Security 21

Female sapper Dieu Linh has just attended a virtual ministerial meeting entitled “Maintenance of international peace and security: Mine action and sustaining peace: Stronger partnerships for better delivery,” held by the UN Security Council. She was one of the three keynote speakers at the discussion session of the meeting. Dieu Linh was born and grew up in Quang Tri, Vietnam’s central province, which suffered thousands of tons of bombs dropped by the U.S. Air Force during the war. She said fate has brought her to the work of clearing UXO. “At first, I worked as an interpreter for a Norway-sponsored mine action project. I learnt a lot about the huge consequences of war legacy in my home land. Although decades have passed since the end of the war, UXO is often found in paddy fields, up on hills and in residential areas. I recall when I was small, my friends and I picked up a number of metal pieces and played with them. With our little knowledge, we did not know the metal pieces were grenades or artillery shells. I now feel lucky as these deadly things did not boom. But not all people are as lucky as we were. Since the end of the war [1975], nearly 3,500 were killed and more than 5,000 others were wounded by UXO in Quang Tri,” Dieu Linh spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the meeting. With her strong desire to contribute to her homeland, Dieu Linh studied to become a field officer and then a field manager in 2015. Now she is the Chief of the Quang Tri Female Sapper Squad, leading 300 sappers and workers. Every day, she leads the sapper squad to detect and move UXO to safe sites for neutralization. She and members of the squad are trying their best to bring peace and safety to local people and turn UXO-polluted land – the so called “land of death” into farmland for them. Regarding her female sapper squad, Dieu Linh said, “In the past, people used to think that bomb and mine clearance was men’s job, and that women should only serve in support forces like …

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Deposits at banks modest due to low interest rates A person arranges stacks of Vietnamese banknotes. Capital has been poured into other sectors rather than banks due to their low deposit rates According to the Department of Credit for Economic Sectors under the State Bank of Vietnam, in the first quarter of this year, the deposit growth reached only 0.54%, well below the credit growth of 2.93% and the average deposit growth of 2.28% in the first quarter of the past seven years, Lao Dong newspaper reported. At present, the rate for savings of less than six months is 3%-4%. Meanwhile, tenors of six to less than 12 months and over 12 months enjoy a rate of 3.5%-5.5% and 4.6%-6%, respectively. Although some banks have revised up their deposit rates by 0.1-0.4 percentage points, the banks’ average deposit rate in the first quarter remained some 2 percentage points lower than that in the same period last year. If the trend continues, the banking system’s liquidity will no longer be ample this year, according to Bao Viet Securities Company. Meanwhile, the General Statistics Office stated that capital had been injected into other sectors, with life insurance premium soaring 11%. Meanwhile, the securities market mobilized nearly VND55.6 trillion, surging 42% over the same period last year. Pham Lam, vice chairman of the Vietnam Association of Realtors, attributed land fevers over the past few months partly to residents’ idle money and their expectations of higher prices of real estate products. According to Dao Minh Tu, deputy governor of the central bank, as of mid-March, banks’ outstanding loans for the property sector grew 2.13%, higher than the current credit growth of 2.04%, despite the central bank’s close control over credit for the sector. Market rebounds, VN-Index returns to 1,250 point-level Shares settled higher on Wednesday, reversing their morning course on recoveries of materials and banking stocks. The benchmark VN-Index …

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A view of the Hoa Sen steel plant . Photo by VnExpress/Thuy Dung. Its revenues were worth VND4.5 trillion, a 42 percent rise from the previous month. It attributed the increase in profits and revenues to the fact that Lunar New Year holidays ( Tet ) had ended in February and did not affect March sales. In the first half of the 2020-21 fiscal year, which started on October 1, it reported profits of VND1.4 trillion on revenues of VND19.9 trillion, equivalent to 94 percent and 60 percent of the targets for the full year. Mirae Asset Securities Vietnam estimated sales of VND38 trillion for the year, up 38 percent from 2019-20. Its HSG share closed at VND31,550 on Thursday. According to the Vietnam Steel Association, in 2020, Hoa Sen was the leading steel sheet manufacturer with a 34 percent market share. It also accounted for 17 percent of the galvanized steel pipe market, behind only the country’s biggest producer of construction steel, Hoa Phat Group. Hoa Sen also remained the third largest manufacturer of plastic pipes. …

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