Sửa đổi sách giáo khoa lịch sử
Người lùn hay là quyết định "lùn"?
Giáo sư Wilson nhận xét về nước Mỹ thời Bush và những điều cần làm
World top stories
George Bush held a meeting at Camp David to discuss the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who is also the current head of the European Union, and Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. Later, a date of November 15th was set for a summit in Washington of 20 countries, including such emerging economies as China, India, Russia and South Korea. The summit will address a "common set of principles" for reforming the regulation of international markets. Broadly speaking, the Europeans want more of it, but the Americans are resisting.
In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg Mr Sarkozy suggested that governments should take shareholdings in big companies and that Europe should set up the equivalent of SOVEREIGN-WEALTH FUNDS to deter foreign predators.
Ben Bernanke threw his support behind a new $150 billion STIMULUS PACKAGE that the Democrats want to pass. The chairman of the Federal Reserve said the measure "seemed appropriate" given the outlook for a protracted economic slowdown.
Barack Obama received a big boost with an endorsement from COLIN POWELL. Mr Bush's first secretary of state described the Democrat as a "transformational figure" who would "electrify" America and the world. Mr Obama held out the possibility of offering Mr Powell a formal position in his administration, should he win. –
Amid the financial crisis and economic woes it emerged that the Republican Party spent some $150,000 on "campaign accessories" for SARAH PALIN in September. The party went on a shopping spree at stores such as Neiman Marcus and Barneys to kit out the self-styled hockey mom.
Early-polling booths opened across FLORIDA. Election officials reported a steady turnout of voters eager to avoid long queues on November 4th.
CHINA'S Communist Party revealed details of reforms intended to make it easier for farmers to transfer land and consolidate landholdings. But the reform stopped short of changing the "collective" ownership of rural land or allowing farmers to mortgage their land and houses.
India successfully launched its first MISSION TO THE MOON. An unmanned spacecraft will undertake a two-year exploration in orbit around the moon, mapping the distribution of minerals and elements.
The IMF reported that PAKISTAN had asked it for help to cope with a balance-of-payments crisis. This followed the apparent failure of efforts to raise bilateral loans from America, China and Saudi Arabia.
A route across the line of control separating Indian- and Pakistani-controlled KASHMIR was opened to lorry traffic for the first time in 60 years.
THAILAND'S Supreme Court found Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister currently in Britain, guilty of corruption and sentenced him to two years in prison. Protests continued in Bangkok against the present government, led by Mr Thaksin's brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat.
The police in INDONESIA said they had arrested five members of a militant Islamist cell who were planning to blow up an oil depot in Jakarta.
In SOUTH AFRICA the judge who dismissed a corruption case against Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ruling African National Congress, said that prosecutors could appeal against the ruling. If the case is reopened, it could hamstring Mr Zuma in his expected bid to become president next year.
A draft of a Status of Forces Agreement between IRAQ and the United States (which provides for American forces to stay in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of this year) set a date of American troop withdrawals by the end of 2011. But it was still not clear whether this was a final agreement or whether Iraq's parliament would endorse the deal.
Under the aegis of Egyptian mediators, the opposing PALESTINIAN factions, Fatah and Hamas, said they would meet in Cairo on November 9th in a bid to end their fratricidal differences.
ARGENTINA'S president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, announced a bill to nationalise private pension funds set up in the 1990s. She said this was to protect retirees from the market turmoil. Opponents and investors reckoned it was a prelude to a government raid on the pension system to stave off a debt default. The price of Argentine shares and bonds plummeted.
BOLIVIA'S Congress approved the new constitution sought by Evo Morales, the socialist president, which will be put to a referendum in January. The government agreed to changes in the text, to expand regional autonomy and to restrict Mr Morales to one more term. The revisions followed violent opposition protests and mediation by the Union of South American Nations, a new regional body.
Stephane Dion said he would step down as leader of CANADA'S opposition Liberal Party at a leadership convention next spring. Mr Dion led the party to its lowest-ever share of the vote at this month's general election.
Western aid donors pledged to give $4.5 billion to GEORGIA to help the costs of rebuilding after the war with Russia. Russia was not invited to the pledging conference.
SPAIN'S attorney-general appealed to a higher court against an indictment brought by an activist magistrate, Baltasar Garzon, against General Franco and 34 of his henchmen for crimes against humanity. All the targets of Mr Garzon's case are dead.
A controversial trial of 86 people in TURKEY opened near Istanbul. The so-called "Ergenekon group", which includes former army officers, is charged with plotting attacks to provoke a military coup.
