Setting generator

As completed, it will be one of the world-scale economic zones in the category of Aqaba in Jordan, and Suzhou, Tianjin, Beijing and Qingdao in China.

Long An province is pondering the development of a super economic zone covering 32,000ha of land, one of the largest in the southern region, according to the latest proposal from the Long An Economic Zone Authority (LAEZA) at a recent conference held in Tan An City.

Tan An city, Long An province. Photo: VGP

The EZ project was part of the province’s development plan for the 2021-30 period with a vision to 2050, which will be submitted to the relevant ministries and agencies and the government for consideration and approval, according to the LAEZA.

With a strategic location and an abundant land fund, the project can connect with major localities such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Cantho, Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City, and  Phnom Penh in Cambodia. The project will become a link of a supply chain, especially in the hi-tech and agriculture industries.

The EZ will focus on smart electronics, robotics and automation, advanced agriculture and biotechnology, biofuel, biochemistry and healthcare.

Addressing the conference on April 19, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh said: “Long An needs to achieve a harmonious development of urban and agricultural areas. The provincial authority should define key industries for investment and focus on hi-tech, supporting industries and logistics services as well as enhance the technological application in agriculture.”

“The province must continue improving its institutional reform, the business environment and promptly remove obstacles for local enterprises,” he added.

The province will build the hi-tech economic zone in association with smart urban areas similar to those in South Korea to attract hi-tech projects, Nguyen Van Duoc, secretary of the Long An Party Committee, said. Besides, the province has signed ten memoranda of understanding on digital transformation and investment.

The zone, which will include Can Giuoc District and part of Can Duoc District, will be developed based on some existing industrial and hi-tech parks such as Long Hau, Dong Nam A, Tan Kim and Tan Kim.

The project is divided into seven functional areas, including two satellite residential areas in Can Giuoc and Can Duoc, an education, healthcare and sports complex, an auxiliary area, an industrial park-international seaport, a hi-tech agriculture and an eco-urban area.

Residential areas are expected to cover about 15,000ha, while more than 5,800ha will be reserved for seaport and agricultural areas, over 7,800ha are planned for high-tech agriculture and the rest for traffic projects and water surface.

Vietnam’s prime minister asked the Ministry of Health to coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to consider appropriate anti-pandemic measures when applying “vaccine passport”.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on March 17 asked ministries to study reopening international flight routes and prepare for the use of ‘vaccine passport’, as well as promoting international trade.

The prime minister made the request at an online Government meeting with national and local steering committees for Covid-19 prevention and control.

PM Phuc said that Vietnam had correctly identified the danger level of the Covid-19 pandemic, activated the national disease prevention system on time, and offered solutions suitable to the capacity of the country.

“Vietnam has early implemented policies unseen in some other countries by then, like centralized quarantine, rapid contact tracing and quick lockdowns, while the entire political system joined Covid-19 prevention efforts with strong and comprehensive measures,” Phuc added.

He stressed that the war against the novel coronavirus will last long and there remain a lot of tasks to do.

“Vietnam will not let its guard down as many new variants of the coronavirus are spreading in numerous regions, including ASEAN countries,” the prime minister noted.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the meeting. Photo: Quang Hieu

He asked the Ministry of Health to coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to consider appropriate anti-pandemic measures when applying “vaccine passport”.

The Ministry of National Defence has been requested to strictly supervise border lines, border gates and seaports to prevent illegal entry, especially at trails and in border areas. It is also tasked with cooperating with functional agencies to strictly handle cases of intentional illegal entry.

“We understand that businesses, especially those of transportation, services, and tourism are facing numerous difficulties, and many people are underemployed. We will actively implement measures and appropriate policies to support and restore affected industries, especially tourism and aviation,” said the prime minister.

Phuc added that he had received the recommendation of the Tourism Advisory Council on reopening borders to foreign tourists. “I have required the ministries of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Foreign Affairs to study it in order to formulate a more detailed proposal and submit it to the government.”

At the meeting, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long stated that a total 20,695 medical and other frontline workers nationwide got the AstraZeneca vaccine shots as of March 16.

Reports from the vaccination sites indicate normal post-injection reactions, including fever, redness, swelling, tiredness, headache, muscle pain and nausea, Long added.

He noted that the Ministry of Health has continuously supervised people vaccinated with AstraZeneca because there have been some cases of blood clotting in the world after being injected with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“We have asked all health facilities to keep training health workers and organize appropriate and safe vaccination sites,” Long said.

Vietnam documented 1,597 domestically-transmitted infections, including 904 cases since the latest outbreak hit Hai Duong province and some other northern localities on January 27.

At the time of writing, the country 2,567 Covid-19 confirmed infection cases, including 2,198 recoveries and 35 deaths.

Head of Publications Department Nguyen Nguyen said it is necessary to do something so that internet users not only spend time to surf on Facebook and buy goods online but also pay attention to reading culture.

The entertainment venue which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week includes shopping streets, a night market, sreet festivals, Teddy Bear Museum, 3D multimedia show featuring Vietnamese traditional culture, a beach square covering on an area of 19,500 square meters, the Urban park and more.

The Grand World covering 85 hectares is part of the “tourism-entertainment universe”, Phu Quoc United Center. The super tourism complex covering over 1,000 hectares is invested at a total capital of more than VND66,000 billion (US$2.85 billion) by Vingroup Joint Stock Company.

Phu Quoc United Center also set five national records for the country’s largest entertainment and leisure complex, the largest bamboo construction called Bamboo Legend built from more than 32,000 bamboo trunks, Vietnam’s first Teddy Bear Museum, the 3D multimedia show featuring the largest number of historical events, the largest floating multimedia show inspired by European culture.

Vietnamese officers are doing their bit for peace by working in some of the harshest living environments on Earth

On April 9, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) officially granted a decision of the state president to Major Nguyen Phuc Dong from the ministry’s Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Dong will head to the United States to work for the 2021-2023 tenure at the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The DPO is charged with the planning, preparation, management, and direction of UN peacekeeping operations.

Dong is the third Vietnamese military officer admitted into the DPO, where he will work as a military trainer. The first was Lieutenant Colonel Luong Truong Vinh, who was also admitted to the DPO to work as a general planner, while the second – Lieutenant Colonel Tran Duc Huong – is a planning advisor.

Elsewhere, at the launch in Ho Chi Minh City of the Level-2 Field Hospital (No.3) two weeks ago, dental technician Major Bui Thi Xoa spoke of her duty to UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan, a nation she has already visited once.

In the first 14-month period in South Sudan, Xoa and her colleagues braved harsh weather conditions and a lack of water and food, as well as medical equipment – the same conditions badly affecting the livelihoods of local people there.

“We have had to overcome all of these difficulties. We grew our own vegetables and had to be very careful not to catch any diseases,” Xoa said. “For this second time, I feel more confident when it comes to South Sudan. My colleagues and I will do our best to accomplish all duties that the Party, the government, and the Vietnamese people have assigned.”

The Level-2 Field Hospital (No.3) was established in March 2020 with 70 staff, 18 of whom will travel to South Sudan for the second time.

Vietnam’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations is a major policy of the Party and state and also a step towards realising the country’s policy of intensive and comprehensive integration into the world.

According to the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations, between June 2014 and the end of 2020, Vietnam sent 179 officers and employees from the MoD to UN peacekeeping missions in South Sudan and the Central African Republic and to UN headquarters in New York. They consisted of 53 officers deployed individually and 126 doctors and medical workers deployed at level-2 field hospitals. Vietnam is also preparing a team of over 300 sappers to join UN peacekeeping operations this year.

Vietnam’s contributions to UN peacekeeping activities have been acknowledged by the international community, UN organisations, and international and non-governmental organisations in the host countries.

Vietnam’s active participation in UN peacekeeping operations has helped assert the Party and state’s foreign policy of multilateralisation and diversification of external relations, independence, self-reliance, and respect for the UN’s goals and principles, thereby contributing to the building of sustainable peace.

