Day: April 6, 2024

Thua Thien – Hue: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on April 6 asked the central province of Thua Thien-Hue to optimise its potential and unique strengths to become an urban area with identity, which develops in a smart, adaptive, green, clean, beautiful, safe, and sustainable manner.

Addressing a conference to announce the planning of the province in the 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2050 and promote investment in the province in 2024, the Government leader underlined that Thua Thien – Hue has an important strategic position as a bridge connecting the North and the South, a gateway to the sea of the East – West trans-Asia corridor through Northern Thailand – Southern Laos – Central Vietnam, which brings the locality great potential for marine and lagoon economic development.

Thua Thien-Hue is also a land of spirituality, outstanding people, and rich culture, enabling it to be an attractive tourist destination with a rich history and unique culture with many cultural heritage sites and historical relics of
Vietnam and the world, he added.

PM Chinh underlined the need to internationalise the values of the national cultural identities and nationalise the quintessence of the world culture.

Highly valuing the design of the provincial planning and the Thua Thien-Hue urban planning, he asked the province to focus on effectively mobilising and utilising resources to promote traditional driving forces of investment, export, and consumption, while creating breakthroughs in new motivations such as green economy, digital economy, circular economy, sharing economy, knowledge economy, climate change response, sustainable development, investment in cultural industry, and entertainment industry.

Meanwhile, the locality should concentrate on enhancing human resources quality and strengthen connectivity with domestic and international regions through transportation systems, production systems, supply chains, culture and tourism, he said.

The PM also highlighted the need for Thua Thien-Hue to strengthen the development of a
concerted comprehensive strategic infrastructure system, while increasing industrial promotion to serve the cultural industry, tourism, processing industry, manufacturing, production, and supply chains for the region and the world, promoting the application of science and technology, innovation in production and business, creating stable jobs and livelihoods for people, and securing fast and sustainable growth.

Under the provincial planning of Thua Thien-Hue in the 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2050, Thua Thien-Hue is expected to become a centrally-run city in 2025 and a typical heritage city of Vietnam in 2030, as well as one of the major and unique centres of Southeast Asia in terms of culture, tourism, and intensive health care.

By 2030, the locality’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP) expansion is expected to reach 9-10% per year, with industry-construction contributing 33-35%, and services accounting for 56%. Its urbanisation rate is hoped to reach about 70%. In 2030, the province’s population
is predicted to hit 1.3 million.

Thua Thien – Hue will form and develop a number of economic corridors, including the North – South Economic Corridor, East – West Economic Corridor, Urban Economic Corridor towards the sea, along with driving centres of Hue city, Chan May – Lang Co economic zone, and Phong Dien industrial park.

The Government leader called on businesses and investors to share visions and actions with the locality, pioneering in renovation and contributing ideas to the province in administrative reform and improving the local investment environment.

At the event, Thua Thien – Hue authorities granted investment licences and investment policy approval decisions to 11 projects with a total capital of nearly 9 trillion VND (360.5 million USD), while presenting research documents for 10 projects with a capital of about 120 trillion VND in the fields of infrastructure, tourism, mechanics, energy, logistics, housing, education, health care, and digital data.

The same day, PM Chinh attended the gro
undbreaking ceremony for Hue International Central Hospital No.2.

Construction of the hospital, one of the five special-level to be upgraded to international-level, is expected to be completed in 2026.

With an investment of nearly 400 billion VND, the hospital will have a total floor area of 21,000 sq.m./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: The upcoming official visit to China by National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue at the invitation of Zhao Leji, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, is expected to contribute to outlining strategic orientations for bilateral relations, thus further deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China, and cooperation between their legislative bodies in particular, said Vice chairwoman of the NA Committee for External Relations Le Thu Ha.

In a recent interview gratnted to the Vietnam News Agency, Ha highlighted the significance of the visit, saying that it will help promote a higher political trust and consolidating a stronger social foundation, towards concretising high-level common perceptions and outcomes achieved during Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s visit to China in October 2022 and General Secretary, President of China Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam in December last year.