A senior BRITISH Tory, George Osborne, rejected claims that he had sought a party donation from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, while visiting Mr Deripaska's yacht on holiday in Corfu. Also on the same holiday was Labour's Peter (now Lord) Mandelson. Mr Osborne had caused upset by allegedly leaking disrespectful statements made by Mr Mandelson about the Labour leader, Gordon Brown.
Global business news
America's Federal Reserve took further measures to boost liquidity by unveiling a plan to provide up to $540 billion to support MONEY-MARKET MUTUAL FUNDS. The funds, which are usually low-risk investments in short-term debt, have been troubled since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which caused Reserve Primary to lose money for its investors, the first time such a fund had done so for 14 years. Around $500 billion has since been withdrawn from the market, which invests in commercial paper, certificates of deposit and other financial instruments. The Fed's facility creates five "special-purpose vehicles" that will buy instruments held by the funds.
WACHOVIA reported a $23.7 billion quarterly loss, the biggest ever for an American bank. The company wrote down $18.7 billion in goodwill, partly because of declining asset values. The takeover of Wachovia by Wells Fargo is proceeding as planned.
European banks began tapping the rescue funds offered recently by their governments. BAYERNLB sought EURO5.4 billion ($7.2 billion) in aid, the first German bank to do so, and France provided EURO10.5 billion to six banks, with half the total going to CREDIT AGRICOLE and BNP PARIBAS.
Meanwhile SWEDEN detailed a broad bail-out programme for its banking sector, which could involve up to SKr1.5 trillion ($200 billion).
ING received a EURO10 billion ($13 billion) lifeline. ING's retail-deposit base was thought to be large enough to prevent it from having to recapitalise, but its share price sank after it said it expected to make its first-ever quarterly loss, forcing it to turn to the Dutch government.
There were signs that the concerted effort by central banks to improve liquidity was thawing the money markets, and that banks were beginning to lend to each other again. INTERBANK LOAN RATES continued to fall, in some cases to the levels they were at in mid-September.
The POUND dropped to a five-year low against the DOLLAR, $1.63, when Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, issued his most downbeat assessment yet of the BRITISH ECONOMY, asserting that it was now "entering a recession". The EURO fell to a two-year low against the dollar on speculation that the European Central Bank would cut interest rates further.
Stockmarkets endured another rocky week. However, investors in EMERGING MARKETS were unnerved by the unfolding pensions situation in Argentina (which hurt share prices throughout Latin America), the news that borrowing costs for developing countries were at a five-year high, and economic woes in Hungary, South Korea and Ukraine.
CHINA'S GDP growth rate slowed to 9% in the third quarter, year-on-year, its lowest for five years.
The share price of CITIC PACIFIC, part of China's largest state-owned investment group, plunged by 55% after it said it could lose up to $2 billion after betting that the Australian dollar would strengthen. The currency has fallen by 15% this month against the American dollar, which has grown robust since the start of the financial crisis. CITIC's revelation comes soon after CAISSE D'EPARGNE, a French bank, said a "trading mistake" had cost it EURO600m ($808m).
KIRK KERKORIAN decided to start cutting his loses at FORD. In April the investor revealed that he had built up a stake in the carmaker--reaching 6.4%--which was taken as affirmation that Ford's turnaround strategy was working. Since then, its share price has tumbled. Mr Kerkorian is now offloading his stock, and he could stand to lose $700m.
EXELON, one of America's largest electricity companies, launched a $6.2 billion unsolicited offer for NRG ENERGY, which operates power plants in southern California, Texas and the north-east. The financial turmoil has caused the share prices of some debt-burdened energy companies to tumble, and analysts expect more consolidation in the industry. Exelon said its deal would create the largest power company in the United States.
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS withdrew its $5.9 billion offer to buy SANDISK, citing the shrinking earnings potential at the Californian company, which produces flash-memory technology used in digital cameras, music players and the like.
YAHOO! said it would cut 10% of its workforce by the end of the year amid a weakening market for online advertising.
APPLE cheered investors when it said quarterly net profit was up by 26% compared with a year ago on the back of strong iPhone sales--it shifted almost 6.9m in the quarter. However, the company issued a cautious outlook for the rest of the year.
China, Vietnam make breakthrough on border issues
China and Vietnam have pledged to turn contentious border areas into economic growth zones and jointly explore oil-rich offshore areas. The agreement was reached during a visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Beijing. Both countries are among claimants to the Spratly islands in the South China Sea, and claim sovereignty over the Paracel islands, occupied by China. During Mr Dung's visit, the two governments agreed to start a joint survey of the region, advance negotiations on demarcation of the maritime zones and jointly exploit them. Mr Dung and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao also reaffirmed the demarcation of the land border will be completed by the end of this year. Under a joint plan, Vietnam's north will be transformed with industrial projects and new road and rail links that will connect China's Yunnan and Guangxi provinces with Vietnam's Haiphong seaport.
China, Vietnam pledge to settle disputed borders, boost trade
In a step to resolving long-running disputes, China and Vietnam have pledged to turn contentious border areas into economic growth zones and jointly explore oil-rich offshore areas in the future. The communist neighbours -- who stress their comradely ties but also have a history of distrust and conflict -- reached the agreement during a visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Beijing, state media said. Both countries are among claimants to the Spratly islands in the South China Sea, believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves, and claim sovereignty over the Paracel islands, which are occupied by China.
During Dung's visit, which ended Sunday, Beijing and Hanoi "agreed to start a joint survey in the waters outside the mouth of Beibu Bay (Gulf of Tonkin) at an early date," China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported. They would "gradually advance the negotiations on demarcation of these maritime zones and will jointly exploit the zones," Xinhua said. The statement did not settle the hot-button issue of the Spratlys, a strategic string of rocky outcrops in the middle of the South China Sea that are also claimed by Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.
But China and Vietnam pledged to "collaborate on oceanic research, environmental protection, meteorological and hydrological forecasts, oil exploration and information exchanges by the two armed forces." The agreement, although vague on details and timelines, signals a gradual shift in relations between East Asia's economic giant and the southern neighbour which for many centuries was ruled by China.
The South China Sea dispute -- in which Chinese naval vessels have in the past fired on Vietnamese fishing boats -- has in particular stirred strong nationalistic sentiments and sparked anti-Beijing street protests in Vietnam. "The China-Vietnam joint declaration is a major confidence building measure between two potential protagonists," said veteran Vietnam-watcher Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy. "The agreement to begin work on demarcating waters outside the Tonkin Gulf will serve to reduce the area where clashes between fishermen and naval vessels are likely to occur," he told AFP. Earlier this year Beijing angered Hanoi when it reportedly warned US oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp that it would be barred from operating in China unless it pulled out of a joint exploration deal with Vietnam.
Last week Dung and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao oversaw the signing of a strategic cooperation pact between state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp and PetroVietnam, reports said without giving further details Both countries also reaffirmed they would complete demarcation of their 1,350-kilometre (840-mile) land border on schedule by the end of this year.
As recently as 1979 China and Vietnam fought a brief border war in the mountainous region when China, having backed Hanoi during the Vietnam war, sought to punish Vietnam for ousting Cambodia's China-backed Khmer Rouge.
Under both countries' plans, Vietnam's north is set to be transformed with industrial projects and new road and rail links that would connect China's Yunnan and Guangxi provinces with Vietnam's Haiphong seaport. The 'economic corridors' -- part of a web of highways linking China with Southeast Asia -- would help boost annual two-way trade to a targeted 25 billion dollars by 2010 from 16 billion dollars last year. Dung also visited China's Hainan province and proposed closer shipping links with Vietnam. Other deals included a 200-million-dollar joint industrial zone in Haiphong and a light-rail project in the capital Hanoi.
Thayer said the agreement "to proceed positively in contentious areas is a positive contribution to peace and security in the region." "Both Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung have demonstrated statesmanship in these troubled times by not letting the rancour of nationalism trump economic development," he said.
Vietnam Cuts Key Rate to Damp Impact of Global Crisis
Vietnam cut the benchmark interest rate to 13 percent to limit the "negative impact'' of a possible global recession on the Southeast Asian economy. The central bank reduced the key rate from 14 percent, effective from tomorrow, according to a statement on the State Bank of Vietnam's Web site. Vietnam's benchmark rates are still the highest in Asia, along with Pakistan's, as the government tries to slow inflation from 27.9 percent. "If they are doing this now, they must feel very comfortable that inflation is under control,'' said Alain Cany, the Ho Chi Minh City-based chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. "With inflation looking to be more under control, and given the world situation, I don't think this damages the central bank's credibility.''
Lower interest rates will make it easier for companies to borrow money, bolstering company profits and helping the government to meet its growth target. India today cut its key rate for the first time since 2004 to protect Asia's third- largest economy from the global financial crisis. Vietnamese policy makers also lowered the refinancing rate to 14 percent from 15 percent, and the discount rate to 12 percent from 13 percent, according to the statement. The central bank doubled the interest rate it pays on compulsory reserves for banks to 10 percent.
"Although the Vietnamese economy isn't yet showing signs of a recession, we have seen some impact of the deepening global financial crisis,'' said Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, a deputy director of the bank's monetary-policy department in Hanoi. "It's now time for the central bank to do something to prevent the economy from slowing further.'' The State Bank of Vietnam will also buy back 20.3 trillion dong ($1.2 billion) of compulsory bills, starting from tomorrow, depending on banks' individual need for capital. The bank sold the bills in March to reduce liquidity and constrain inflation. Policy makers have been under pressure from companies to reduce borrowing costs, after three rate increases this year. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said last week that Vietnam may miss its target of 7 percent economic growth for 2008 as companies are finding it difficult to raise money. Gross domestic product expanded 8.5 percent last year.
Inflation slowed last month from 28.3 percent in August. Along with lower-than-expected credit growth recently, the central bank has some scope to consider lowering rates, Le Xuan Nghia, director of the central bank's banking development strategy department, said in a telephone interview on Oct. 17. The central bank may release inflation figures for October as early as this week. Vietnam today lowered gasoline prices for a third time this month after crude oil declined, reducing pressure on inflation. The government cut the price of 92-RON gasoline, the most commonly used grade, by 3.1 percent to 15,500 dong a liter from 16,000 dong. The dong had the biggest drop in more than a month on speculation the rate reductions will increase liquidity in the banking system. The currency declined 0.33 percent to 16,660 versus the dollar as of 4:30 p.m. in Hanoi, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The dong last fell more on Sept. 19, when it weakened 0.45 percent. "This is a positive move by the central bank because it will make it easier for companies to get loans,'' said Le Dac Son, Hanoi-based chief executive officer of Vietnam Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Private Enterprises. "It is a signal that the lending rate will be cut further.''
Vietnam cuts prime rate
VIETNAM'S central bank on Tuesday cut the benchmark interest rate by one percentage point to 13 per cent in a bid to free up credit for enterprises amid the global financial crisis. The monetary loosening reverses a series of three hikes this year, from 8.25 per cent to 14 per cent, which had aimed to reduce liquidity and curb the country's double-digit inflation. The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) said in an online statement that the year's first benchmark rate cut was 'designed to make more capital available to commercial banks to increase liquidity and cut lending rates.' '
As a result local cash-strapped companies will have the opportunity to get bank loans in order to maintain business and promote investment,' the SBV said in an online statement published late on Monday. It warned banks to manage capital cautiously and 'prepare risk prevention measures against the effects of the global financial turmoil.' Vietnam, a major producer of manufactured goods such as garments and footwear and commodities including rice, coffee and seafood, could be hit hard by downturns in the US, Europe and other export markets.
The state-run Vietnam News Agency said 'top policy-makers are concerned that the difficulties faced by local companies may badly affect this year's seven percent economic growth target.' The SBV also cut the refinancing rate to 14 per cent from 15 per cent and the discount rate by one percentage point to 12 per cent. Overnight interest rates for electronic and compensation payments on the inter-bank market were reduced to 14 per cent from 15 per cent. The bank doubled the interest rate it pays on compulsory reserves for banks to 10 per cent. It also said it would buy back more than 20 trillion dong (S$1.77 billion) of compulsory bills it had sold in March to curb inflation, which last month slowed to 27.9 percent from 28.3 per cent in Aug.
UN says global turmoil and high prices threaten Vietnam's poor
Double-digit inflation and shocks from the global financial turmoil threaten to plunge Vietnamese households living on the margins back into dire poverty, the United Nations has warned. Despite Vietnam's economic boom of recent years, many groups remain vulnerable to food shortages -- especially landless farmers, the urban poor and ethnic minority groups -- said UN Resident Coordinator John Hendra. While global commodity and energy prices have dropped back from their peaks this year, Vietnam's inflation , although falling, still stood at 26.7 percent this month, squeezing the family budgets of the most marginalised groups. On top of the soaring consumer prices, Hendra said, the global financial crisis will likely impact Vietnam's export-driven economy. "Taken together, these economic challenges threaten to derail Vietnam's progress in reducing poverty," he said in a televised national address Friday.
UN data showed that "less money is available to many Vietnamese households, especially poorer ones, and there is a real risk some families could fall back below the poverty line, while those already there need additional help." "Poorer women and children are particularly at risk since higher food prices can worsen their already precarious nutritional status," he said.
Communist-ruled Vietnam, which launched its doi moi (renewal or renovation) market reforms in the late 1980s, has seen more than a decade of economic growth above 7.5 percent, lifting tens of millions out of poverty. The developing country of 86 million joined the World Trade Organization early last year and hopes to soon become a middle-income nation with annual gross domestic product of 1,000 dollars per capita.
However, over the past year, Vietnam's overheating economy has been hit by double-digit inflation and other economic woes. Especially high food and petrol prices have hit the poor the hardest and fuelled social discontent. Vietnam, the world's number-two rice exporter, does not face overall food shortages, Hendra stressed in a separate speech last week. But he warned that, while some farmers had benefitted from high global food prices, more than half of Vietnamese households are net buyers of food and have seen their real purchasing power reduced. As a result, groups including low-skilled and landless rural workers and the elderly "are not only temporarily worse off but also challenged in their long-term ability to secure adequate intakes of food," Hendra said.
For the poorest families, higher food costs could mean cutting back on schooling for their children or healthcare. Ethnic minorities faced the greatest risk, including in the Central Highlands and northwestern mountains, which already face "high poverty and moderate to severe stunting rates among children under five years." To address the problem, Hendra recommended that Vietnam strengthen its social security programmes and its data collection on poverty to more precisely and quickly identify and help the most vulnerable groups. He also warned of long-term threats to food security in fast-industrialising Vietnam as agricultural areas face pressure from "a growing demand for land for industrial, residential, tourist and leisure purposes."
Vietnam defers melamine limit announcement in public interest
The permissible concentration of melamine, an industrial chemical, in dairy products would not be made public at the present in order to avoid public complacency, Deputy Health Minister Cao Minh Quang said Sunday. Melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, was found to have been illegally used in baby milk formulas to water-down raw milk and raise its apparent protein content. If the Ministry of Health announced the permissible concentration limit of melamine, the public would relax their vigilance against dairy products containing the chemical below those levels and could end up suffering chronic poisoning with regular use, Quang said at a press briefing in Hanoi Sunday. Such contamination would be very difficult to discover in the initial phase and would only manifest itself after consumers had developed symptoms like kidney stones, he said.
Recent nationwide milk inspections have discovered many dairy products that fell short of required nutritional quality. Of 20 milk samples examined, half had protein content lower than what was stated on the label, said Tran Van Dung, Director of the Quality Assurance and Testing Center III, at the meeting held to review inspections carried out across the country in the wake of the melamine scandal. The protein content in one product was just 0.5 percent compared with the 20 percent its label boasted, Dung said. Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu also said at the press briefing that Vietnam has almost succeeded in stopping the use of melamine-tainted dairy products nationwide. Inspections over the past month have discovered 24 melamine-contaminated dairy products. However, Trieu asked agencies concerned to continue their inspections into milk quality to ensure no poisonous dairy products would affect public health. The melamine contamination scandal broke out in China, where it killed at least four children and sickened 53,000, prompting bans or recalls of Chinese goods around the world.
Vietnam To Quickly Restore Milk Market
Vietnam will further closely monitor the milk market, improve milk testing system and swiftly restore the supply of safe milk products for consumers nationwide, a leading health official said. The move is in response to the discovery of melamine in 24 separate products in the country during China's tainted milk scandal. Milk containing melamine has been blamed for the deaths of several babies and causing illness in more than 54,000 others in China, the Vietnam news agency (VNA) reported. "Although the volume of melamine-contaminated milk and milk products made up only 1 percent of the country's total imports, we should move quickly to restore the market and ensure the supply of safe products for consumers," Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu said. He made these remarks at a press conference held by the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee for Sanitation to review the control of melamine milk contamination. Trieu said his ministry has yet to determine a melamine safety level before the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) give guidelines on the issue.
However, the Health Ministry, WHO and FAO had earlier said in a joint statement that melamine has never been recognised as an approved substance in food. The 9th meeting of health ministers from 10 ASEAN member countries, which took place in Manila, the Philippines, from October 8-11, also agreed to absolutely prohibit the use of melamine, even in trace amounts, in food products. In Vietnam, melamine has been found in around 380 tonnes of milk powder materials imported from China by a number of local companies. Inspection task missions have sealed off 143.5 tonnes of liquid milk, 240 tonnes of milk powder and cream powder and 0.5 tonnes of biscuits and candies, discovered to have contaminated with melamine, in addition to 274 tonnes of milk suspected for containing the toxin. Vietnam imported around 772 tonnes of milk and cream powder from China in the first nine months of this year. According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the General Department of Customs, this was only a small volume compared with the country's total milk imports.
Vietnam economy hit by falling demand for exports
Vietnam is isolated from losses linked to toxic US subprime mortgage loans but the global economic crisis they have unleashed is hitting its export markets, government officials said Wednesday. The Trade and Industry Ministry projected the country would earn 15.7 billion dollars from exports in the fourth quarter, or roughly 5 billion dollars for each remaining month of the year. That figure represents a drop from the recent monthly average of more than 6 billion dollars as demand for key exports drops. Producers and exporters are reporting that prices of exports such as rubber, coffee, pepper, rice and seafood are falling. Textile and apparel exports, Vietnam's second-biggest earner just after crude oil, were likely to miss the growth targets the government set for 2008. "Obviously, our textile and apparel exports are being badly affected by the world financial crisis," said Le Quoc An, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association. "We find it hard to export our products these days."
Vietnam planned on earning 9.5 billion dollars from the industry this year, up from 7.8 billion in 2007. It earned 7 billion dollars, or about 800 million dollars per month, in the first nine months of the year, but An said he doubted exporters could bring in the remaining 2.5 billion in the next three months. Other major Vietnamese exports are facing difficulties as well as Vietnam's main export markets tighten their belts because of slowing economic growth. "Our exports have dropped sharply in the first nine months this year as our major markets are in recession," said Nguyen Ton Quyen, secretary general of the Vietnam Wood and Forestry Product Association. "The fourth quarter will be a very tough time for us because we don't have many orders." Quyen said importers from North America, Europe and Japan were not selling wood furniture from Vietnam because people have stopped making large purchases with the economic downturn. The importers of Vietnam's wood products are overstocked by 30 per cent, Quyen said, adding that orders have dropped by 20 per cent compared with the first nine months of last year. "Many wood companies are only working intermittently because we cannot sell our products," Quyen added.
Vietnam is the world's 10th-largest wood products exporter and the second largest in the 10-nation Association of South-East Asian Nations with export revenues of 2.35 billion dollars in 2007. The government set a target of 3 billion dollars for the sector for 2008, but Quyen estimated the total would come closer to 2.8 billion dollars. "The economic slowdown has caused a loss of 30 per cent in our export revenues in the past nine months compared with the same period last year," said Nguyen Van Thu, vice chairman of Vietnam's Tea Association. Thu said Vietnam exported about 120,000 tons of tea in 2007, bringing in 130 million dollars. This year, he expected to export around 90,000 tons.
Rice, the country's other key export, has been seeing similar falls. Local media reported that farmers were finding it hard to sell their rice while world prices plummet. Vietnam's rice exporters are facing a range of challenges, including high interest rates, lack of importers and the recent introduction of a rice export tax. The Vietnam Food Association reported it had exported 3.8 million tons of rice as of October 17 and it expects to export 700,000 tons for the last quarter, but rice exporters said they doubted they could sell that much in two and a half months. They said most rice exporters have found that their customers are not placing any large orders. "We planned to export around 200,000 tons of rice for the last quarter, but our importers lack money," said Tran Xuan Ha, head of the export and import department of the Northern Food Corp, the second-biggest rice-exporting corporation in Vietnam. "We are not sure we can earn that money."
Sweden to halt adoption programme with Vietnam
The Swedish government is set to halt an adoption programme with Vietnam over fears of irregularities, reports said Wednesday. The pending cabinet decision, due Thursday, is based on evaluations that suggest that biological parents were not always aware their children were put up for adoption and were sometimes offered cash for their children. Health and Social Affairs Minister Goran Hagglund told Swedish radio news that there were 'disturbing signals' that not all adoptions from Vietnam were permissible. The current agreement with Vietnam is due to expire in the autumn of 2009.
Hagglund said there were no signs that Vietnam was willing to admit to the problems. In September, the United States suspended adoptions from Vietnam over similar concerns. The Swedish adoption agency Adoptionscentrum, which has handled thousands of international adoptions since 1969, said the decision was a 'severe blow' to families waiting to adopt. Each year, Adoptionscentrum handles some 400 adoptions from some 20 countries. Vietnam accounts for about 50 cases a year and, unlike some other countries, allows single parents to adopt. It has also refrained from implementing an age limit for prospective parents. Sponsored Links: Jan Goransson, chairman of the agency, said the Swedish government should have tried to enter into dialogue with Vietnam over the concerns.