the 4th International Conference on Vietnam – Foreign NGOs Cooperation

Improving the legal environment and creating favourable conditions for better reception, management, and use of aid from foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are needed to realise the target of poverty reduction and sustainable development, an official has said.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) Phan Anh Son made the remark at the 4th International Conference on Vietnam – Foreign NGOs Cooperation, which wrapped up in Hanoi on December 13.

He said NGOs have significantly contributed to the socio-economic development in Vietnam. Therefore, it is necessary to promote the application of information technology to shorten time in handling administrative procedures for NGOs.

The official also suggested strengthening mechanisms for data sharing and seeking more effective ways to support NGOs in raising funds for Vietnam.

The Government, ministries and departments should continue supporting and making it easier for NGOs to join poverty reduction and sustainable development activities in Vietnam, he recommended, proposing further cooperation with sponsors to increase the supervision of partner agencies in receiving and using aids from NGOs.

The two-day conference featured six seminars focusing on partnerships between Vietnam and foreign NGOs in several prioritised areas, namely education and vocational training; health care; cooperation between foreign businesses and NGOs for sustainable development; the settlement of social issues and war consequences; environment, climate change response, natural disaster prevention and mitigation, and emergency rescue; and poverty elimination and socio-economic development./.

launching the national public service porta on December7

Four days after it was launched  the national public service portal had by 4:00pm of December 12 been accessed by 2.3 million people, receiving 581 requests for supply of low- and middle-voltage power, 693 for driving licence swapping and international driving licence issuing, and 51 on re-issuing of health insurance cards.

According to Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, data of the portal will continue to be enriched with the addition of more public services such as customs and tax declarations.

The portal, which was launched on December 9, has provided eight services. In the future, the southern hub Ho Chi Minh City will provide additional service of registering business households and tax, while Hanoi will add the services of birth registration, marriage situation certifying, and Quang Ninh and Hai Phong will supply birth registration service through the portal.

Statistics from the Vietnam Social Security showed that there are about 2.6 million requests for reissuing of health insurance cards. The processing of the procedure for each request through the portal will save one working day, or 886.6 billion VND. Together with 71.8 billion VND saved as cost for preparing the dossiers for each request, the total money saved is 958.4 billion VND.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that thanks to the uniformed procedures, businesses can save at least 1.558 trillion VND for registering promotion programmes.

According to the Government Office’s Department of Administrative Procedure Management, each year the portal will also help save over 740 billion VND in cost for the administrative service of changing driving licence services; 2.6 billion VND in issuing international driving licences; nearly 1.560 trillion VND in informing promotion activities; 60.415 billion VND for birth registration; 591.7 billion VND in supplying low-voltage power; nearly 17.9 billion in providing middle-voltage power; 293 billion VND in issuing goods origin certificates; and 958 billion in granting health care insurance cards./.

“Then” singing practice

“Then” singing practice of Vietnam’s ethnic groups of Tay, Nung, Thai has been named in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Department of Cultural Heritage said on December 13.

The recognition was made during the 14th session of the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, held in Bogota, Colombia, on December 12 (local time).

Addressing the session, Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage Le Thi Thu Hien pledged to take necessary measures to protect the values of Then singing practice.

According to the committee, the practice has met five criteria for being named in the list.

Then singing is an essential part in the spiritual life of the Tay, Nung and Thai ethnic groups, and practised in many northern provinces, including Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Thai Nguyen, Lang Son, Ha Giang, Quang Ninh, Son La, Lai Chau, Lao Cai, Bac Giang and Yen Bai, and the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.

Then performance reflects the cultural characteristics of those ethnic groups, from music to dancing and musical instruments.

The ethnic groups believe Then singing was handed down from the God belonging to a mysterious world to which only “Ong Then” and “Ba Then” can contact.

During rituals, “Ong Then” and “Ba Then” sing and play a musical instrument at the same time while presenting offerings to the god, thus contacting the God on behalf of the community and asking  him for things such as good health, bumper crops, happiness and a long life.

