ILO helps Vietnam create steady jobs

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) will provide Vietnam with US$4.56 million to implement a stable employment project.

ILO Director in Vietnam, Gyorgy Sziraczki, announced this after the first meeting of the National Steering Committee on Sustainable Employment in Hanoi on September 24.

Sziraczki said generating stable employment for everyone, including poor and vulnerable people, is key to helping Vietnam reduce poverty reduction and promote human development.

The ILO will grant nearly US$3 million to support Vietnam in developing employment relationships and reforming salary policies in the 2012-2016 period.

It will also spend around US$1 million helping small-and medium-sized enterprises improve labour productivity and access to markets, and also promote workers’ rights.

The 2012-2016 national steady employment programme focuses on increasing the quality of economic growth through fostering highly qualified human resources and promoting steady employment and business development. It also aims to improve social welfare and generate jobs for vulnerable groups.

HCM City's labour needs decline

The human resource needs of enterprises and companies in HCM City in the last quarter of this year will be less than in the third quarter, according to the city's employment agency.

Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the HCM City Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information, said firms will look to employ 65,000 people as against 80,000 in the third quarter.

Firms will employ around 20,000 people each in October and November and 25,000 in December, he added.
Nearly 52 per cent of the fourth-quarter jobs will be in marketing, sales and services, Tuan said.

Forty per cent of the demand will be for manual workers, 25 per cent for graduates from colleges and universities and the remaining for vocational school graduates.

Studies show that demand for workers with technical skills increased in this year's first three quarters, but only 70 per cent of it was met, Tuan said.

In first nine months of this year, the city created jobs for more than 210,000 people including 85,000 new jobs, according to the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Vietnamese, Korean dioxin victims on epic bike trip

Six Agent Orange/Dioxin victims from Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) will join in a trans-Vietnam cycling tour from November 1-25.

The 20-member group will start the ride in HCM City and wind through 1,700 kilometres to Hanoi.

During the trip, participants, including artists, sportsmen and AO victims, will meet with local associations for AO victims.

The team is expected to arrive in central Danang City on November 15.

The event aims to raise awareness and support for AO victims.

As many as 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam War.

Province tackles child malnutrition

The southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau has succeeded in reducing the rate of malnourished children between three and five years old with its "school milk programme."

Le Thanh Dung, deputy chairman of the provincial People's Committee, said last week that the province has been carrying out the programme for the last five years with the purpose of building a young generation strong in body and mind.

The programme supplies free milk to children between three and five years of age to all schools in the province. It also provides free milk to malnourished children of the age group that are not attending school.

As a result, the rate of malnourished children in this age group has reduced from 26 per cent to 15 per cent, Dung said.

The number of children whose height has improved accounts for 36.8 per cent of the total that have received free milk, he added.

Between 2007 and 2011, more than 197,000 children received free milk everyday, he said, adding that the province had spent more than VND30 billion (US$1.4 million) on the programme during this period.

Encouraging results have motivated the province to continue the programme until 2016, Dung said.

Until now, the province is the only one in the country that has implemented this programme.

Le Minh Hoang, head of the Education and Training Department in southern Dong Nai Province, said he wants to implement the programme in his province as well.

Kawasaki donates bicycles to the poor

The Japan-Vietnam Friendship Association of Japan's Kawasaki City has donated 985 bicycles to poor students in the central city of Danang and Quang Nam Province.

The Danang city's people's committee said the donation, which costs VND2 billion (US$95,000), will be handed-over to the municipal Friendship Union next month.

Kawasaki City has provided nearly 5,000 bicycles for Danang following a 10,000 bicycle donation programme from 2003-15.

Delta races to protect orchards from flooding

Local authorities and farmers in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta have been strengthening dyke systems for protecting orchards as water levels rise in the Mekong River.

Besides protecting paddy fields during the annual flooding season, which normally occurs between August and November, the delta also focuses on orchards as the region is also the country's largest fruit producer.

In Ben Tre Province, one of the downstream provinces, Cho Lach District is upgrading and building new dykes to protect 9,500ha of fruits, flowers and ornamental trees.

Bui Thanh Liem, head of the Cho Lach Agriculture and Rural Development Office, said the district was raising the height of existing dykes and building new dykes in flood-prone areas as well as those at the risk of soil erosion.

The district was determined not to let floodwater inundate its orchards, he said.

"Of the 9,500ha, more than 1,000ha of rambutan and durian trees that are bearing out-of-season fruits are being strictly protected from the floodwater threat," he added.

Of the total of VND9 billion (US$428,000) being spent on strengthening and building dykes, VND3 billion has been drawn from the State budget and VND6 billion from local people's contributions.

Nguyen Thien Phap of the Tien Giang Steering Committee for Search and Rescue, Flood and Storm Prevention and Control, said one of their most important tasks was to protect more than 40,000ha of fruit gardens in the province from floodwaters. Over the last several days, local authorities and farmers in the province's Cai Lay, Cai Be and Chau Thanh districts have renovated dykes and shored up dozens of erosion-prone areas to protect fruit orchards, he said.

Local authorities have also warned farmers to closely monitor the water levels in local rivers and streams so that prompt measures can be taken to save the orchards, he added.

Tien Giang Province is the delta's largest fruit producer.

In Hau Giang Province, Chau Thanh District has upgraded dykes and built new ones to protect 4,448ha of various kinds of fruits this year, according to the local Agriculture and Rural Development Bureau.

In the upstream province of Dong Thap, normally one of hardest-hit provinces during the flooding season, nearly 25,000ha of fruits in Cao Lanh, Chau Thanh, Lai Vung and Lap Vo districts were being "strictly protected," local officials said.

Lai Vung now has more than 1,000ha of pink mandarin, a local speciality, that cannot withstand flooding, according to the district's Agriculture and Rural Development Bureau.

Therefore, it has invested more than VND5 billion to build dykes in Tan Thanh, Long Hau and Tan Phuoc communes.

Of nearly 4,000ha on which other kinds of fruits are grown in Lai Vung, 20 per cent are scattered, so the district cannot build dykes to protect them," local officials said.

They have advised local farmers to take steps on their own to protect their orchards, they added.

VNN/VOV/VNS