One tree grows 40 different types of fruit

Hoa Phat's steel production at its facility in Dung Quat, Quang Ngai. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Hoa Phat Group plans to import 1.44 billion USD worth of commodities from Australia in 2021, more than doubling last year’s figure. The imports will include around 4 million tonnes of iron ore, 3.5 million tonnes of coal of different types and 145,000 cows. The group’s imports of machines, equipment, and materials for production reportedly hit nearly 2 billion USD last year. Of the total, some 35 percent, or 700 million USD, came from Australia , also over double the figure from 2019 and making the industrial manufacturer the largest Vietnamese client of the country. More than half of the total import value, or 364 million USD, came from coal, compared to just 115 million USD in 2019. The group’s purchases of iron ore leapt a whopping 19-times to 123 million USD in the first eleven months of 2020. Hoa Phat bought more coal and iron ore last year to serve production at its iron and steel integrated complexes in the northern province of Hai Duong and the central province of Quang Ngai’s Dung Quat Economic Zone. Meanwhile, it annually purchases hundreds of thousands of cows from Australia, with its herd accounting for 50 percent of all Australian-imported cows in Vietnam . With such soaring import numbers, Hoa Phat was estimated to account for 17 percent of Australia’s total export value to Vietnam in 2020, compared to 7.4 percent in 2018 and 7.6 percent in 2019. According to Global Trade Atlas, Australia’s exports to Vietnam reached 4.4 billion USD in 2020, 16 percent of which was imported by Hoa Phat. Last year, the group’s exports exceeded 1 billion USD, including 966 million USD worth of high-quality and construction steel./. VNA …

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The Cái Lớn sluice is being built in Kiên Giang Province.  VNA/VNS Photo Lê Sen HCM CITY — Saltwater intrusion in the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta will continue to increase in March and April, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting. The peak of saltwater intrusion will occur during high tide on March 12 -16, March 27 – April 1, April 9 – 14 and April 24 – 30. The delta, the country’s largest rice, fruit and seafood producer, is facing a higher than normal level of saltwater intrusion from the sea through river mouths in the ongoing dry season. However, it is not as severe as the level of the previous dry season. The delta’s provinces have dredged irrigation canals to store more water and upgraded and built dams and sluices to prevent saltwater intrusion and store fresh water. Nguyễn Thiện Pháp, head of the Tiền Giang Province’s Irrigation Sub-department, said the province has built eight dams to store fresh water for agricultural production and supply daily use water for 800,000 households. Farmers in Tiền Giang, the country’s largest fruit producer, have stored irrigation water in their orchard ditches for fruit and other crops. In Cà Mau Province, farmers have stored fresh water in containers and have switched to growing drought – resistant crops. The delta sowed the ongoing winter-spring rice one month earlier than normal to avoid a shortage of irrigation water at the end of the crop. Farmers are now harvesting the winter-spring rice and have had a bumper harvest. The harvest of the winter-spring rice is expected to be completed in May. Largest irrigation system Kiên Giang Province is speeding up the phase one construction of the Cái Lớn – Cái Bé irrigation system to serve agricultural production and local households. The irrigation system, which is the largest of its kind in the delta, connects the Cái Lớn River and the Cái Bé River and is expected to improve agriculture and aquaculture and …

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Foreign ship arrivals down 6 percent in first two months Vietnam’s sea ports have berthed some 4,900 foreign vessels over the last two months, a decline of 6 percent year-on-year, according to the Vietnam Marine Administration. The fall was due largely to the impact of COVID-19, which is resulting in major fluctuations in the transport sector, a representative of the administration said. Despite the lower number of foreign ships, the volume of import and export goods through ports grew. In January and February, 35.3 million tonnes of imports and 26 million tonnes of exports were handled at ports nationwide. The former represented an annual increase of 14 percent while the latter was as same as that last year. In particular, nearly 1.3 million TEUs for exports and 1.2 million for imports were handled during the period, up 32 and 16 percent, respectively, year-on-year; the highest growth since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, the arrival of domestic vessels totalled 5,300, up 11 percent year-on-year./. Quang Ninh’s Van Don airport reopens on March 3 The Ministry of Transport has decided to allow Van Don International Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh reopen from 6:01am on March 3 after the COVID-19 pandemic has been put under control in the locality and the airport is safe to transport passengers. The airport was temporarily shut down from January 29 after an airport security staff was confirmed positive for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that causes the COVID-19 pandemic. The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines announced earlier that it will resume flights between Ho Chi Minh City and Quang Ninh on March 3, thus becoming the first to restart flights to the Van Don airport since the local COVID-19 outbreak began. From March 3 to 17, one weekly flight will ply the route between the two destinations, on Wednesdays. Flight numbers will be increased to three a week, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, from March 18 until the …

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