The visit also aims to affirm
the consistent policy of the Vietnamese Party and State of taking developing relations with China as a top priority and a strategic choice in the foreign policy.

Since the establishment of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership 15 years ago, the relationship between the two Parties and countries has continuously expanded and deepened, with cooperation in various fields achieving comprehensive progress, she said, adding that high-level exchanges and meetings between leaders of the two countries have contributed to strengthening political trust and strategic orientation.

In the overall effort to promote increasingly high political trust, cooperation between the Vietnamese NA and the National People’s Congress of China has been continuously intensified. Leaders of the two sides have been maintaining high-level exchanges through various flexible forms.

The two sides have also maintained consultation and close coordination at regional and international inter-parliamentary forums, especially in the
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA), she said.

In Hue’s visit, the two sides plan to sign a new cooperation agreement to replace the old one between the Vietnamese NA and the National People’s Congress of China inked in 2015 with new contents. The signing of the new agreement will be a significant milestone in the history of the relations between the legislative bodies of the two countries, establishing a legal basis to elevate the cooperation between the legislatures to a level commensurate with the bilateral relations between the two countries, Ha went on.

She expressed her belief that the visit by NA Chairman Hue and the signing of the new cooperation agreement will contribute to elevating and further deepening the relationship between the two legislative bodies, thus turning this relationship into a crucial pillar within the overall relations between the two Parties and two States./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Can Tho: Secretary of the Party Committee of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho Nguyen Van Hieu hosted a reception for Ginny Chapman, Charge d’Affaires of the New Zealand Embassy in Vietnam, on April 5.

Hieu highlighted the growing relationship between Vietnam in general and Can Tho in particular with New Zealand over the years, expressing his hope that the two sides will conduct more practical activities to further promote the collaboration between Can Tho and New Zealand basing on each side’s strengths.

Specifically, the two sides can expand cooperation in hi-tech agriculture and green, sustainable industry, as well as human resources training for the agricultural sector.

Can Tho also hopes for more scholarships from New Zealand, as well as stronger cooperation in renewable energy, information technology, green economy, circular economy, and real estate development, said Hieu.

To further promote bilateral cooperation, especially in the fields of agriculture, climate change, education and training, Can Tho
plans to send a working delegation to New Zealand in September 2024, said the city leader.

The official held that the major obstacle facing the two sides currently is the modest number of direct flights from Vietnam to New Zealand, adding that the bottleneck should be removed to promote bilateral investment and tourism cooperation.

For her part, Chapman affirmed that Southeast Asia in general and Vietnam in particular are always a top priority in New Zealand’s foreign affairs. For the Mekong Delta region, New Zealand is and will have more extensive cooperation in the agricultural sector.

Expressing her impression at the 1-million-hectare high quality rice field with low carbon emissions in Thanh An commune, Vinh Thanh district of Can Tho, she asserted that this achievement is resulted from efforts of many parties such as local authorities, organisations and farmers.

The diplomat said that responding to climate change and natural disaster risks is one of the pillars of cooperation between New Zealand and V
ietnam, adding that the two sides are having good cooperation in education and research among institutes and schools. New Zealand hopes to connect more deeply with major research centres in Can Tho and will grant scholarships for state officials in areas of English training programmes and short-term training programmes, which will be rotated depending on the needs and requests from the Vietnamese side.

Statistics from the Can Tho Department of External Relations showed that last year, Can Tho exported 7.91 million USD worth of goods, mostly aquatic products, garments and farm produce, to New Zealand, while importing 7.6 million USD worth of products from the country./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Thua Thien-Hue: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on April 6 attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the Hue Vsico port and another to inaugurate Phu Son waste-to-power plant, and inspected a project to build Nguyen Hoang road and a bridge crossing Huong River in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.

At the ceremony to launch the construction of Hue Vsico port (Ports No.4 and 5), PM Chinh presented gifts to investors and contractors.

