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Mozambique praises Vietnamese role as ASEAN Chair and non-permanent UNSC member

November 24, 2020 by vov.vn

Mozambican Foreign Minister Verónica Nataniel made the statement during a working session held alongside Vietnamese Ambassador to Mozambique Le Huy Hoang on November 23, with the event taking place as part of activities to mark the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

During the meeting, the Minister Nataniel stated that she hopes Vietnam will continue to share its experience that it has learned from these successes in order to help her nation make faster progress in terms of the process of regional and international integration.

Minister Nataniel also expressed her great appreciation for the nation’s impressive achievements over recent years, considering the country to be a model that needs to be learned from in terms pandemic prevention and socio-economic development.

She went on to affirm that the Mozambican side has always placed great importance on its relationship with the nation and hopes that both sides continue to tighten their friendship and co-operation ties across a variety of fields, especially in the exchange of experts on agriculture and education and health care. She also anticipates that the country will continue to encourage businesses in order to intensify their investment in the East African nation.

She therefore suggested that both sides join hands in preparation for the fourth meeting of the inter-governmental committee, and arrange a visit to Vietnam for Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi as soon as possible.

In response, Ambassador Hoang conveyed a message of congratulations from Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh to Mozambique on their achievements in its role as the Chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The two sides compared notes on measures aimed at boosting the bilateral traditional friendship, including the sharing of experience in terms of external affairs at regional and international forums. This comes as Mozambique gets ready to run for a non-permanent seat at the UNSC for 2022 to 2023 period.

The Ambassador also told the press that following the meeting, Mozambique can be considered one of the African nations which the country has been able to maintain close ties with in recent decades.

With an investment capital of US$600 million, the Movitel telecom joint venture in Mozambique that has received investment by Viettel Military Telecom Corporation is currently the country’s largest investment project throughout Africa.

Việt Nam, Singapore discuss bilateral relations development

March 4, 2021 by vietnamnews.vn

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh during a phone call with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

HÀ NỘI — Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan discussed measures to boost bilateral relations during their phone conversation held on Thursday.

They shared solutions to increase trade exchanges and economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, and create favourable conditions for travelling.

They also talked about vaccination plans against COVID-19 and the possibility to apply a vaccine passport.

Foreign minister Minh thanked Singapore for actively supporting Việt Nam as ASEAN Chairman 2020 and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council during 2020-21 term.

He proposed the two sides to continue promoting exchanges of high-ranking delegations at all levels at the appropriate time.

He said he hoped Singapore will cooperate and support Việt Nam to get access to safe and effective sources of vaccines.

Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian congratulated Việt Nam for its successful organisation of the 13th National Party Congress and for achievements in keeping COVID-19 under control as well as socio-economic development.

He said Singapore attached great importance to the cooperation with Việt Nam, particularly during complicated times both regionally and globally.

He shared Singapore’s experience about the “Changi connection” initiative to create conditions to allow international business people to meet at Changi Airport.

Singapore was willing to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese people to transit in Singapore on their way home to Việt Nam, he said.

The two sides also discussed regional and international issues of common issues, including the Myanmar situation. They said they wished the situation in Myanmar would be soon stabilised for peace and cooperation in the region. They agreed to continue joining ASEAN’s common efforts to contributing to finding solutions for the Myanmar issue. — VNS

Promoting Vietnam as a safe place to welcome foreign tourists

May 22, 2020 by hanoitimes.vn

The Hanoitimes – Vietnam’s tourism sector is preparing to welcome back foreign tourists. The tourism sector will submit a schedule for re-starting inbound tourism in the coming time.

Vietnam’s tourism sector is expected to resume welcoming inbound travelers sooner than many other countries in the region will do thanks to the success in containing the pandemic. “Vietnam is a safe place” would be the new slogan, said businesses and insiders at the recent conference on post-Covid-19 solutions for the tourism industry.

En cave, Quang Binh province. Photo: Vic (Facebook)

At the conference titled “Solutions promoting domestic tourism and recover international tourists” held on May 21, Steve Wolstenholme, CEO of Hoi An South Development (Hoiana), suggested that Vietnam needs to communicate the message “Vietnam is a safe place” and has to safeguard those who work in the industry.

Sharing the same idea, Vice President of Lodgis Hospitality Holdings Vietnam Craig Douglas added that Vietnam needs to take the opportunity to promote itself as a safe tourism corridor to attract tourists.

Kenneth Atkinson, vice president of the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), underlined that Vietnam could learn from experiences of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand on creating specific resorts meeting anti-pandemic safety standards to accommodate international tourists.

Safety is of utmost priority for the tourism industry when it is re-opened to tourists, Nguyen Le Phuc, deputy general director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), affirmed at the conference.

The conference entitled “Solutions promoting domestic tourism and recover international tourists” on May 21.

“To achieve this target, the industry could apply technology for controlling the pandemic. At this time, the VNAT is implementing a communication plan on safe tourist destinations to lure tourists,” Phuc added. “Travel businesses are encouraged to devise sets of criteria on the safety and safe tourist destinations by themselves as well as cooperate with each other for better promotion.”

Trinh Hong Quang, deputy CEO of national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, added that local businesses should take advantage of Vietnam’s successful control against the Covid-19 pandemic to build new product packages that focuse on the safety of the tourists.

Since the social distancing order was loosened, travel businesses have offered in unison promotional programs to attract domestic travelers. However, local insiders commented that this is only a short-term solution. For long-term ones, it is important to lure foreign travelers due to their high spending and purchasing power.

Le Quang Tung, deputy minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, concluded that Vietnam needs to communicate the safe destination images to the world. In addition, businesses need to work together to develop and take advantage of opportunities to revive the Vietnamese tourism industry.

Gianh River, Quang Binh province. Photo: dimorua (Facebook)

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will, based on the collaboration with relevant agencies, build a schedule for reopening the industry, Tung said.

In the first four months of 2020, international arrivals to Vietnam plunged 37.8% year-on-year to 3.7 million, according to the General Statistics Office.

In April alone, the number of tourists fell 98.2% from a year earlier and 94.2% against March. The pandemic impacted on the whole tourism industry and its goal of welcoming about 20.5 million international visitors this year is highly unlikely.

HCMC focusing on training AI human resources

March 4, 2021 by sggpnews.org.vn

According to the comprehensive plan to develop the IT human resources, Vietnam needed 1 million workers in the IT field in 2020. Yet the reality shows that there are only 600,000 IT students being trained in 400 higher educational institutes and 8 key IT training centers nationwide.

Statistics from the Institute of Information Technology Strategy (under the Ministry of Information & Communications) show that 72 percent of IT students lack practical experience, while 42 percent are weak at team work. Only 15 percent of IT graduates satisfy the demands of employers.

Vietnam now has over 700 IT companies working in key fields of the IT industry, including 220 foreign ones. They mostly locate in major cities or software parks.

Notably, despite a high job potential, the AI field still attracts little attention from both learners and trainers. There is no formal university department or school to specifically provide tertiary education in this field. Most curriculum focus on software developing, which is a rather old trend of the previous decade. This calls for a serious curriculum redesign to answer the current needs of IT companies, both domestic and international.

There should be an establishment of AI departments in universities or the development of such majors as computer vision, natural language processing, Big Data, robotics. Tertiary educational institutes should cooperate with IT businesses for internship programs, career guiding fairs, academic challenges, and training equipment provision (like server clusters, computing clusters, GPU, robots, IoT devices).

Experts voiced that in order for HCMC to own sufficient core AI human resources, the municipal authorities must first identify the market needs and the ability to apply research result in reality. They then have to actively link the development of smart city, innovative urban areas with the growth of talented AI employees.

These actions will gradually form a complete AI ecosystem so that HCMC can transform into a database center of the whole Southeast Asian region in 2030, and of the world in the far future.

There must be clear short-term as well as long-term strategies to turn HCMC into a smart city, including the three key points of research and training, technology mastering, and innovation promotion.

Regarding the first key point, more investment should be pour into the AI field via supporting funds, collaboration with national and international partners to take advantage of all possible strengths.

A kind of ‘shared university’ for AI training could be formed, where educational facilities are located in one place, and the teaching staff or research teams come to perform their tasks. This model does need specific policies to regulate particular responsibilities and rights of each partner, as well as the role of the municipal authorities in the project.

Director of Vietnam National University – HCMC Vu Hai Quan stated that the potential of key AI research teams directly shape the training direction for new AI workers. They are the model for the young generations to look up to.

Therefore, the AI human resources training project should consist of financial aid for major AI research teams to expand their study in various fields, the construction of AI labs, the organization of academic contests about AI to tackle existing problems in the community.

These actions will no doubt increase the position of Vietnam in the global AI top list and the awareness of AI importance in the society.

By Thanh Hung – Translated by Thanh Tam