Analysts pick – Talk Vietnam

Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport has been struggling with overcrowding in recent days, with passengers having to wait in queues for hours and running the risk of missing their flights. — Photo nld.com.vn HCM CITY — Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in HCM City, the country’s largest, has been crowded in the last few days and people have had to queue up for hours. Despite there being no evident reason for the congestion since there have been no holidays like Tết , there seem to be more and more passengers as domestic travel is returning to normal due to Việt Nam’s success in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. People almost missed flights due to the long queues and airline staff needed to use microphones and placards to find passengers requiring to board soon. Nguyễn Thanh, who flew to Hà Nội on a 10am flight on Friday, told VnExpress online newspaper that even though she and her family arrived at the airport at 8am, they were still waiting at the security checkpoint at 9.40am and had to seek help from airline staff to catch their flight. Some travellers struggled with the medical declaration or forgot to do it, which made the wait longer. The airport has also tightened security checks ahead of the April 30-May 1 holidays. The crowding was worse before weekends, with the number of passengers rising from 64,000 on Wednesday to 77,000 the next day. The airport has instructed airlines to station more personnel to support their customers with procedures to speed up things, and has increased the number of its staff and scanners at security checkpoints. A Vietnam Airlines spokesperson said the carrier has increased the number of staff to support customers. The airport was designed to serve 25 million passengers a year by 2020, but has been handling nearly 40 million since 2017. Construction of its third terminal is slated to begin in October, which will increase its capacity to 50 million passengers a year. — VNS …

Lychee being canned for export to the US. Việt Nam's exports to the US in the first two months of the year accounted for $13.83 billion or 28.4 per cent of total exports. VNA/VNS Photo Vũ Sinh Compiled by Thiên Lý Exports for the year as of March 15 were worth US$62.01 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.7 per cent, according to the General Department of Việt Nam Customs. Exports to the US in the first two months of the year accounted for $13.83 billion or 28.4 per cent of total exports. In recent years the US has become Việt Nam’s biggest market. Last year, for instance, at $76.4 billion it accounted for 27 per cent of the latter’s total exports. Thân Đức Việt, general director of Garment 10 Joint Stock Company, said there were several factors behind Việt Nam’s rapid growth in exports including to the US. Primarily, he said, the COVID-19 pandemic has gradually been controlled around the world, especially after several countries started vaccinating their populations, enabling many of them to reopen their borders and trade to resume. Businesses in the country, hit badly for the last year or so by the pandemic, are making strenuous efforts to bounce back, he pointed out. Many countries around the world have rolled out large stimulus packages to spend their way out of the economic slump, and this has revived trade, he added. Many analysts concurred with these views, saying the US recently launched a $1.9 trillion package to make direct payments of $1,400 to individuals earning up to $75,000 a year starting in April. This is the third and largest stimulus since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Việt Nam, one of the US’s major exporters, supplying essential items like fisheries products and garments and electronics, is expected to benefit from this relief package. Việt of Garment 10 told Đầu Tư Chứng Khoán magazine that Vietnamese exporters hope to get orders from the US. Americans are known as big spenders, and if they get the money from …

HCM City airport overrun by crowds as domestic travel picks up

Việt Nam’s exports to the US expected to rise sharply