Vietnam Today

The US, Japan, the UK, and Belarus now recognize Vietnam’s “vaccine passport” and India has agreed in principle. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) is holding urgent discussions with about 80 partners to accelerate the mutual recognition of the passports.

On November 4, during his official visit to France, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the Vietnam - France Businesses Forum and witnessed the exchange of 29 MoUs between Vietnamese and French or European partners. He called on French businesses to invest more into Vietnam in a spirit of “win-win”, especially in sustainable development, emissions reduction, green transformation, and digital transformation.

During a meeting in Paris on November 3 between the two, French Prime Minister Jean Castex told Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that France will provide Vietnam with 970,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine via the COVAX mechanism and 400,000 other doses through bilateral channels. France has already donated more than 2 million doses to Vietnam. The two then witnessed the signing of many MoUs, documents, and economic agreements.

Vietnam will have some 53 million digital consumers by end of the year and is expected to be the fastest-growing market in Southeast Asia in the future, with the value of e-commerce goods reaching $56 billion by 2026, or 4.5-fold higher than the 2021 estimate.

At a meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on November 3 in France, COVAX CEO Aurélia Nguyen said the facility has decided to allocate over 9 million more vaccine doses to Vietnam. The country, meanwhile, will contribute an additional $500,000 to the COVAX facility, bringing its total contribution to $1 million.

Along with the restoration of production, the recovery and breakthrough of Vietnam’s 100-million-strong domestic consumer market from now to the end of the year is expected to boost production and business activities and drive economic growth.