Hanoi: The following is a brief review of the day’s events as reported by the Vietnam News Agency.
-Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested action be boosted to upgrade Vietnam’s stock market from the frontier status to the emerging one in 2025, while chairing a conference in Hanoi on February 28.
The State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC) reported that amid big pressure posed by complex developments of global financial and stock markets, thanks to domestic macro-economic stability, strong and flexible directions from the Government, the PM and the Ministry of Finance, along with close coordination from relevant ministries, sectors and agencies, Vietnam’s stock market saw good recovery in 2023 with the market structure increasingly perfected and many important targets achieved, thus remaining a magnet for domestic and foreign investors and a useful channel for attracting capital to the economy.
-Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien has joined meetings held as part of the World Trade Organ
isation’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi.
At the MC13, Dien spoke highly of the WTO’s role in guiding and promoting trade liberalisation effectively.
-A delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) led by Minister Le Minh Hoan has paid a visit to Sri Lanka on the occasion of the 37th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC37) hosted by the South Asian country.
During the visit from February 19-21, the Vietnamese delegation paid a courtesy call on Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, and held working sessions with Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries Mahinda Amaraweera and Minister of Fisheries Douglas Devananda.
-Vietnam has attracted more than 4.29 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first two months of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 38.6%, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)’s Foreign Trade Agency.
During the period, 405 new projects with total registered capital of 3.
6 billion USD were granted investment certificates, up 55.2% in volume and doubling the value recorded in the same time last year.
-Export Development Canada (EDC) is planning to open an innovation office in Ho Chi Minh City this autumn as Vietnam is one of the priority countries in the Indo-Pacific region of the North American nation, said an EDC official.
Talking to the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)’s resident correspondent in Ottawa, Nathan Andrew Nelson, Chief Representative and Vietnam and Innovation Director for the Indo-Pacific region of the EDC, said the EDC aims to enhance trade between the two countries.
-The recently released Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 results show that Vietnam is a typical example of high academic results despite limited education investment, according to the Quality Control Department under the Ministry of Education and Training.
PISA, a programme of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), measures 15-year-olds’ ability
to use their reading, mathematics, and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. In Vietnam, the 2022 survey covered 6,068 students of 178 schools, representing about 939,500 students aged 15 nationwide.
-Vietnam’s No.1 swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang has smashed records at the Asian Age Group Swimming Championships 2024 which is under way in New Clark city, the Philippines.
Hoang, born in 2000, broke the record in the men’s 1,500m freestyle (18-and-above age category) event with 15:29.69 on February 27.
-The first-ever Quy Nhon International Outdoor Lifestyle Fair (Q-Fair 2024) will be organised in Quy Nhon city, the south-central coastal province of Binh Dinh, on March 9-12, heard a press conference on February 28.
This is Vietnam’s largest trade fair for outdoor living, and will become an annual event in March.
-Group tourists from three Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, can travel without a visa to the Republic of Korea (RoK)’s Jeonllanam-do province (Jeonnam) through Muan inter
national airport until March 2025, according to a statement released by the provincial administration on February 27.
The statement said that the southern province has received permission from the RoK’s Ministry of Justice to apply the extension./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency