Hell or high water movie

That was announced at a launch ceremony held by SAV in Hanoi on December 22. The Vietnamese agency, as the Chair of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) for the 2018-2021 term, chaired the online launch meeting. Speaking at the meeting, Auditor General of Vietnam Ho Duc Phoc said that from the proposal of the SAV on initiating an audit of cooperation among ASOSAI’s SAI members in Southeast Asia, on the basis of consultation with related stakeholders, the participating SAIs agreed to choose the subject for the collaborative audit on water management in the Mekong River basin in line with SDG implementation. In July 2020, the 55th ASOSAI Executive Board Meeting officially approved the project with the participation of three SAIs, including Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. The audit has been included in the 2020-2022 working plan for the ASOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing (ASOSAI WGEA) and the 2019-2021 working plan for the ASEANSAI Knowledge Sharing Committee (ASEANSAI KSC). At yesterday’s online meeting, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar signed a Statement of Commitments with terms of reference (ToR) for the cooperative audit, confirming cooperation among the three SAIs and the coordination relationship between the parties to the audit. Accordingly, the cooperative audit is to be carried out in the form of a parallel audit, applying an operational audit type and will be conducted simultaneously by three SAIs. Each participating SAI may apply a different audit method tailored to the needs and interests of each country. The two main objectives of the audit are defining the responsibilities of countries involved in implementing national SDGs in the Mekong River basin, and assessing whether the countries concerned have fulfilled the commitments linked to the implementation of the international SDGs in relation to the management, use and protection of water resources in the Mekong River basin. The SAI of Vietnam, as the …

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On behalf of the real estate enterprises, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HOREA), said that compared to the previous year, there was an additional petition of Gamuda Land Joint Stock Company. The petition states that while waiting for the Prime Minister to decide on a VND514-billion deduction following the recommendations of the Government Inspectorate, over the past time, construction investment and business activities of the company have been stagnant, affecting the reputation and brand of this company in 10 years of operation in Vietnam. As for the matter of social housing, Mr. Le Huu Nghia, CEO of real estate developer Le Thanh, said that they were considering whether to develop social housing again. Because of too many difficult procedures, many people advised him to play safe by switching to develop commercial real estate. At the Le Thanh Tan Kien social housing project in Binh Chanh District, although the HCMC People's Committee had directly instructed to remove obstacles, after three years of implementing the project, now it backs to square one. Although the regulation for the processing time of the application by authorities is 215 days, in fact, the processing of the application can take a lot longer than that because the application must be transferred between departments and districts. Even a document from the urban management office to the district People's Committee takes several months. Moreover, although the social housing projects are invested by enterprises from start to finish, they are audited as projects using capital from the State budget. Meanwhile, the auditors are too strict. They slap them with high fines on petty mistakes, discouraging investors, Mr. Le Huu Nghia explained. Le Thanh Company is one of 20 enterprises that have petitioned the city through the summary of HOREA. This list shows that many petitions had been raised by investors at meetings with the city leaders in the past years, …

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Prof. Dr. Andreas Stoffers - Country director, Vietnam The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom The United Kingdom is an important trading partner of Vietnam. In 2020, trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $6.6 billion. With $5.8 billion in exports, Vietnam’s trade balance was clearly positive, which also underlines the country’s strong interest in reaching an amicable agreement with the UK. In recent years, despite the uncertainties associated with Brexit, the growth of trade relations has been unbroken, averaging 12.1 per cent per annum in 2011-2019. The trade relations between the EU and Vietnam are naturally greater given the fact that the EU is the world’s largest market. In 2019, the EU was the second-most important overseas market for Vietnamese products with a total trade volume of $56.45 billion, of which Vietnam’s exports accounted for two-thirds ($41.55 billion). This is 16 per cent of the country’s total export volume. In 2020, exports to the EU increased to $34.8 billion, and imports to $14.5 billion. Vietnam benefits significantly more from bilateral economic relations than the EU. The continuous surplus Vietnam enjoys in its bilateral trade relations with the EU has been instrumental in offsetting Vietnam’s huge trade deficits with China and South Korea. Vietnam exports mainly electronics, footwear, clothing and textiles, coffee, seafood, and furniture. The most important goods of EU exports to Vietnam are high-tech products including boilers, machinery and mechanical products, electrical machinery and equipment, pharmaceuticals, and a very limited number of motor vehicles. The EVFTA opens many opportunities for producers and traders on both sides, including small- and medium-sized enterprises. The EVFTA is of course one of the most modern and far-reaching agreements of its kind. It plays an important role in promoting trade liberalisation between Vietnam and the EU. Combined with the new Law on Investment which …

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