Vietnamese officers have been praised for their professionalism, disciplines, dependability, and adaptability. The UN also selected Vietnam as the first training centre for international peacekeeping activities in Southeast Asia.

Last November, the 14th-tenure of the National Assembly adopted Resolution No.130/2020/QH14 on participation in UN peacekeeping forces, which will take effect on July 1.

The prime minister has issued an implementation plan that identifies the responsibilities of and assigns tasks to ministries and government agencies to ensure that the resolution will be carried out in a timely, concerted, uniform, and effective manner.

Lieutenant colonel Nguyen Thi Lien I was the first Vietnamese military female officer to have worked as a training advisor at the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). On March 12, I returned to Vietnam after a prolonged stay due to the pandemic. My main task is to work with colleagues to organise training courses on improving new skills for new staff at MINUSCA. Undertaking the duty in June 2019, my colleagues and I have faced numerous difficulties, especially in the context of the pandemic. The country is very weak in infrastructure development, coupled with a grave lack of medical equipment and tools and limited awareness of people. In order to cope with the pandemic, we at MINUSCA always paid due attention to protecting our health via enjoying proper and nutritious foods. Due to unfavourable weather conditions, we have had to drink much water and eat many vegetables cultivated by ourselves. We have always encouraged one another to stay optimistic and implemented safe hygienic measures to prevent community contamination. Meanwhile, there is no habit among local residents of wearing masks. We still wore masks but covered our faces with larger handkerchiefs in order to avoid discrimination from locals. From the fact that Vietnam has been doing a very good job in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, I came to the thought that the face mask is a very effective shield and an “amulet” during the pandemic times in a nation very poor in medical equipment. To realise my idea, I went to a local’s home to hire a sewing machine, and then went to the market to buy cloth and elastic bands. I selected cloth with colourful patterns which suited locals’ traditional taste. After working hours at MINUSCA, I found myself making face masks. Being an unprofessional needlewoman, initially I could not make many products. However, day after day the number of masks gradually increased, while the number of COVID-19 victims also ascended. By that point, the country’s government under consultancy of MINUSCA issued a directive ordering all people throughout the nation to wear masks at public places from May last year. Around 800 masks I made personally were then presented to locals and MINUSCA staff. They have become a very significant gift in the context of urgent prevention and fighting against the pandemic in such a poor nation. Major NGUYEN PHUC DONG When I was a child, I always dreamt of becoming a military officer. In 2004, I passed the examination into the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Military Academy of Logistics. In 2009, with my good study record, I became a lecturer at the academy. After a time, I was sent to the United States to study. With big aspirations to make more contributions to the army and work in an international environment, in 2007, I was admitted to work at the MoD’s Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations. After one year of working here, I was selected to become one of two military officers to work as peacekeeper in South Sudan in 2018. The day I set off for South Sudan was also Vietnamese Teachers’ Day. My wife is an English teacher, and I understood that my wife would have to work hard to feed the family. My first child was only five and the second was only six months old at that time. South Sudan is the youngest nation in the world as it declared independence in 2011. Its political situation remains unstable with many conflicts and unfavourable weather conditions. Though before going there, I had studied the country very carefully, I was still surprised when I arrived. South Sudan was characterised with underdeveloped infrastructure and shabby houses of the local residents whose lives depended on support from the United Nations. Almost all children have no schooling and suffer from malnutrition, while the nation is completely undermined by civil wars. The main duty of UN peacekeepers is to protect civilians, create a favourable environment for humanitarian assistance, supervise and inspect human rights violations, and support the implementation of peace processes. During my time in South Sudan, I partook in days-long patrols by air, by road, and by waterway, of hundreds of kilometres a day. In many cases, the patrols faced lots of difficulties because many other forces showed no cooperation and even caused great difficulties to our work. Danger was always on the watch. For example, one month before I came to South Sudan, one comrade had been shot and made the ultimate sacrifice while on duty. However, in defiance of the dangers and difficulties, my colleagues and I will not be deterred, and we will give it our best to accomplish the tasks that we have been assigned in order to keep peace in the world.