The project is part of the Chan May port cluster which handled 4.5 million tonnes of cargo and 68,700 passengers in 2023.

The cluster is considered the closest and most convenient gateway to the East Sea for the East-West economic corridor, connecting Central Vietnam with Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar, and linking with Asian countries and the world. Besides, it is also located in the centre of Vietnam, between the two largest cities in the central region – Hue and Da Nang.

The project to build Ports No.4 and 5 is invested by Vsico Maritime Joint Stock Company with a total capital
of more than 1.67 trillion VND (66.89 million USD). It covers a total area of 20.4 hectares, with a total length of the two ports of 540m, capable of accommodating cargo ships of up to 70,000 tonnes and container ships of up to 4,000 TEUS.

The project is scheduled to complete in the second quarter of 2025 and put into operations in early 2026. It is designed to receive 5 million tonnes of goods each year. It is expected to handle container ships with 80,000 to 100,000 TEUS per year.

Meanwhile, the Phu Son waste-to-power plant in Phu Son commune of Huong Thuy township has a total area of 11,234 hectares, and an investment of about 74.55 million USD. Its operation duration is 25 years.

The plant is equipped with a mechanical furnace with a capacity of 500 tonnes per day and a 12MW high-pressure steam turbine generator set.

The project was launched in November 2021, with the testing operation period ending in December 2023. It received its operation licence on February 7, 2024, enabling it to switch to comme
rcial operation.

Currently, the plant processes about 220,000 tonnes of household waste and can provide about 93 million kWh of green electricity per year.

The project to construct Nguyen Hoang road and a bridge crossing Huong River, which belong to Belt Road No.3 of Thua Thien-Hue, has a total investment of over 2.28 trillion VND from the central and local budgets.

Construction of the project started in late 2022 and is scheduled to finish in December 2025.

The bridge crossing Huong River is expected to open to traffic in December 2024.

PM Chinh hailed the efforts of relevant parties and contractors, especially workers at the site. He asked them to speed up the construction to ensure its progress, contributing to promoting the night-time economy of the province.

The same day, Chinh visited doctors, officials and patients at the Hue Central Hospital where an organ transplant operation was conducted within 48 hours, a new record of the hospital so far.

He asked the Ministry of Health and Thua Thien-Hue
province to continue paying attention to the hospital’s development, expressing his hope that the hospital will strengthen the application of high technologies for better performance, meeting the demands of patients.

Earlier the same day, PM Chinh attended a groundbreaking ceremony for Hue International Central Hospital No.2 under the Hue Central Hospital./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue will lead a high-level Vietnamese delegation to pay an official visit to China from April 7-12 at the invitation of Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) of China Zhao Leji.

On this occasion, Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo granted the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) an interview on contents related to the visit.

Reporter: NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue will visit China in the coming days. Could you please say about the meanings of the visit to the relationship between the two countries?

Ambassador Xiong Bo: This will be the first official visit that Vietnamese NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue pays to China as the leader of the Vietnamese NA. China attaches great importance to and warmly welcomes this visit.

The visit is an important interaction between high-ranking leaders of the two Parties and two countries with an aim to maintain and strengthen strategic exchanges, with the most important task being to accelerate the imp
lementation of a series of important common perceptions reached between the top leaders of the two Parties, especially the important common understandings reached during the visit to Vietnam by General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of China Xi Jinping last year. During the visit, Xi and the Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong reached a series of new important common perceptions, of which the most important is to maintain the high-level exchanges between the two Parties. The upcoming China visit by NA Chairman Hue is also a specific action to maintain the high-level bilateral exchanges.

At the same time, this will be the first visit to China by a high-ranking leader of Vietnam after the two countries announced the building of a Vietnam-China Community with a Shared Future which has a strategic significance, striving for the happiness of the peoples of the two sides as well as for the sake of peace and progress of the humanity.

