Topic: pandemic

New Year season sees many people travelling, which creates conditions for many illnesses to spread.

Figures from the General Statistics Office show that international visitors to Vietnam stood at more than 2.35 million in the first ten months of the year, or 18.8-fold higher year-on-year but down 83.7 per cent compared to the same period of 2019, before Covid-19. In October, international visitors totaled 484,400, up 12.1 per cent against September and 45.9-times higher year-on-year.

After being temporarily suspended due to Covid-19, Starlux Airlines’ direct flights between Da Nang and Taipei, Taiwan (China) resumed on October 28. Da Nang catered to more than 2,100 arriving and departing international flights and over 280,000 passengers in the first nine months of 2022. It expects to see more international routes resume over the closing months of the year.

Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai chaired a meeting on October 13 with the Price Management Steering Committee to evaluate results in the first nine months of this year and the first half of October and to establish priorities in the months to come. Factors affecting price management, he said, include some tax support policies expiring at the end of the year, the speed of public investment disbursement increasing, demand for consumer goods, especially in food and consumer goods, rising sharply as Tet approaches, and the lingering impact of natural disasters and the pandemic.

Despite posting slowing growth since before the pandemic, Vietnam’s construction sector is still a bright spot in the Asia-Pacific region and is forecast to grow by more than 8.71 per cent during the 2022-2027 period. FDI inflows continue to come and the government’s support policies have helped enterprises in the construction sector to recover.

Though newly-registered FDI is still to recover to pre-pandemic levels, additional capital and capital contributions and share purchases continued to increase in the first nine months of 2022.

According to VnDirect Securities, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has decisively and promptly responded to changes in the international financial market. However, an increase of 100 basis points in the operating interest rate was unexpected, and higher than the forecasted 50 basis points. VnDirect believes the rate may increase by an additional 30-50 points during the closing months of the year. The 12-month deposit interest rate at commercial banks will rise to 6.1-6.3 per cent per annum by end-2022, which is still lower than the pre-pandemic 7.0 per cent per annum.

Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh has launched the “120 days and nights to implement the four expressway projects of Mai Son - National Highway No. 45, Cam Lo - La Son, Vinh Hao - Phan Thiet, and Phan Thiet - Dau Giay” emulation program. These four expressways, which are sub-component projects of the first phase of the North-South Expressway, are to be completed by the end of 2022. The impact of Covid-19, adverse weather, rising building material prices, and other issues have presented many problems hindering construction.

Employers have been exempted from paying unemployment insurance premiums for the past year in an effort to help them overcome Covid-19. As production and business activities return to some semblance of normal, compulsory unemployment insurance premiums will be re-applied from October 1, at 1 per cent of an employee’s monthly salary.

According to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, more than 60 per cent of workers are currently renting houses and housing development for workers is proceeding slowly. In March, the government decided to support the rental costs of workers affected by Covid-19.