Vietnam Today

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is advising the government on a stimulus package with interest rate support totaling about VND20 trillion ($879.54 million) per year and an implementation period of two years, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc told the National Assembly (NA) on November 9. He also proposed an increase to public debt levels so there are funds to support lending interest rates for businesses.

The Australian Government has committed to provide Vietnam with a total of 5.2 million Covid-19 doses, of which 1.5 million have arrived in the country in recent months and 3.7 million will come through the Australian Government’s procurement agreement with UNICEF. A reception ceremony was held on November 9.

At 9.06am (Hanoi time) on November 9, Vietnam’s NanoDragon satellite successfully separated from the Epsilon-5 rocket, which had been launched earlier on the same day from the Uchinour Space Center in Japan, entered orbit, and began working in space. The satellite was designed and manufactured entirely in Vietnam by the Vietnam National Space Center.

According to an announcement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on November 8, via cooperation with the COVAX facility, the US has donated 2.8 million additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Vietnam. This is the seventh time the country has donated vaccines to Vietnam, bringing its total to over 15 million. The US has committed to supporting Vietnam with over $30.2 million to control Covid-19. Vietnam is among the countries to have received the most vaccine doses from the COVAX facility to date.

Vietnam’s urbanization rate has been increasing rapidly and currently stands at some 40 per cent, with 870 cities distributed relatively evenly around the country. Urban development still exhibits some limitations, however, and has failed to meet development requirements. The government is to adopt policies on urban development and reconstruction in the economy, society, and the environment.

The “Moving toward a blue economy in Vietnam” report developed by the Vietnam Administration of Sea and Islands (VASI) at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was released on November 5. It is one of the first studies on blue development in the maritime economy, with a new approach that will help shape Vietnam’s maritime economy in the future.