approach stimulus loan packages, especially for facilities with specific specialties, and advanced medical equipment.

Third is building a list of fields and projects that are given priority to investment in the upcoming development period, focusing on health facilities, preventive health, pharmacy, medical devices, training, food safety, grassroot healthcare facilities, IT, and medical environment management.

They have to be in line with the targets of the country’s socioeconomic development plan in the 2021-2025 period, with a vision towards 2030, as well as national master planning and master planning of sectors, regions, and provinces so as to create a motivation to spur investment in the healthcare sector.

Fourth is to renovate the investment structure and investment modes from the state budget, and strengthen the mobilisation of investment capital from different resources to serve the development of the healthcare system. Diversifying public-private partnership models and ensuring transparency, healthy competition, and fair treatment between the public and private sector in supplying health services is vital. We also must encourage organisations and private investors to fund health facilities (including in primary healthcare), focusing on the supply of high-end services, advanced technology, and customised services.

Lastly there is a need to rearrange the organisational structure and network of medical facilities in a streamlined direction to increase their efficiency and better global integration to harmonise private-public health development.

A number of new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) like the one made with the EU, as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, are expected to increase market access to international investors. How will these open up opportunities in the healthcare sector?

Vietnam’s signing of FTAs have made impacts on five areas in the sector. First is the policy. New-generation FTAs play an important role in creating an open investment environment for domestic and international investors, encouraging domestic businesses to make changes and take initiatives in finding new ways to better integrate and compete with foreign businesses, and giving a push to domestic manufacturing to meet the requirements of the home market and exports to member countries of FTAs, as well as others worldwide.

Moreover, they also help Vietnam attract investment from more powerful investors, and multinational corporations in the region and worldwide in pharma production and business trading in Vietnam to meet local demands and for exports.

Second is to increase people’s access to drugs and national healthcare coverage. When local manufacturing develops, health facilities and locals have more selection of high-quality drugs and vaccines with high safety, efficacy, and reasonable prices, thus strengthening care and protecting people’s health, as well as increasing national healthcare coverage.

Third is development of local production. When Vietnam signs FTAs, competition from foreign rivals will prompt domestic Vietnamese counterparts to change their mindset, find new business governance, and apply new technology in production and business activities so as to join the global value chain.

In this context, businesses that are active and know how to grasp opportunities well will benefit from commitments related to trade in goods and services, incentive policies of member nations, and technology transfer from developed countries to develop domestic production on par with international norms and technical standards, thus promoting stable growth and increasing value.

On the contrary, businesses which fail to make changes to catch up with the trend may fall into recession, or even go bankrupt. FTAs are considered a filter, eliminating weak players and maintaining strong ones.

Fourth is job opportunities. Encouraging and attracting foreign investment creates a favourable business climate for foreign investors, and then creates more jobs for the locals and increases income for labourers. However, if labourers themselves fail to tap into the opportunity and make better adaptation, they will be not able to meet the high requirements about skills, knowledge, and others in the more professional working environment.

In addition, with FTAs, labourers have opportunities to select better jobs, thus possibly leading to movements to well-paid jobs (often in foreign-invested enterprises). This urges domestic businesses to have better policies to recruit and retain skilled labourers to serve local production and exports.

Finally is the impact on the environment and society. FTAs leverage foreign investment in Vietnam – however, the incentive policies should go in hand with strict rules on environmental protection (for example, the regulations on waste treatment in production) and social security (for example, network security or violations in advertisements causing negative impacts on consumers). Through these agreements, tariff barriers are gradually removed through a roadmap.

By Bich Thuy