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Lam’s introduction happened during the halftime break of a J1 League match between Osaka and Urawa Reds. He had earlier spent 14 days in quarantine.

Wearing the number 1 jersey, Lam was introduced alongside Australian forward Adam Taggart.

“Hello everyone, I’m Dang Van Lam, a goalkeeper from Vietnam. I’m really happy and excited to be here for the first time. I will train really hard to play well and contribute to the club,” Lam said.

Osaka is currently fourth on the table after 12 J1 League rounds. The club is slated to play in the AFC Champions League tournament. To get a regular spot in the team, the 28-year-old keeper will have to prove his worth and compete against other keepers in the team like South Korean Kim Jin-hyeon and Japanese Kenya Matsui.

Lam, who grew up in Russia and spent his youth at Spartak Moscow and Dynamo Moscow clubs, moved to Vietnam in 2011 to play for the Hoang Anh Gia Lai club. After unsuccessful spells in Laos and Russia, his career finally took off in 2015 after he joined Hai Phong FC.

He retained his excellent form for the next four years, got called up to the national team and has become its number one choice.

In 2019, he transferred to Muangthong United for $500,000 and put in 42 appearances for the Thai club.

He will be the fourth Vietnamese to play for a Japanese club, after Le Cong Vinh (Consadole Sapporo), Nguyen Tuan Anh (Yokohama FC) and Nguyen Cong Phuong (Mito Hollyhock). All three predecessors played for the J2 League, making Lam the first Vietnamese to play for a J1 League team.

Lam was in the news earlier this year when he decided to end his contract with Muangthong United and move to Osaka. Muangthong has reported him to FIFA for contract violation, but Lam’s agent said the player has every right to terminate the contract since the Thai club had cut his pay without telling him.

The event was held amid the Vietnamese Government is building important documents to submit to the National Assembly for approval, related to socio-economic development orientations, fiscal management and public debt and public investment for the 2021-2025 period.

The webinar also aims to promptly and accurately provide investors information on the country’s socio-economic development and the Government’s decisions related to the investor community.

According to the MOF, Vietnam joining the group of middle-income countries marks an important milestone, opening new possibilities for proactive and effective debt management, while offering the country an opportunity to access a large commercial capital market, allowing for more proactive and flexible capital mobilisation with appropriate borrowing costs amid Vietnam’s positive economic development.

Increasing contact and maintaining relations with investors is an important task to ensure the timely and accurate transmission of information on the macro scale, socio-economic development of the country and Government’s policies to investors.

At the forum, the IMF’s representatives offered suggestion on the objectives and principles of investor relations, focusing on the transparency of data and decisions, the ability to connect with the local authorities to further clarify public information and the accuracy of data.

In addition, IMF experts also offered ways to facilitate investor relations, including setting up website debt management, organising market consultations, phone talks, seminars and conferences, and especially setting up institutional tools to better perform the investor relations function.

Domestic experts at the event discussed the current practices in implementing the investor relationship, the coordination process among agencies, and regulations on reporting data.

The MOF also said that the goal of the series of cooperation activities with the IMF is to help the relevant agencies to strengthen their staff’s capacity in relation to practices of the international capital market, facilitating them to be more proactive in accessing the market and allowing them to conduct transactions immediately at the most favourable times.

In addition to mobilising international capital, the task of contacting and providing accurate information to investors must become a regular task, thereby contributing to promoting the image and reputation of the country to international friends.

Sharp increases in capital contributions and share purchase

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), there were 1,321 valid projects invested in by Vietnamese enterprises abroad with a total registered capital of US$20.6 billion by the end of 2019. The disbursement of the investment capital was US$9.49 billion by the end of the same year.

Vietnamese enterprises have invested in 78 countries and territories across the world with the largest investments poured into Laos, Russia, Cambodia, Venezuela, and Myanmar. Enterprises invested in 18 key industries and sectors with the biggest capital running in the oil and gas industry, accounting for 38.4% of the total offshore investment capital.

About 15.3% of the investment capital was poured into agricultural, forestry and fishery sector while 12.8% of the capital was invested in telecommunications and information technology and 7.2% of the capital went into the hydroelectricity sector.

The number of small and medium-sized projects run by the private sector has increased over the years while the number of large-scale projects run by State-owned enterprises in the areas of oil and gas exploration and extraction, telecommunications, industrial crops and hydroelectricity has fallen sharply.

The volume of investment capital transferred abroad has tended to decrease since the 2015-2017 period due to a plummet in the number of large projects.

According to the MPI, accumulated profits transferred to Vietnam from abroad was approximately US$3 billion while the profit retained for reinvestment was about US$363.4 million. Nearly 10,000 Vietnamese workers have been sent abroad to work.

In addition, Vietnamese enterprises have established a significant amount of assets abroad including factories and production facilities worth billions of US dollars. These are favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to expand their overseas investment and business activities in a context of deeper international economic integration.

Notably, investment abroad in 2019 was entirely implemented by the private sector with no projects conducted by State-owned enterprises. More and more large private corporations and domestic joint stock companies have invested in developed countries in order to expand their market and affirm their brands such as Vingroup, Vietjet, Thaco, T&T, Vinamilk, FPT, and others.

Investment forms are also diverse with an increasing number of investment projects in the form of capital contributions and share purchase in foreign enterprises.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said that there are Vietnamese enterprises that have spent US$3-5 million to buy shares of foreign enterprises that are now valued in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Major global changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a wave of mergers and acquisitions through capital contributions and share purchase at potential companies for very cheap prices. Vietnamese enterprises need to have big aspirations to participate in this market segment to accelerate the process of reaching out to the world and bringing greater value into the country.

To date, five Vietnamese enterprises have invested abroad with registered capital of over US$1 billion each including the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam), Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel), Vietnam Rubber Group, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, and Long Thanh Golf Investment and Trading JSC.

Besides these impressive achievements, there remain inadequacies including legal risks, international lawsuits and disputes, slow progress of projects, and ineffective implementation of projects, among others.

According to experts, the change in the investment tendency of Vietnamese enterprises in recent years has been market-oriented and consistent with the process of trade and investment liberalisation and international economic integration.

There is large room and great potential in international markets, thus, the most important thing for offshore investment is to perfect mechanisms and policies and create more favourable conditions for private enterprises to easily invest their resources abroad in order to transfer the profits to Vietnam. Meanwhile, enterprises need to improve their governance capacity, their ability to grasp the market and sufficiently strong cash flows.

The amended Law on Investment which will take effect on January 1, 2021 has completed policies on investment abroad regarding clear updates of cases prohibited from investment abroad, conditions accompanied with investment abroad, lending abroad, reporting the process of State management agencies related to investment abroad, the use of profits from overseas projects to contribute to other projects abroad, and others.

To prevent risks in offshore investment activities, the MPI has proposed the Government assign relevant agencies to review and evaluate investment trends abroad in the areas of real estate and the investments of foreign investors in Vietnam abroad in order to devise timely solutions to problems arising.

In addition, Vietnam should boost negotiations and early signing of investment promotion and protection agreements with countries receiving large investment from Vietnam or with Vietnam’s potential partners to create a legal framework for safe and effective investment abroad.

A medical worker administrates a dose of a Comirnaty Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine to a woman at a new vaccination hub in Lingotto Fiere Torino Pavilion in Turin, on April 14, 2021. (MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP)

Rival drugmaker AstraZeneca faced a similar setback after Denmark banned its use, also over blood clot links.

Concerns over using the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines have dampen hopes that mass immunizations will lead to a swift exit from the global pandemic that has killed nearly three million people and ravaged the global economy.

Nevertheless there was some good news as BioNTech/Pfizer announced that 50 million doses that were due to arrive in Europe in late 2021 will instead start arriving as early as this month.

More than 820 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have now been administered globally. Demand continues to outstrip supply, and countries are scrambling to secure the much-needed jabs for their people.

The race to secure vaccines has sparked diplomatic rows, notably between Britain and the EU after the bloc accused London of hoarding jabs. Australia has also accused the EU of falling short on promised doses.

– Fear of blood clots –

A panel of US health experts ruled that the pause on using the J&J vaccines would continue for at least another week so they have time to assess the risk of blood clots.

Another case of the clotting disorder was reported Wednesday, bringing the total of US cases to seven — including one death — among the 7.2 million J&J doses administered in the country.

“I don’t want to send the message that there is something fundamentally wrong with this vaccine,” said Beth Bell, chair of the expert group convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“But I want to be able to understand and defend the decision that I’ve made (to continue using the vaccine or not) based on a reasonable amount of data,” she added.

Johnson & Johnson said it would delay its European rollout, again over blood clot fears — a major hit for the continent’s beleaguered immunization campaign.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it would make a recommendation on the safety of the J&J jab next week after evaluating clot links.

AstraZeneca has faced similar setbacks, with many countries now limiting its use to older people following isolated cases blood clots among younger populations, some fatal.

Denmark said Wednesday it would stop using it altogether — a European first — despite assurances from the EMA and the World Health Organization that the benefits far outweigh possible risks.

Russia’s state-run Gamaleya research institute meanwhile said there was no risk of blood clots from its Sputnik V vaccine.

Several countries, from Germany to India to Argentina, are battling a worrying spike in cases.

– River Ganges infections –

In India, more than 1,000 people tested positive for the virus after bathing in the River Ganges for the world’s biggest religious festival.

A huge crowd of worshippers packed the river banks to take a dip as part of a bathing ritual, despite India’s soaring virus cases.

“Our faith is the biggest thing for us,” Siddharth Chakrapani, a member of one of the Kumbh Mela organizing committees, told AFP, explaining why so many people entered the river.

The WHO is concerned that the pandemic could worsen in the Middle East and North Africa during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Confirmed cases in the region last week rose 22 percent and deaths by 17 percent, said Ahmed al-Mandhari, WHO’s chief for the eastern Mediterranean.

In Turkey officials imposed new restrictions including a tougher overnight curfew, while in Bangladesh police patrolled the capital as a strict nationwide lockdown was rolled out.

Most European countries still face virus restrictions due to stubbornly high caseloads, but cafes and restaurants in Belgium were allowed to open their terraces starting May 8, and bars and restaurants in Switzerland can reopen starting Monday.

In Argentina however Covid-19 cases have risen fivefold compared to one month ago. President Alberto Fernandez announced that clampdown measures that include closing schools in the greater Buenos Aires area, limiting business hours, and an 8 pm to 6 am curfew.

In hard-hit Brazil, where the vaccine rollout has been chaotic and the virus is out of control, authorities said that some 1.5 million vaccinated people vaccinated have not shown up for their second jab.

Covid deaths averaged 3,000 a day in Brazil over the past week, forcing cities and states to reimpose lockdown measures.

In Japan, a spike in Covid cases forced a section of the Tokyo Olympics torch relay to be pulled from public roads.

But with just 100 days to go before the scheduled opening, International Olympic Committee vice president John Coates said that cancellation was “certainly not” on the table.

AFP