Financial support for flood-affected farmers

The Prime Minister has approved financial support of VND120 billion ($5.7 million) for 12 Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces to buy rice seed for the upcoming spring harvest. The money will be advanced from the central budget to help local farmers to recover from recent floods. It will be refunded from the surplus revenue of 2011. Previously, a sum of VND340 billion ($16.2 million) was also given to 11 provinces in the region to help them overcome the aftermath of the floods.

2 more Vietinbank officials arrested

Police in the southern province of Tra Vinh have arrested two officials of the Viet Nam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank) on Tuesday for allegedly misappropriating funds.

Lam Hoang Phong, deputy director of Vietinbank Tra Vinh Branch and Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, an accountant, allegedly signed fake contracts and directed their junior staff to make fake documents to withdraw money.

To date, police have arrested six people involved in the case including the branch director, two deputy directors and three clerks who faked 600 documents to misappropriate around VND2.2 billion (US$104,770).

Fire breaks out at Central Highlands market

A big fire broke out at a grocer’s store at Easup Market in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak Wednesday morning, burning goods worth up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Easup Market in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.  (Photo: VNN)

The blaze spread quickly and spread to a warehouse where goods of many stalls in the market were stocked.

It took the firefighters an hour to put out the blaze.

According to an initial calculation, goods which have been stocked up for the Tet holiday of 100 stalls were burned completely.

The damage can cost up to tens of billions of dong, a source told Vietnamnet Newswire.

Local authorities are finding a way to help traders at the market resume business after the fire.

13,500 smuggled tobacco packs seized

Ha Noi Police confiscated more than 13,500 smuggled packs of tobacco from two locations in Tien Du District in northern Bac Ninh Province on Tuesday.

The owner of the smuggled tobacco, Nguyen Tien Tinh, fled from the scene.

The case was detected when the police caught three men, later found to be Tinh’s accomplices, red-handed illegally transporting 155 boxes of the smuggled tobacco on Hoan Kiem District’s Hang Chieu Street.

An investigation is ongoing.

This is the second biggest smuggling case ever discovered by the Ha Noi Police.

Businessman forges papers to get APEC cards

The Ministry of Public Security has proposed to the Supreme People’s Procuracy to prosecute a businessman for counterfeiting papers to obtain APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) for 4 people who wanted to use the cards to go aboard.

After 3 years of hiding, 50-year-old Pham Van Thu, former director of Tuyet San Thien Thu Teas Joint Stock Company in Hai Duong Province, was arrested in July in Dong Nai Province, the ministry’s security investigation agency said.

Thu has been charged with “forging documents and materials of agencies and organizations” and “arranging for others to go abroad illegally.”

In May 2007, Thu submitted faked documents to Hai Duong authorities to apply for 4 ABTCs for a man and 3 women who were falsely certified in writing by Thu as deputy directors or chiefs of representative offices of his company.

Thu charged VND30 million (US$1,430) for each card he provided to Nguyen Thi Kim Chuyen, Nguyen Thi Van, Tran Ba Quy and Nguyen Thuy Ninh.

Chuyen and Quy later went to Australia as ABTC holders but the former returned to Vietnam later and established a ring to send people abroad illegally using the same fraud.

Van went to Japan in July 2007 and she hasn’t returned to Vietnam ever since.

Meanwhile, Thu did not hand the card to Ninh, who wanted to go to Australia, since the woman owed him US$500.

Chuyen was arrested in 2008 and Thu fled from his residence and was put in the wanted list of the ministry’s police until he was arrested in a rented room in Dong Nai on this July 9.

Fines of up to $24,000 for copyright violations

People will be subject to a maximum fine of VND500 million (US$24,000) for violating copyrights under a newly amended Government decree.

The minimum fine is VND500,000 ($24).

Violators who copy or quote without permission from authors will receive a fine of at least VND400 million ($19,200) if the copied work is valued at more than VND500 million ($24,000).

Authorised agencies have been assigned the task of assessing the value of copied works in order to impose fines on violators according to the new regulations.

The decree will be valid from January 20, 2012.

Hanoi company pays workers with cake

T.P.M., a cake producer in Hanoi that was three months in arrears with salary payment has used its products to pay workers who quit their jobs. This practice has made things difficult for the people who received the cakes, since they had to turn those cakes into cash.

After suffering such a long delay in salary payment, Ninh Xuan Tr., along with other workers at the company, decided to resign from their jobs.

As a sales executive in charge of the company’s market in northern provinces, Tr. had a monthly salary of nearly VND20 million (US$952), and he expected the company to pay him the more than VND50 million that they owed him.

But Tr. and his workmates were astonished to hear the company’s management announce that they would pay them with cakes instead of cash. The management explained that the company could not afford pay them, as it was in financial trouble.

Tr. later received more than 2,000 boxes of cakes that he said was equal to a full truckload. He then had the company’s distributors sell the cakes, but those agents have yet to pay him the sales.

Nguyen Cong P., the company’s managing director, faced the same bizarre situation as Tr. when he resigned. P., whose salary was US$2,100 per month, said the company had paid him with cakes for several months before his resignation.

“I can’t do anything but receive cakes, since the company has no cash for payment. Many distributors still owe the company,” P. said.

While waiting to turn the huge amount of his cakes into cash, P. kept a small part of the cakes at his home and deposited the rest into the company’s store and his relatives’ houses, he said.

P. said that late in certain months of every year many small businesses like his company face so many financial problems that they have to use their products as means of payment of salary or annual bonus to their staff.

Pham Thi Thu, who works for D., a textile and garment maker in Hanoi’s Long Bien District, said the company has used jackets as bonuses to workers on major holidays and Tet.

“I still have seven or eight jackets at my home. I find the hard to sell them as they aren’t very attractive. The company says such a jacket is worth VND400,000-500,000, but I would prefer to be paid VND100,000-200,000 than to receive a jacket like that.

Meanwhile, certain units of the Hanoi Water Drain Company have used sugar, monosodium glutamate (MSG), cooking oil, and other consumables to pay workers as a replacement for premium pay.

P.V.C., a worker at the company, said, “I think that those who are in charge of premium pay want to buy such products to get commissions for the sellers. We do not like to receive them as premium pay. I now have many such things at home…”

Within the law

“It is not wrong for businesses to use their products as payment of salary to workers, since such a practice is allowed by law,” said Tong Thi Minh, head of the Salary and Wage Department under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

“Businesses that are in financial troubles need sympathy from their workers. On the other hand, in some cases, it is better for workers to receive payment in kind than to keep waiting for cash payment in vain,” Minh said.

However, if such a practice is encouraged, it will be disadvantageous for workers, she said.

"Payment in kind is mainly seen at private companies, where a trade union is not available to protect workers’ rights and interests. Meanwhile, some companies use products for salary payment after reaching a mutual agreement with their employees, so relevant agencies have no need to interfere," she said.

Measures to protect consumer rights

Many representatives from businesses and organizations gathered at talks in Ho Chi Minh City on December 7 to discuss measures to both assist businesses and protect consumer rights.

They proposed measures to help businesses build reputable trademarks and harmonise the rights of businesses and consumers.

Le Thi Cam Nhung, Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Standards and Consumer Association (VINASTAS), said VINASTAS protects not only consumer rights but also the legal rights of businesses. It is a bridge allowing businesses and consumers to meet and resolve disputes and complaints.

On the same day, a representative from the municipal Food Safety and Hygiene Department said it has established three groups to inspect food safety and product quality to protect consumer rights during the upcoming traditional Lunar New Year festival (Tet).

Since early this year, the department has found 1,200 production units violating rules and suspended the operations of 180 others, levying total fines of more than VND4 billion. In addition, more than half of around 600 inspected collective canteens have violated food safety and hygiene standards.

Hanoi among top 50 most expensive cities in Asia

Hanoi ranks 41st in Asia and 217th in the world among most expensive cities, ECA International has announced.

Meanwhile Ho Chi Minh City placed 43^rd in Asia and 224^th in the world, according to a cost-of-living survey conducted by ECA International, the world’s leader in the development and provision of solutions for the management and assignment of employees around the world.

Tokyo is the most expensive city in Asia, following by Nagoya, Yokahama and Kobe (Japan), Seoul (the Republic of Korea), Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong (China), and Busan (the RoK).

Singapore overtook Hong Kong jumping from 8^th last year to 6^th this year in the list, because the Singapore dollar is increasingly stronger against other currencies in the world and average prices of goods and services rose by 5.7 percent.

The last city on the list in Asia is Karachi, southern Pakistan.

According to the survey, four other ASEAN cities are more expensive than Hanoi: Jakarta (15^th), Kuala Lumpur (30^th), Metro-Manila (32^nd) and Vientiane (33^rd).

ECA International reported that prices of oil, food and other products have increased significantly around the world over the past 12 months.

The world’s top ten most expensive cities in 2011 are in Japan, Norway and Switzerland.

Youth forum boosts regional friendship

A forum for youth from the Development Triangle countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia was held in the southern province of Attapeu, Laos on December 7. 

Addressing the forum, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice Governor of Attapeu province Vatsadi Thonhotha praised the traditional solidarity and assistance among the three countries through historical periods of revolution, which is inherited and developed by new generations. 

Ta Van Ha, member of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee, expressed Vietnamese youth’s spirit of union and friendship toward youth from neighbouring countries. 

He affirmed the responsibility of Vietnamese youth in realising the contents of the joint governmental statement, aiming to promote sustainable development in the three countries. 

Delegations from the three countries also exchanged experience and affirmed their determination to build a stronger Development Triangle targeting cooperation in various fields including trade, investment and tourism. 

The forum is part of the seventh Joint Coordination Committee Meeting of the Development Triangle of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre