President Nguyen Xuan Phuc pays official friendly visit to Laos
Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, his spouse and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation paid an official friendly visit to Laos on August 9 and 10 at the invitation of Lao General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith.
During the visit, on August 10, the President laid a wreath at a monument dedicated to unknown martyrs, met with Chairman of the National Assembly of Laos Saysomphone Phomvihane, received Vice Presidents Pany Yathotou and Bounthong Chitmany, attended and delivered a speech at a meeting of the ninth Lao legislature.
The Vietnamese State leader also attended a ceremony to inaugurate and hand over the Lao National Assembly House, and visited the Vietnamese Embassy in Laos to talk with its staff and representatives of Vietnamese businesses in Laos.
President Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to Laos held significance, contributing to fostering great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries. The visit also contributed to encouraging the Vietnamese community and enterprises to do business in Laos amid difficulties caused by the pandemic.
15th Government convenes first meeting
15th Government convenes first meeting. (Photo: NDO/Tran Hai)
The 15th Government convened its first meeting for the 2021 – 2026 tenure on August 11 under the chair of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
Working on the implementation of 13th National Party Congress’s Resolution and the 15th National Assembly’s Resolution on socio-economic development for 2021 – 2025, the session saw the attendance of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue. The leaders of 63 cities and provinces nationwide joined the meeting via video conference.
The meeting aimed to reach agreement on key issues related to implementation with the determination to build a Government of innovation, integrity, action, and efficiency, serving the people.
The meeting heard Government leaders briefing on 13 groups of central tasks and solutions of the 15th Government in implementing the above-said resolutions. The groups consist of more than 400 specific programmes and missions.
Vietnam remains attractive to multinational electronics companies
Despite complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam is still chosen by many foreign investors as a destination to build production bases, especially in the electronics industry, according to Fitch Solutions.
As many as 65% of foreign electronics enterprises set up their production bases in northern localities of Vietnam, while about 30% built facilities in the southern region, and a few others in the central region.
Economic experts said that the important factor attracting multinational electronics corporations is industrial parks (IP), noting that most IPs have favourable geographical locations that are easily accessible to transport and logistics systems.
Giant electronics companies are looking for IPs with an area of more than 1,000 hectares and synchronous infrastructure systems in Vietnam, they said.
Vietnam starts clinical trials of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
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The clinical trials of the ARCT-154 COVID-19 vaccine will be carried out in three phases with the participation of 21,000 volunteers
On August 15, the Hanoi Medical University commenced the first phase of clinical trials of the ARCT-154 COVID-19 vaccine, an mRNA vaccine developed by US company Arcturus Therapeutics Inc., which transferred the technology to a company in Vietnam.
According to the ministry, ARCT-154 is a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine designed to act against coronavirus variants, including the Delta variant.
The clinical trials will be carried out in three phases with the participation of 21,000 volunteers, including 100 in phase one, 300 in phase two and 20,600 in phase three.
On August 2, the MoH approved a proposal on human clinical trials of the ARCT-154 vaccine. The vaccine's production technology was bought by VinBioCare Biotechnology JSC, a subsidy of Vietnam's leading multisectoral conglomerate Vingroup.
After completing the three-phase human clinical trial, VinBioCare said it would send the results to the ministry for approval for emergency use across the country in December. The first batch of vaccines is expected to be available in early 2022.
Tan Son Nhat Airport among the world’s top 10 by passengers
Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City has been listed in the top 10 best airports in the world serving high numbers of passengers.
According to the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), Skytrax has announced the World Airport Awards in 2021, in which Tan Son Nhat was honoured in the world’s top 10 best airports serving 20-25 million passengers per year.
This result is based on a survey of the infrastructure, service and staff quality, as well as check-in processes of more than 500 airports worldwide.
With an aviation industry heavily damaged by the epidemic, Tan Son Nhat Airport still served more than 22 million passengers in 2020, including 2.8 million international arrivals.
New Vietnamese satellite sent to Japan for launch into orbit
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Scientists at the Vietnam National Space Centre pose with their NanoDragon satellite before sending it to Japan.
Vietnam’s NanoDragon satellite was delivered to Japan on August 11 ahead of its planned launch into outer space, according to the Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC) under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.
The centre said the satellite will be transferred to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It is expected to be launched into orbit from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima prefecture in the 2021 fiscal year (to March 2022) of Japan.
The NanoDragon satellite (NDG), a nano-layer cubesat satellite weighing 3,8kg kilograms, was developed by the VNSC. The entire process of researching, designing, integrating, and testing the satellite's functions was carried out in Vietnam by VNSC researchers.
NanoDragon is tasked with using micro-satellite beam technology to receive automatic identification signals of ships for the purpose of tracking and monitoring vehicles at sea. It has also been designed to verify the quality of the satellite posture and control system and a newly developed, advanced on-board computer designed specifically for small satellites.
Vietnamese movies chosen for Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Project Market
Two Vietnamese movies entitled 'Memento Mori: Water' and 'If Wood Could Cry, It Would Cry Blood' have been chosen amongst the 26 official selections for the Asian Project Market as part of the 2021 Busan International Film Festival, according to a recent announcement of the film fest on its website.
‘Memento Mori: Water’ is the second movie in the trilogy ‘Memento Mori the Movie’ scripted and directed by Marcus Manh Cuong Vu and co-produced by Nguyen Hoang Diep and Nguyen Trinh Hoan. Launched in 2019, the series is inspired by a true story from the ‘Destination of life’ book by Vietnamese author Dang Hoang Giang.
Meanwhile, ‘If Wood Could Cry, It Would Cry Blood’ is the first project of young female director Nguyen Phan Linh Dan, who once attended the 2019 Busan Film Festival as the director of photography for the film ‘The Secret of the Wind’ by director Nguyen Phan Quang Binh.
The 24th Asian Project Market will be held virtually from October 12 to 14, featuring 26 film projects selected from a total of 429 entries submitted globally.
FIFA world rankings: Vietnam solidify top spot in Southeast Asia
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FIFA world rankings: Vietnam solidify top spot in Southeast Asia
Vietnam remained the highest-ranked team in Southeast Asia as FIFA announced its men’s world standings on August 12.
Specifically, the Golden Star Warriors continued to safeguard their 92nd position with 1,261 points, three points more than the FIFA’s previous release in late May. Vietnam were one among two Southeast Asian teams to gain further ranking points this month, alongside Malaysia (154th, +1).
World No. 24 Japan jumped four places to hold on to top spot in the Asian rankings with 1,529 points, followed by Iran (world No. 26, 1,522 points), Australia (world No. 35, 1,477 points), and the Republic of Korea (world No. 36, 1,475 points).
Belgium remained the top-ranked team in the world with 1,822 points, 24 points clear of second-placed Brazil. With their Euro 2020 title, Italy moved up two notches to fifth with 1,745 points.
Vietnamese grandmaster comes second at 2021 Chessable Masters
Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem finished second, with prize money of US$15,000 USD, at the recently concluded 2021 Chessable Masters held in the US after he was defeated by So Wesley from the host country.
In the second set of the final, in the form of four rapid games held on August 9, the two grandmasters had a 2-2 tie. However, Wesley previously beat Liem in the first set.
The chess tourney was held online due to COVID-19.
In the International Chess Federation (FIDE) world ranking in August, Liem stands in 32nd place with an Elo rating of 2709. He is the top-rated player in Vietnam and currently the head coach of a chess team at the US’s Webster University.
