Social News 5/11 Two labour export businesses fined for illegal operations The Department of Overseas Labour (DOLAB) has imposed an administrative fine of VND212.5 million (US$9,522) on Vietcom Human Resource Supply and Trade Joint Stock Company for various violations. The department, under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, found the company guilty of taking advantage of 150 Vietnamese labourers by collecting fees to recruit, train and send them abroad to Japan for work. The company also violated regulations governing their activities as it did not directly recruit labourers to work in Japan but had established another centre for training and human resource development in HCM City. In addition to the administrative fine, the DOLAB ordered the company to repay the labourers the sum of money it had collected illegally. The company was ordered to suspend operations to send labourers to work overseas for a period of three months, starting from November 2, the DOLAB said. During the suspension period, the company is not permitted to sign or register labour supply contracts or recruit, train and send workers overseas for work. The company has been ordered to submit the list of workers recruited by their foreign partners under labour supply contracts registered and approved by the DOLAB, so the department can review it and re-establish permission to send labourers to work abroad. Earlier, inspectors from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs had also decided to penalise Hai Phong Tourism Oil Service Joint Stock Company for illegally organising the recruitment and training of labourers and for collecting money from them. The company was fined VND175 million ($7,870) and suspended from sending Vietnamese workers overseas for nine months starting from November 1.  Vietnamese in Australia raise fund for underprivileged children The Australian Vietnamese Golf Association (AVGA) has raised more than 12,350 AUD (roughly 8,860 USD) for disadvantaged children in mountainous areas in Vietnam. The fund-raising event followed the AVGA’s annual golf tournament recently held in Sydney with the participation of 140 golfers from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the host country. AVGA President Tran Tri Tue said over the past three years, his association mobilised a total of over 30,000 AUD (21,500 USD) which have been used to support a charity programme launched by a group of students in the homeland. Apart from charitable purposes, the tournament also aims to unite Vietnamese people at home and abroad and promote Vietnam’s images to international friends.-VNA Workshop on women’s empowerment held in HCM City A project to apply the principles of empowering women at workplace has drawn the participation of 23 enterprises nationwide since it was launched in early 2014. Participating enterprises included 11 from the north and the rest from the south and the project has been jointly carried out by the UN Women and the Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council (VWEC), as heard at a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City on November 3. Nguyen Thi Tuyet Minh, VWEC Chairwoman, stressed that gender inequality is one of the obstacles that hinder the sustainable development of businesses. Work regulations designed for female labourers, such as maternal leave, are well observed by almost all enterprises, she said. However, awareness of women’s rights to be part of the leadership as well as to enjoy fair treatment thorough the production chain remains poor, she added. Shoko Ishikawa, UN Women Country Representative in Vietnam, said that in the context of international economic integration, a business brand is evaluated not only basing on its pure economic and financial factors, but also on how it protected the environment and implemented social responsibility and gender equality. Businesses, who wish to set a firm foothold in the US and EU markets, need to comply with local strict regulations on labour safety, social responsibility, and gender equality, said Nguyen Quang Vinh, Secretary General of the Vietnam Business Council of Sustainable Development (VBCSD). Vietnamese enterprises, therefore, should regard gender equality, especially the empowerment of women at workplace, as conditions for sustainable development. Vietnam, RoK foster ties in new situation Experts from Vietnam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) have gathered at a seminar in Hanoi to seek ways to foster the bilateral relationship in the new context. The event was jointly organised by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) and the Academy of the Diplomatic Academy of RoK on November 3. Dr. Hoang Minh Hang from the VASS’s Institute for Northeast Asian Studies stressed the need for a multilateral security cooperation mechanism for the whole region as countries and territories are tending to show off their military strengths and sea and island sovereignty disputes are increasing. Hang also highlighted the potential for elevating the bilateral relations between Vietnam and the RoK in the context, saying that they need mutual support and cooperation in protecting their territorial sovereignty. Both nations have participated in a number of regional cooperation mechanisms, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the expert said, adding that such mechanisms help strengthen mutual understanding and trust and lay the foundation for a tighter relationship between the two countries. Meanwhile, Director of the RoK academy Wooseon Choi underlined the similarities in history, culture and experience between his country and Vietnam. In order to raise the Vietnam-RoK ties to a new height, the two nations should enhance strategic dialogues on and mutual understanding of their shared changing benefits in the region, he underscored. Maritime security