Besides, this will be the first meeting
between the highest leaders of Vietnamese and Chinese legislatures after the announcement of the Vietnam-China Community with a Shared Future. This has a very important significance in promoting cooperation between the two countries across all fields as well as the increase of experience exchanges between the two sides in Party building and national management, the enhancement of key cooperation in many areas, and the deepening of exchanges between the two legislative bodies.

During this visit, the two sides are scheduled to sign a new cooperation agreement between the two countries’ legislatures and establish their new high-level dialogue mechanism.

In general, this visit is very significant and we expect that it will produce good results.

Reporter: According to you, how have the cooperative relations between the Vietnamese NA and the Chinese NPC contributed to the overall development of the ties between the two countries over the recent past?

Ambassador Xiong Bo: Exchanges between the two countries’ leg
islative bodies are an important component in the relationship between the two Parties and the two countries. In the process of developing bilateral relations, the two countries’ legislative bodies have maintained close exchanges.

In March last year, after the election of the Standing Committee of the 14th NPC of China, Chairman of the committee Zhao Leji had his first online meeting with NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue in the position of Chairman of the NPC of China. This official visit to China by NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue will also be a continuation of the close exchanges between the two countries’ legislatures.

Reporter: How do you assess the opportunities and challenges of the bilateral relations in the coming time?

Ambassador Xiong Bo: First of all, like any bilateral relationship, both opportunities and challenges exist in the China-Vietnam relationship. There cannot be only opportunities without challenges. I think the most outstanding feature of China-Vietnam relations is that opportunities outweigh c
hallenges by far and, through the efforts of both sides, some challenges can be effectively managed and transformed into opportunities of cooperation under certain conditions.

Talking about opportunities, the biggest opportunity or the most basic advantage of China-Vietnam relations is that both sides persistently implement the strategic directions of the top leaders of the two Parties and the political guidance in the relationship between the two Parties over the relationship between the two countries.

Both sides attach importance to maintaining political security, which means ensuring the leadership of the Party and the safety of the socialist regime as their fundamental strategic interests. The two sides attach great importance to enhancing the exchange of experience in Party building, State management and national construction, assisting each other’s major political agendas, and supporting the implementation of medium- and long-term goals.

In addition, the traditional friendship of China and Vietnam, b
uilt and nurtured by generations of veteran leaders of the two Parties, including Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh and Chinese President Mao Zedong, becomes a valuable asset of the two sides, contributing to helping the two countries continuously strengthen cooperation, and a strong spiritual strength for us to jointly accelerate the cause of development.

China and Vietnam are extremely important economic and trade partners of each other. China was Vietnam’s largest trade partner, while Vietnam was the fifth biggest trade partner of China last year. The two sides have close economic, trade, and investment links. They boast a geographical advantage, their mountains and rivers are interconnected, convenient transportation, similar cultures, and close people-to-people exchanges. These factors are all huge opportunities for developing the China-Vietnam relationship. However, cooperation in many fields between the two sides has yet to match the favourable conditions and huge cooperation potential between the two
countries.

During the visit to Vietnam by Party General Secretary Xi Jinping last year, high-ranking leaders of the two Parties and the two countries achieved the goal of “better management and control of differences’. In a high-level visit, reaching such a common perception is extremely rare. This demonstrates the will, determination, and confidence of China and Vietnam in candidly acknowledging and solving differences in a reasonable manner.

Reporter: Trade cooperation and investment has always been a crucial driver to promote relations between the two countries. How do you assess the achievements and progress of the practical cooperation between the two nations?

Ambassador Xiong Bo: Economic cooperation, trade and investment between the two countries always maintains strong momentum of development. Amidst the complex fluctuations and challenges in the world, sustaining this development momentum is by no means simple. Last year, amid a complicated external environment, the economic development of both Ch
ina and Vietnam faced numerous challenges, but they managed to maintain a growth rate of over 5%, which is a noteworthy achievement.

Meanwhile, bilateral trade did not experience a excessive decline. According to China’ statistics, the two-way trade hit 229.8 billion USD, with Vietnam’s exports to China increasing by 4.8%. I want to emphasise that although Vietnam’s agricultural exports to China, especially fruits and vegetables, may not account for a large proportion, they hold a significant importance in bilateral trade and are highly valued by Vietnamese leaders. China also attaches great importance to increasing agricultural imports from Vietnam. Last year, Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable export to China surged by 139.5%, accounting for 65% of Vietnam’s total export turnover of fruits and vegetables. In this, durian exports reached nearly 500,000 tonnes worth 2.1 billion USD. We believe that Vietnam’s fruit and vegetable exports to China will continue to maintain this strong growth momentum this year. The
export situation in the first quarter of this year was very favourable.

China’s investment in Vietnam has also maintained rapid growth. Last year, China poured 4.47 billion USD of investment into Vietnam, up 77.6% year-on-year, making it the fourth biggest foreign investor in Vietnam.

During the visit to Vietnam by Party General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping last year, the two sides achieved important common perceptions regarding strengthening practical cooperation, with top priority given to accelerating transportation infrastructure connectivity.

Also during his Vietnam visit, General Secretary and President Xi Jinping emphasised that China firmly supports Vietnam in speeding up industrialisation and modernisation, and is willing to actively participate in the process of transforming and upgrading Vietnam’s economy, especially in terms of energy transition. Leaders of many large energy and power generation companies of China have come to Vietnam to make market surveys. Accelerating a shift
and upgrade of energy holds significant importance for the sustainable development of Vietnam’s economy, promoting industrialisation, and realising the goal of net-zero emissions. Chinese enterprises can provide strong support to Vietnam in such areas as policy consultation, technical services for energy transition and power development, as well as the development of wind and solar energy, energy storage, hydro energy, and other new energy sources.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Tokyo: The relationship between Vietnam and Japan is currently at the finest development stage, with a historical milestone being the elevation of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in November 2023, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Thi Thu Hang told her Japanese counterpart Komura Masahiro during a meeting on April 5 in Tokyo.

The Vietnamese official expressed sincere thanks to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for coordinating to organise visits and working sessions of high-level delegations of the two countries in recent times, and suggested the two sides continue to closely coordinate to ensure the success of visits by Vietnamese and Japanese high-ranking leaders in 2024.

She called on the Japanese side to continue providing official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam’s development projects.

Deputy FM Hang expressed her gratitude to the Government of Japan for creating favourable conditions for overseas Vietnamese (OVs) living, working, and studying in Japan, calling for fur
ther support for the Vietnamese community in the coming time, including simplifying visa application procedures.

She took the occasion to show her sympathies over the losses of lives and property that the Japanese government and people had to endure after the disastrous earthquake in the early days of 2024 in Ishikawa prefecture and surrounding areas of central Japan. Hang thanked Komura for attending the opening ceremony of the Ikebukuro Festival on April 6 to raise funds to support the victims, considering this a vivid testament to the sincere friendship between the peoples of the two countries.

For his part, Komura agreed to continue promoting cooperation between the two countries in various fields within the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership, and enhancing people-to-people exchanges, saying that these are important foundations of the friendship between Vietnam and Japan.

He affirmed that he will closely coordinate to successfully organise high-level visits of the two countries’ leade
rs in 2024, and expressed delight at the ODA projects funded by Japan that are contributing to Vietnam’s socio-economic development, stating his personal commitment to continue to bring ODA projects to Vietnam.

The two officials agreed to continue close coordination to address issues related to Vietnamese nationals’ violation of Japanese laws, including enhancing education to ensure that the Vietnamese community in Japan strictly abide by local laws.

On the same day, Deputy FM Hang chaired a seminar with Vietnamese experts and intellectuals in Japan.

As part of her working visit to Japan, Hang also had a meeting with representatives of the Vietnamese Embassy in the country, during which she highly valued efforts by the agency in implementing OV affairs, saying that this has contributed to strengthening the national solidarity bloc and fostering the good friendship between the peoples and the strategic partnership between Vietnam and Japan./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency