Society

At a breaking ground ceremony for a social housing project invested in by the Becamex Investment and Industrial Development Corporation (Becamex IDC) in southern Binh Duong province on March 19, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said the government has issued the National Housing Development Strategy for the 2021-2030 period and vision to 2045, which has new requirements to meet the budgets of middle-income and low-income households and on diversifying financial resources for social housing development.

Vietnam Airlines’ first flight carrying foreign visitors arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on March 16, one day after the reopening of the country. Among the more than 100 passengers, 20 were foreigners.

Vietnam holds a great deal of potential for bioenergy development as an agricultural country. There are many barriers to address, however, including a lack of stability and sustainability in fuel supplies and material prices, meaning the proportion of biomass and waste-generated electricity in the power system is very low. Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has therefore been implementing the “Climate Protection Through Sustainable Bioenergy Markets in Vietnam” (BEM) project since 2019.

On March 15, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) and the Center for Social Initiatives Promotion (CSIP) signed a cooperation agreement to improve the capacity of VAVA. The agreement is within the framework of the “Support to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities in provinces heavily sprayed with Agent Orange” project during the five years from 2021 to 2026, with a total budget of $750,000 from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Construction of the 10-ha FPT UniSchool Ha Nam education complex in northern Ha Nam province is set to begin this year and be completed a year later. The school will be able to enroll about 10,000 students a year and is expected to promote education and the training of high-quality human resources to contribute to local economic development.

The first electric bus route using advanced technology to contribute to green traffic officially opened in Ho Chi Minh City on March 9. The city has 126 bus routes, to increase to 152.