cooperation should be strengthened to protect their marine transport systems, while joint efforts are needed to develop mutual trust for the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes and regional stability, he affirmed. In addition, the two countries can also collaborate in other fields such as technology, socio-economic development, cultural exchanges and national defence, he added. Vietnam and the RoK established their bilateral strategic cooperative partnership in 2009. In 2010, the two nations signed a Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation. They have been holding bilateral strategic defence dialogues at the deputy ministerial level since 2012. Vietnam makes progress in curbing blindness rate Vietnam has achieved positive results in reducing the rate of blindness, with only 1.8 percent of the country’s population suffering from blindness in 2015, heard a conference held by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Hanoi on November 3. According to a report on a national survey on avoidable blindness (RAAB) in 2015 announced at the conference, the figure dropped by 1.3 percent and 2.3 percent compared to those in 2007-2008 and in 2000-2002, respectively. Conducted by local eye doctors in 14 provinces nationwide under the supervision of the MoH’s Management Department of Diagnosis and Treatment and the National Ophthalmology Hospital, the survey aims to evaluate achievements of the National Plan on Blindness Prevention. Dr. Vuong Anh Duong from the Management Department of Diagnosis and Treatment reported that the rate of poor eyesight in Vietnam reduced remarkably to 11.4 percent in 2015 from 13.6 percent in 2007. The report showed that cataract, glaucoma, trachoma, and other refraction remain the leading causes of avoidable blindness and poor eyesight in Vietnam. Experts stressed that it is necessary to raise the rate of cataract operation from 1,869 cases at present to at least 4,000-5,000 cases per year, and increase the number of crystalline lens operation cases by at least 10 percent per year. They underlined the need to discover causes of post- cataract surgery poor eyesight in some localities, thus taking appropriate measure to better the situation. Participants also recommended the launch of communications campaigns to raise public awareness of the benefit of having timely cataract operation, and improvement of the quality of refraction adjustment-related services. The most recent data said around 409,000 Vietnamese people are suffering from blindness with one third of them being the poor who are unable to afford treatment. Vietnam is striving to eradicate trachoma by 2015, conduct 250,000 cataract surgeries each year and reduce the prevalence of blindness among the population to less than 0.3 percent in 2020, said Associate Prof. and Dr. Tran An, VNIO Deputy Director. Dong Thap appeals to tourists with environmentally-friendly tourism Development of environmentally-friendly tourism products has proved to be the right way for the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap that has seen a surge of international visitors since the beginning of 2015.  According to Ngo Quang Tuyen, Deputy Director of Dong Thap’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the number of tourist arrivals for the whole 2015 is estimated to reach 2 million, with a 28 percent surge in international tourists.  Total tourism revenue is forecast at more than 300 billion VND (13.3 million USD).  Dong Thap has focused on developing eco-tourism products in recent years with thematic tourism areas set up based on the local advantages.  Cao Lanh city has been touted as a capital of pink lotus while Sa Dec city is a garden of tropical flowers.  The Gao Giong eco-tourism area is where tourists can enjoy traditional dishes of local residents while the Tram Chim National Park is a natural habitat of bird species. Xeo Quit is a historical site.  The province will continue to develop distinctive tourism products such as orchards of local fruit specialties trees and traditional villages. A new tourism area dedicated to lotus, the ubiquitous plant of Dong Thap, has been zoned off in Thap Muoi district.-VNA Forestry sector aims to boost productivity The forestry sector has taken measures to restructure the industry by improving productivity and enhancing the value of forest-plantation areas. Nguyen Ba Ngai, deputy director of the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry, said the forestry sector's production value had an annual growth rate of 6.57 per cent in recent years compared to 5.03 per cent per year in the 2010-12 period. Ngai spoke at a seminar held by the General Association of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Localities have carried out forest plantation plans, with more than 200,000 ha of forest planted each year on average nationwide, 90 per cent of which is production forest. Vo Dai Hai at the Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences, said the country's plantation forest area increased from 1.92 million ha in 2012 to nearly 3.7 million ha last year. The area of certified forest increased to about 170,000 ha, which have received Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. According to Nguyen Ton Quyen, deputy chairman and general secretary of the Viet Nam Timber and Forest Product Association, Viet Nam has about 13 million ha of forest area with a timber reserve of 935.3 million cubic metres from both natural and plantation forests. It has about 8.2 billion cubic metres of bamboo reserve. The overall output of timber harvested from plantation forests has been 15 million cubic metres a year, providing material for paper production, exported chips, basic construction, fuel wood, wooden furniture and furniture exports. However, plantation and natural forests have had low productivity and quality, failing to meet development requirements, especially for large timber materials for the processing and export industries. With limited capital and few skilled workers, households often plant small trees that cannot meet the demand of wood-processing companies. In addition, the households often harvest their forests before they mature and sell it as wood chips. This practice results in low profits. As a result, enterprises involved in the wood processing industry must spend large sums to import wood materials to process for export, he said. The local woodwork processing industry has developed rapidly in recent years, with export earnings of US$7 billion this year, creating high demand for raw wood materials. To solve the materials question, Quyen as well as other delegates suggested businesses work with forest planters to harvest forests more effectively. Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the Government should develop policies to encourage businesses to set up processing plants for wood pulp and MDF plywood at forest-plantation areas. Plantation owners needed help to plant big trees to provide raw material sources for wood-processing companies, he said. He also suggested that research institutes develop new high-quality seedlings and teach forest owners planting techniques to improve efficiency. Tuan said a series of free trade agreements would open up opportunities for enterprises to boost export of wooden products. However, to enjoy the benefits from these FTAs, he said the sector must work to meet requirements set by import countries, including regulations on products made from legal timber sources. Viet Nam's wooden products made from plantation forest were highly valued by import countries, including selective markets like the US and Japan, he said. Vietnamese wishing to work overseas fall victim to scams Dishonest brokers have colluded with branches or representative offices of a number of labor-exporting companies to cheat Vietnamese people who wish to be sent abroad as guest workers. Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, head of the Department of Overseas Labor Management (Dolab), under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, made the statement while talking with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper about the fact that a lot of people wishing to be sent abroad for work paid money to dishonest brokers only to find out that they had been scammed. “In reality, swindles are caused from both sides: cheaters and people who are ignorant of related regulations and want to become guest workers as soon as possible,” Quynh said. Regulations on labor export have been provided by the mass media, posted on the Dolab’s website, and made available at departments of labor, war invalids and social affairs, but many people have paid no attention, making them more susceptible to swindlers. One of the victims is V.T.M.H., a young woman of the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. Van told Tuoi Tre that in November 2014, she paid VND42.45 million (US$1,900) to Vu Thi Van, a broker in Ho Chi Minh City, who made a receipt that reads, “I [Van] receive this amount and undertake that V.T.M.H. will be sent to Japan as a guest worker in four or six months. If H. fails to be sent to Japan, I will return the money to her.” Van later introduced H. to the Japanese Human Resource Training and Development Center in Ho Chi Minh City's Thu Duc District, under the Vietcom Human Resource Supply and Trade Joint Stock Company, where H. paid $2,800 as a fee and VND12 million ($538) as the charge for a course in Japanese. However, H. has until this point not been sent to that country and is suffering from a debt burden. “That money is a bank loan on which I have to pay an interest of VND4 million [$179] per month,” H. lamented. Similarly, T.T.L.K., another woman in the southern province of Tay Ninh, said she and her husband paid $5,600 to the representative office of Atlantic Joint Stock Company in Cu Chi District, located in the same city, and then paid an additional amount of VND24 million ($1,076) to the Japanese Human Resource Training and Development Center for a Japanese language course, but they have yet to be sent to Japan. According to a source, about 150 other people who have taken such a Japanese course at the same center are experiencing the same plight as K. and her husband. These people have requested that the center repay their money and return their personal records but their request has yet to be fulfilled. In another case, N.T.P., also of Tay Ninh, paid Viet Nhat Vinh Ron Co. Ltd., a labor exporter in Tan Binh District, $1,500 on December 12, 2014 and then $1,000 on April 17, 2015, but she has not been sent as a guest worker to Japan. P. has asked that the company repay her the sums but it told her to wait, the woman said. The Dolab head, Quynh, advised that before paying any money to any labor exporters, people should learn more about them to understand whether they have been licensed to offer labor export services and whether their plans for recruiting people for overseas work have been approved by her agency.      Quynh added that in order to avoid possible cheats, people should not use brokers in taking steps related to the labor export process. “I’ve requested that all local authorities tighten control over labor export companies and that the branches and representatives detect and prevent swindling acts,” the official said It is necessary to publicize the names of the labor exporters that are unreliable or have committed fraud so that people can avoid them, he added. Reportedly, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has recently fined Vietcom more than VND200 million ($9,136) for its serious violations of labor exporting regulations and suspended the company for three months. VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri