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Lấy về từ / captured from:
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn |
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Lấy về từ / captured from:
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn |
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Switzerland supports administrative reforms (01-08-2005) Viet Nam News spoke with Switzerland’s new ambassador to Viet Nam Benedict de Cerjat to mark the Swiss National Day, which is today.
Could you tell us a little bit about your national day? Switzerland was founded in 1291. This is more than 700 years ago, so we have a long standing tradition of celebrating August 1, even though it has only recently been designated as a national holiday. When I was a young boy, we didn’t have a holiday on national day so I went to school and my father went to work. Traditionally, Swiss people get together at night and go to the mountains and have a big communal fire so on the night of national day one can see big fires all over the country. In Viet Nam, we have a small Swiss community of about 300 people. Most of them live in Ho Chi Minh City. They will have a special get-together on this day, as will we here in Ha Noi. How do you view Viet Nam’s Doi moi (renewal) process almost 20 years after its implementation? The Dôi moi process has created a very dynamic climate, which is favourable to reform. Viet Nam has experienced many interesting years that have seen a fast-growing economy and a lot of changes. I’m impressed by this very dynamic country. Of course, there are a lot of things to be done as the fast-growing economy presents many challenges. The main challenge is to control the growth and to ensure that everybody is on board and that the gap between poor and rich and between cities and provinces doesn’t increase. It is also important that everybody benefits from these opportunities. I am very interested in the current discussions in view of the 10th Party Congress next year, especially discussions about relations between Party members and businesses as well as the problem of corruption, which has to be handled. The leaders of Viet Nam are taking these challenges very seriously.
How has Switzerland supported Viet Nam’s administrative reform? Switzerland supported Viet Nam in its development for more than 30 years with a lot of different programmes. One of them is in the field of administrative reform. We are very proud to see some initial, positive results, especially at the local level with, for instance, the widespread use of the one-stop shop concept. I’m convinced that it’s helpful. It makes administration more efficient and it’s also a way to avoid corruption at the local level. We will continue this effort as I am convinced that there is still a lot to be done in this field. Switzerland is the fourth biggest European investor into Viet Nam. In which areas are Swiss businesses most interested in? We have some very big companies which has been operating in Viet Nam for more than 10 years. The largest Swiss investor is Holcim in the cement sector. Other very important companies are ABB which produces electrical transformers, Nestle which produces coffee, Milo, milk, yoghurt and Lavie water. Other companies like Novatis (pharmaceuticals), Syngenta (agrochemicals) and many smaller companies help to provide more than 2,500 jobs in Viet Nam. I hope that this interest in Viet Nam will continue. I’m confident that this will be the case, especially when Viet Nam becomes a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Swiss companies in Viet Nam operate under different circumstances. Most of them have local partners, this is the case for Holcim, for instance. I expect after Viet Nam’s WTO accession, some companies will run under their own ownership. The Swiss Import Promotion Programme aims to help Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises to export their products to Switzerland. How is this scheme progressing? This is a very interesting programme. I think Switzerland is leading in this field, in helping developing countries exporters to gain access to export markets. We have had very good experiences with bio-shrimp promotion and the promotion of black tiger shrimp from the southern Ca Mau Province. These products are now available in large Swiss stores. We are now promoting other Vietnamese products, which includes food products but we also recently launched a programme for medical herbs, textiles, and wood products. In fact at the moment the best Vietnamese exports to the Swiss market are footwear and textiles. With our SIPPO programme we support other sectors that we think have good potential. Footwear and textiles already have good market access and a good market share, whereas others, namely coffee or tea, need support. We recently opened a programme to help lychee exporters and I saw on the news that the fruit is exporting well to the Swiss market.
Is it true that Switzerland has agreed to allow citizens of Schengen nations to enter the country without visas? Is this as indicator that Switzerland will join the EU soon? In early June we held a referendum and the Swiss population agreed to join the group of Schengen under which European countries share policies on regulations, politics and justice. The Schengen group does not fit exactly with the European Union. The UK (a member of the EU) is not a member of Schengen but Norway (not an EU member) is a member of Schengen.
Now new policies have to be ratified by the Schengen member states before coming into force. There are some technical issues to prepare the connection between the member countries. I am confident if not in 2006, in 2007 or early 2008 we will complete this part of the system. This will mean that by this time Vietnamese citizens who would like to visit Switzerland will be able to visit the country with a Schengen visa obtained at the German, French or Italian consulate. When Vietnamese citizens visit Switzerland they will be able to travel all over the Schengen nations with one visa. I’m convinced that this is very good, although, I was not optimistic that we could convince our people that it was good. It doesn’t mean that we will be able to join the EU in the near future because the Swiss population seems reluctant in terms of the political integration. The current discussions among EU member states following the referendum about the EU Constitution show that there are some issues open for discussion and EU member states need to discuss the advancement of the community. We expect the Schengen states to ratify the accession of Switzerland because we have created a treaty and the Swiss population has accepted it and now it is up to the Schengen members to decide. If one member state doesn’t accept it, it will not be implemented. I don’t see why the Schengen member states would veto our accession because it is also advantageous to them. They will be able to travel through Switzerland without a passport or a visa and without having to pass through border controls. There is a statistic which states that more than 1 million people cross the border every day due to Switzerland’s geographic position. There are a lot of transits such as Italians going to Germany and Germans going to Italy and a lot of people come in for the day to work. — VNS |
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Environmental contest receives 14 VN entries (04-05-2005) A total of 1,500 entries have been received worldwide for this year’s contest on innovative, future-oriented, and effective sustainable construction projects organised by Holcim Foundation. Holcim Awards is a competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, based in Switzerland. Regional awards will be given to the three best entries from Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa-Middle East and the Asia-Pacific. The entries will be judged on five key areas of sustainable construction: quantum change and transferability; ethical standards and social equity; ecological quality and energy conservation; economic performance and compatibility; and contextual response and aesthetic impact. There are 255 entries from Asia, of which 14 are from Viet Nam. The entries will be evaluated by independent jurors in close collaboration with the five partner universities of the Holcim Foundation. Awards ceremonies will be held in Beijing, Boston, Geneva, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro in September and October of this year. The prize money totals US$220,000 per region. The three top projects from each region will automatically qualify for the global Holcim Awards competition in the second quarter of 2006 in Bangkok, in which prizes totalling $900,000 will be awarded. — VNS |
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Holcim
ties up credit for factory Cache webAdress of this page HA NOI -- Holcim Cement, a Swiss-Vietnamese venture, has clinched a US$37-million loan from a consortium of four banks for its Thi Vai-Phu My cement grinding factory. The four that have signed on the dotted line are the Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam, Viet Nam Industrial and Commercial Bank, the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development of Viet Nam and Tan Viet Joint Stock Commercial Bank. The loan will account for 70 per cent of the project's capital with the remainder to be injected by the Holcim holding corporation. The factory will come up at Thi Vai, a port town in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, about 80km from HCM City. With a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of cement per year, it will take Holcim's total capacity to 3.5 million tonnes. The company hopes to break ground for the plant in May this year and complete construction by June 2004. Holcim's total investment in Viet Nam tops $440 million with a cement factory in the southern Kien Giang Province's Hon Gai Town and two packing and distributing bases in HCM City. -- VNS |
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Industrial sector springs into new year Friday,
January 30, 2004 The chairman of the Viet Nam Textile and Garment Association, Le Quoc An, said companies in his sector restarted operations on Sunday, the fourth day of the first lunar month. "All companies are full of orders, with many garment products being shipped abroad," he said. An said many companies, including Nha Be, Viet Tien and Phuong Dong, were exporting goods to the US, the EU and Japan on Tet Eve. The sector earned an estimated turnover of VND610 billion (US$39.4 million) in the first month of the regular year, he said, a 5 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, and roughly 7 per cent of this year’s target. Lilama director, Le Van Tuan, said more than 150 workers from his company worked over the holiday to install a cement mixer at the Holcim Cement Factory at the Thi Vai construction site in northern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. He said the workers enjoyed a base salary of VND100,000 ($6.66) along with a VND100,000 daily bonus for working during the Tet festival. Lilama’s Trade Union chairman, Nguyen Van Chu, said the company’s engineers and workers traditionally worked on the fourth day of Tet in past years. Tuan said Lilama planned to complete its work by June. The general director of Hai Phong Port, Cao Tien Thu, said his employees were at work on the first day of Tet, last Thursday. He said the port hoped to see 11 million tonnes of imported and exported goods pass through its gates this year, a 10 per cent increase from last year. "We are co-operating with more than 500 domestic and foreign customers," Thu said. "About 2,000 vessels ship out from and dock in the port every year." Thu said the port, like many in Viet Nam, operated on a small scale, had a low capacity and was burdened by complicated administrative procedures. "This year," he said, "Hai Phong Port will pour money into developing infrastructure." In central Quang Ngai Province, all of Dung Quat Wood Plank Processing Factory’s employees worked during the first three days of the lunar new year to meet the deadlines for the company’s contracts, according to an official. A Panamanian ship carrying 14,000 tonnes of plank wood was the first to leave Dung Quat harbour for Japan this lunar new year, he said. Another 168 fishing boats left Quang Ngai’s Sa Huynh Seaport for their first fishing trip of the year. An official from Da Nang’s Tien Sa Port Loading Enterprise, Nguyen Tien Luc, said his business planned to load 1.45 million tonnes of goods this year. "We believe we will reach the target, because the port’s administrative procedures have been simplified in the past few years," Luc said. The director of the Can Tho Export Seafood Processing Company, Nguyen Van Kich, said 2,200 workers at his company returned to work on the fourth day of lunar January, two days earlier than in the past. He said his company had to fill seven containers of processed seafood on Tet to ship to the US, the EU and Japan. Kich said the company would expand its market in Japan with nobashi and sushi. "It will not be difficult for Vietnamese shrimp enterprises to provide a strong output of high-quality, low-cost products if shrimpers continue to apply hygienic methods," he said. — VNS |
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