HCM CITY — The Indonesian community in HCM City and neighbouring provinces donated 13,600ml blood during a humanitarian activity held yesterday afternoon by the General Consulate of the Republic of Indonesia in the city.
At the consulate's third blood drive, around 50 people donated blood with the support of the HCM City Red Cross Association.
According to Indonesian Consul General Pande K. Wuri Handayani, the event was aimed at enhancing solidarity between the people of Viet Nam and Indonesia.
Artist's Viet Nam ride promotes road safety
HCM CITY — Artist Quang Dat starts his month-long journey on his Vespa scooter today, from southernmost Ca Mau Province to Ha Noi, to promote traffic safety.
More than 1,000 traffic police have signed his scooter. Dat had previously owned another scooter with the signatures of 500 names of famous Vietnamese people.
Thua Thien Hue trains rural workforce
HCM CITY — Thua Thien Hue Province will spend VND290 billion (US$14,871) on a vocational programme to train rural workers who will be required to take jobs in the industrial sector.
The programme, which will begin in 2011 and end in 2020, targets to raise the percentage of trained workers in the labour force to 60 per cent by 2015 and 70 per cent by 2020.
The province People's Committee, which wants to shift the economy from agriculture to industry, is offering the courses to ensure that there are a sufficient number of trained workers for the province's industrial parks.
Funds for the programme are from State and provincial budgets as well as the private sector.
Market violations continue to rise
HCM CITY — The municipal market management bureau has, as of November this year, discovered a total of 15,149 violations including counterfeit goods, illegally imported goods and banned goods, an increase of 579 cases over the same period last year.
The bureau has levied fines worth more than VND70.2 billion (US$3.5 million) in 10,284 cases.
Inspectors said that although supervision and inspections have been strengthened this year, the production and trafficking of counterfeit goods still continued in more "complicated" ways. They did not elaborate.
Bureau officials said their key task from now until the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival that falls in February, 2011 would be to carry out inspections at sales points participating in the city's price stabilisation programme. — VNS