As a unique combination of music and song, Then singing is traditionally accompanied by a handmade gourd lute, called Dan Tinh or Tinh Tau.

The art form, which combines a wide range of arts such as literature, music, painting and performance, has had an impact on local and national identities through its influence on literature, language, poetry, music, dance, rituals and spiritual practices.

Closely linked with the spiritual life of ethnic minority groups who often use ceremonial offerings to treat illnesses, Then singing is also seen as a therapy, together with medicine, helping to ease the worries of patients and their families.

Then singing was included in Vietnam’s list of intangible heritages in 2012./.

The Vietnamese Government is always resolved to strive for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said in Hanoi on December 11.

Receiving Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Vietnam Caitlin Weisen, the official further said the Government advocates bringing the sustainable development goals into every national development strategy and program.

Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam (R) receives Resident Representative of the UNDP in Vietnam Caitlin Weisen. Photo: VGP

He also added that in the time to come, Vietnam will continue boosting the awareness from the whole society and mobilize the participation of all the relevant sides into the work.

As Vietnam is going to shoulder the roles of the ASEAN Chair 2020 and a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, besides the issue of climate change, the Government proposes the UNDP support in studying and implementing a number of activities to push up Vietnam’s priorities at the UN.

Deputy PM Dam also spoke highly of the cooperation and assistance from the UN in general and the UNDP in particular to Vietnam over the past more than 40 years, stressing that the assistance programs are described as well implemented and effective, making positive contributions to the building and implementation of the reform policy in Vietnam.

The UNDP official, for her part, briefed her host on a number of contents of the UNDP global human development report. As for Vietnam, the human development index increases every year, standing at 0.693 last year, placing the country the 118th out of the 193 countries and territories, the life expectancy is 75.3 years, the schooling is 12.7 years, and the income gap is 18.1 percent - the lowest in the group.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 14%. Since then, its growth rate has declined by more than half to 6.6% in 2018. The five-year moving average growth rate is at its lowest since reforms began in 1978, although annual growth briefly fell lower during 1979, the year of the Tian An Men incident.

China's growth slowdown

Economists have suggested various factors slowing China's growth, including its lower population growth and ageing population. These demographic factors are real, but their significance has been exaggerated.

The working age population and employment both grew at 2% annually at the end of the 20th century, but such growth started to decline early this century before ceasing in 2014. These factors can only explain up to two percentage points of its annual GDP growth rate decline.

Also, the advantages of economic backwardness have been exhausted: it is easier to catch up from a low base, while growth tends to slow in fast-growing economies approaching the technological frontier, especially as cutting-edge innovation is more difficult and costly than copying existing technologies, whether for free, or even by buying patents and copyrights.

Is rapid growth sustainable?

Developed economies rarely grew for extended periods at the pace of the East Asian ‘miracle' economies ‘catching up'. After all, only five economies have successfully gone from ‘developing' (i.e., less than a fifth of US per capita income) to ‘developed' (over half the US level) status.

These were Japan and the first-generation newly industrialized economies (NIEs) during the 1950s-1980s, namely South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong (HK) and Singapore, although HK's limited industrialization is moot and clearly past.

Marked growth slowdowns have only occurred in Japan and HK, after their per capita incomes were over half the US level, whereas the other ‘tigers' have continued to grow, eluding the supposed ‘middle-income trap'.

As China's per capita GDP (at purchasing power parity, i.e., even in comparable prices) is still under a quarter of the US level, a similar growth slowdown in China may still be a couple of decades away.

Exchange rate competitiveness

China's growth slowdown also appears to be due to political choices. Many argue that its growth for four decades has been due to deliberate exchange rate depreciation, promoting exports and discouraging imports, thus rapidly accumulating foreign exchange (forex) reserves.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

China's exchange rate competitiveness may thus have been an unexpected outcome of efforts to achieve currency stability by informally pegging the renminbi (RMB) to the US dollar, following the example of the Hongkong dollar from 1983. This was deemed especially necessary following the Tian An Men incident and the failure of various earlier multiple exchange rate arrangements.

But as China's rapid export-oriented growth with low wages was also due to rapid forex accumulation, keeping its exchange rate low, and raising exports, savings and investment. From around 2005, however, China gave in to US-led international pressures to let the RMB appreciate.

The real exchange rate of China's RMB – the ratio of Chinese to international prices, as measured by the ratio of its dollar GDP at the official exchange rate to its purchasing power parity GDP – rose during 2003-2013, especially in 2006-2011, except for a brief re-peg right after the 2008 financial crisis started.

The People's Bank of China (PBoC) tried in August 2015 to move towards a floating exchange rate regime, precipitating a 3% fall in three days against the US dollar. China's central bank quickly abandoned the attempt, spending over a trillion dollars of forex reserves over the next two years alone to prop up the RMB.

Ironically, the August 2019 PBoC decision to let its currency sink below the RMB7/USD ‘psychological threshold', consistent with greater exchange rate flexibility, has been portrayed by the Trump administration as currency manipulation although it does not meet US Treasury criteria.

Real exchange rate of Chinese renminbi, 1990-2017(%). Source:

World Development Indicators

Improving wellbeing, not growth

The US – long dominant in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the G7 and the G20 – accused China of ‘currency manipulation' to gain ‘unfair' advantage in international trade, causing ‘global imbalances', including the huge US current account deficit with China.

China's exports as a share of GDP peaked at 35% in 2005, before beginning to fall. The 2008-2009 Great Recession saw RMB appreciation suspended briefly as China opted for a large domestic stimulus package, which accelerated the transition to greater domestic consumption and lower savings as wages rose with high employment and labour force utilization rates.

As the world experienced strong contractionary tendencies, China's growth slowed from 14% in 2007 to a still high 9% in 2009. As domestic consumption rose, savings, investments and growth inevitably declined. The investment share of GDP peaked at 45% in 2013, before declining.

China also slowed forex accumulation, before stopping completely in 2010, resuming RMB appreciation. Its real exchange rate appreciated fastest during 2006-2011, ‘over-shooting' and causing RMB over-valuation until its recent depreciation in response to US trade belligerence.

Hence, China has stopped relying on exchange rate competitiveness and low real wages for rapid export-oriented growth for well over a decade, resulting in rising real wages, higher domestic consumption, and perhaps slower growth.

Health of migrants in Vietnam was the focus of a workshop held in Hanoi on December 10 by the Ministry of Health (MoH), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the World Health Organisation.

Cao Hung Thai, Deputy Director of the MoH’s Department for Medical Examination and Treatment Management, cited an IOM report in 2016 as saying that there were about 2.6 million Vietnamese living and working overseas. Meanwhile, data in 2015 of the General Statistics Office show that the percentage of domestic migration was 13.6 percent.

The rapid increase in population movement around the world, as well as in Vietnam, has had major impact on community health, he said, noting that the MoH recognised the importance of migrants’ health and pledged to implement the World Health Assembly’s Resolution 70.15 on promoting the health of refugees and migrants.

To achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, migrants’ health must be fully ensured, Thai added.

Brett Dickson from IOM Vietnam said international standards and conventions on human rights were issued to protect migrants and refugees’ rights, including the right to health. However, a number of refugees and migrants still lack access to medical services and financial protection in health.

He highly valued Vietnam’s recognition of the importance of migrants’ health and its commitment to implementing Resolution 70.15, considering this an important milestone to improve migrants’ health in Vietnam.

According to IOM Vietnam, internal migration in the country involves mainly young people with 83.9 percent of the migrants aged between 15 and 39. Regarding external migration, the top seven destinations for Vietnamese labourers from January to October 2019 were Japan, Taiwan (China), the Republic of Korea, Romania, Macau (China), and Malaysia.

At the workshop, participants were briefed about the results of a study on migrants’ health in Vietnam and information on regional and global migration. They also discussed solutions to promote migrants’ health in the future./.

Vietnam has made good progress in human development, with an average annual Human Development Index (HDI) growth of 1.36 percent during the 1990-2018 period.
This places Vietnam among the group of countries with the highest HDI growth rate in the world.
This is one of the key finding of the 2019 Human Development Report, entitled “Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st Century”, released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on December 9.”
Addressing the report launching ceremony in Hanoi, UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen said the 2019 Human Development Report disclosed the next generation of inequalities emerging around digital technology, education, and the climate crisis and proposes new ways of measuring and approaching inequalities.
Wiesen praised Vietnam for having firmly embarked on people-centered development and equality in its current socio-economic development strategies and plans.
“Vietnam’s significant Human Development progress since 1990 has been achieved with relatively low increases in inequality,” she said.
Taking into account the Inequality Adjusted HDI, Vietnam is nine places higher than its HDI ranking in 2018, she added.
According to the report, with the HDI of 0.63, Vietnam ranks 118th out of 189 countries, and it needs only an additional 0.007 points to join the High Human Development group. Vietnam’s HDI rank is higher than India, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.
Vietnam has also been performing well in terms of gender equality. The Gender Development Index value of 1.003 puts the country in the top five groups of 166 countries in the world, with Vietnam ranking 68th out of 162 countries in Gender Inequality Index. Particularly commendable is the share of seats in parliament which places Vietnam among the top third of countries globally.
However, Caitlin said, there were important areas for improvement. Vietnam ranks among the bottom third of countries globally in terms of sex ratio at birth (1.12), violence against women by non-intimate partners (34.4 percent) and women with accounts in financial institutions or with mobile money service provider (30.4 percent).
Although Vietnam’s forest coverage as among the top third of countries globally, the country is among the bottom third of countries in terms of carbon emission per capita.
Addressing these would be a key challenge to ensure the sustainability of Vietnam’s growth, she said.
Caitlin suggested Vietnam raise people’s awareness of sex-selection issue.
Nguyen Tien Phong, Assistant Resident Representative of UNDP, said regarding to socio-economic sustainability, a lot of jobs generated by small and medium enterprises did not require skills, meaning Vietnam ranks low in skilled labour force and vulnerable employment.
Vu Dai Thang, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said Vietnam has issued an action plan on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
The Vietnamese Government’s determination was represented by the Nation Assembly's approval of the master plan on socio-economic development for ethnic minority people with the goal of ensure equality in human development. It was in accordance with the spirit “Don’t leave any one behind” upheld by the government, he said./.

Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in terms of salary growth with a 5.1 percent increase expected in 2020, according to a report by ECA International.

Meanwhile, Thailand is among the top five economies in the world to see real salary increases as productivity grows. The country is likely to see a real salary increase of 4.1 percent in 2020, up from 3.9 percent in 2019.

Vietnam is expected to have a 5.1 percent increase in salary in 2020 (Photo: VNA)

The average real salary increase in Singapore is forecast at 3 percent in 2020, down from 3.3 percent in 2019, which is above average in Asia-Pacific and more than double Hong Kong's rise of 1.4 percent. India will again see the highest real salary increase in Asia, predicted to be 5.4 percent.

The average increase in real terms in Asia-Pacific is forecast at 3.2 percent. India took the top spot, followed by Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, then Thailand.

Workers in Vietnam and Thailand will both see further increases to their salaries as the nominal salaries expected to be given by employers stay well ahead of the low levels of inflation that these countries will see in 2020, Lee Quane, Regional Director of Asia at ECA International, was quoted by the Thai media as saying.

Lee said this has been a long-term trend for both countries, as productivity continues to grow and inflation is controlled.

Asian nations lead the way again for salary increases with 13 out of the top 20 hikes in real salaries and the entire top five in the global rankings.

In China, the real salary increase is again expected to be above the regional and global average at 3.6 percent.

However, not all in emerging Asia will benefit from an above-average salary rise after inflation. Workers in Malaysia are expected to see a big drop in their real salary increases compared with previous years, to 2.9 percent from 4 percent in 2019./.