Job placement services to be enhanced by 2015

The Government's plans on boosting employment will include more job consultants in the years to come as well as the development of a national online job placement portal.

The plans aim to increase the number of people who find employment via job placement centres to 30 per cent in 2015 and 40 per cent by 2020.

Nguyen Thi Hai Van, deputy director of the Employment Department under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, discussed the plans at a meeting on job placement activities in southeastern Dong Nai Province yesterday, April 9.

Van said there was a need for more job consultants in Viet Nam as the ratio of job consultants to the total population in the country was 1/10,000, much lower than the world's average of 1/2,200.

According to the Employment Department, during the 2011-12 period, job placement centres across the country offered employment services to nearly 2.6 million people. The number of job seekers applying for vacancies at these centres increased by 12-15 per cent.

The department, however, said job placement centres only met about 30 per cent of the actual demand for placements at enterprises.

The Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs of northern Hai Duong Province said there was an imbalance between supply and demand for jobs in the province, as local enterprises are in need of skilled technical workers, while there was an excess of college graduates.

An official from the HCM City Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs attributed the imbalance to the fact that Viet Nam's education system was not developed enough to keep pace with the country's economic development.

The official said it was not a lack of job opportunities but workers' lack of skills needed for available jobs that was the problem. Therefore, more creative education reforms are needed to ensure labour demands are effectively met.

Food Safety Action Month launched

A month-long campaign was launched in the southern province of Dong Nai on April 9 to raise public awareness of food hygiene and safety.

Photo: VOV

The 2013 action month aims to combat illegal poultry trading and transportation minimise outbreaks of food poisoning, disseminate food hygiene information, and strictly enforce the penalties for regulatory violations.

At the launch ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan asked relevant agencies and localities to focus on building safe and hygienic slaughter houses and intensifying regular food safety and hygiene inspections.

He also raised concerns about the quality of fruit and vegetables, saying only 10 provinces and cities have developed organic vegetable wholesale markets. There are just 491 hectares of cultivated vegetables meeting VietGap and GlobalGap quality standards.

These figures are far from capable of responding to the domestic market’s increasing demands, Nhan noted.

He stressed the need to ensure food quality and especially keep a tight grip on cross-border chicken smuggling to prevent any possible outbreak of the deadly H7N9 avian flu in Vietnam.

Training programmes meet ASEAN standards

Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City on April 9 granted certificates to seven training programmes that meet the standards of the ASEAN University Network (AUN) Quality Assurance System.

The programmes include information technology training at Natural Sciences University and International University, electronics-telecommunications and manufacturing engineering at University of Technology, Vietnamese studies at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, biotechnology and business administration at International University.

Established in 1995, AUN aims to strengthen mutual understanding among member universities through training and quality assessment programmes for mutual recognition of academic degrees.

The network has recently assessed over 40 programmes in member universities, of which the information technology programme at Natural Sciences University and the business administration programme at International University got the highest scores in the country and region.

Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City has been an official member of the AUN since 1999. It has engaged in evaluating training programmes in various fields such as social sciences and humanities, engineering, economics and technology.

Residents without water supply

A big well once provided water for all households in northern Son La City's Chieng Ngan Commune. But it was filled when a road was built to connect the commune with the city in 2001 as part of the local socio-economic development plan.

Since then, nearly 90 households in this mountainous province have lived without a steady source of water.

Quang Van Duong, a resident of the commune, said that he and his neighbours tried many ways to get water from digging to drilling wells, but they found no luck.

"So we had to buy water for VND50,000-80,000 (US$2.5-4) per cubic metre," he said.

Many families who could not afford to purchase water began to drink rainwater.

Local residents say the People's Committee and contractor responsible for the road committed to building a new well when they filled in the old well. But no efforts have yet been made to that end.

Ngo Binh Duong could no longer operate his one hectare farm – once the biggest farm in the commune breeding livestock and poultry – due to the lack of water.

He paid VND100 million ($4,800) to hire people to dig a 30-metre deep well, but they found no water.

Deo Van Nghia, vice chairman of the commune People's Committee, said that it was hard to find water in the rocky, mountainous area.

The committee submitted a request to the city People's Committee for support to drill for water in 2007, he said. But they received no response.

The city's People Committee declined to comment.

APEC transport working group meets in HCM City

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)’s Transportation Working Group (TPTWG) convened its 37th meeting in Ho Chi Minh City on April 9, with the participation of representatives from 21 member nations.

The delegates discussed multimodal and smart transport through an uninterrupted and safe transport system, promoting environmentally-friendly transport for sustainable and fair growth, and increased connectivity for trade and investment facilitation.

Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong said during the four-day event, delegates are expected to seek ways to connect transport in the region and the world, and boost green transport for sustainable development based on society.

In order to fulfill such goals, the TPTWG will connect supply chains, making it easier for passengers to travel, and enhance women’s role in member economies, said the organising board.

It will liaise with the APEC Business Advisory Council, Committee on Trade and Investment, APEC Energy Working Group, Counter-Terrorism Task Force and Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy, among other international organisations.

The TPTWG consists of four expert groups working in aviation, maritime traffic, road transport, multimodal and smart transport.

It is the second time Vietnam has hosted the biannual event, following the 2006 event in Hanoi.

Nearly 20,000 workers go overseas

More than 18,700 workers were sent abroad in the first quarter of the year, according to the Department of Overseas Labour.

Taiwan leads the list of labour markets that received them with nearly 8,400 Vietnamese migrant workers, followed by Malaysia and Japan with about 2,500 and 2,400 workers respectively.

The country plans to send 87,000 workers overseas this year.

New bridge opens in Dak Nong Province

The Central Highlands province of Dak Nong's Department of Transport officially put the Dak R'mang Bridge into operation yesterday.

The bridge is designed to serve thousands of residents in two remote communes, Quang Hoa and Da R'Sai.

The construction of the 66-meter long and 4-meter wide bridge started in the beginning of 2011 with total investment of nearly VND9 billion (US$430,000).

Before the bridge was completed, local residents faced danger every day, forced to cross the fast-flowing Dak R'mang River on rickety wooden ferries.

Man arrested for human trafficking

An ethnic minority man in the Sin Ho border district of northern Lai Chau Province was arrested for human trafficking, local police announced on Monday.

Thao A Phang, 30, admitted to colluding with his younger sister and another local man to defraud and sell 23-year-old Giang Thi Ca to Chinese people last September.

Local authorities are investing the case and coordinating with Chinese authorities to rescue the victim.

Man caught with frozen cats in Ha Noi

The Ha Noi Police arrested a man for illegally transporting two frozen Asian golden cats in Cau Giay District's Trung Hoa Ward on Monday.

Hoang Van Tung, the 27-year-old smuggler, confessed to having bought the animals in the central province of Thanh Hoa with the intent to sell them to animal glue producers for VND30 million (nearly US$1,500).

The products were confiscated and will be handed over to the Cau Giay Police.

The Asian golden cat, a medium-sized wildcat native to Southeast Asia, was classified as near-threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2008.

VNN/VOV/VNS/VNA