Construction ministry orders revamp of all master plans

The Construction Ministry has ordered a total revision of construction master plans across the country to ensure better coordinated planning.

Construction master plans have been made and approved for about 98 percent of Vietnam but their implementation has revealed numerous weaknesses, said Construction Minister Nguyen Hong Quan

A ministerial document sent to people's committees identifies a breakdown between construction master plans and local development goals, he said.

"Many investment projects were based only on industry planning and not construction planning," explained the minister.

The result was many disparities and heavy economic losses.

Some industrial zones and new urban precincts added to already approved masterplan transgressed provincial transport, electricity, water and environment infrastructure, he said.

"The major reason for this is the shortage of clear regulations for coordination between master plans," said the minister.

Socio-economic development planning is intangible but construction planning that links tangible space with specific sizes is a tool to maintain urban development.

The ministry document sent to the people's committees requires construction planning to now include urban and rural residential systems, industrial zones, tourism sites and infrastructure that accords with local socio-economic development.

Cushman & Wakefield , Vietnam ’s general manager Andrew Peak said it is important that master plans include such infrastructure provisions as land for public transport.

He also agreed with the Construction Ministry's House Management and Real Estate Market deputy director Vu Xuan Thien that any changes in construction planning could affect real estate markets.

"Any changes in plans will have an impact on land values and building values," said the Cushman&Wake-field representative.

For example, Hanoi 's Cau Giay district has many on-going development projects because of plans to transfer some Government offices.

But the situation might be different if there were changes to the master plans, he said.

But Century Real Estate Joint-stock Company deputy general director Pham Thanh Hung said the revision of construction master plans would make little difference to the real estate market unless it was for places undergoing massive changes, such as Ha Tay which had been merged with Hanoi./.

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Building workers can refuse unsafe jobs

Workers can refuse to work in conditions that do not meet safety standards, according to the Ministry of Construction's new regulations.

Specifically, if workers report unsafe conditions and do not receive responses, they can choose to stop working. The regulations also stipulate that they can resist work if not provided with adequate protective equipment.

Construction workers are barred from assignments that involve work they are not trained to do. Contractors must keep workers safe at all costs, including taking injured workers to hospitals and reporting accidents to relevant authorities for investigation.

According to Truong Anh Tu, a construction supervisor of the private Hanoi-based Acore 3D, workers are already refusing unsafe jobs. In fact, contractors already try to maintain safe construction sites.

He said if accidents occur, "construction will be stopped and our prestige will be damaged. So, any safety suggestions raised by workers will be seriously considered to make necessary changes."

However, he also said that it was nearly impossible to give assignments in line with workers' trained skills given that a majority of country's construction workers are freelance seasonal workers with little or no training at all.

At smaller firms, workers are usually required to do multiple jobs.

The regulations will come into effect as of January 16 next year./.

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Jail for human traffickers

Tay Ninh province People's Court on Dec. 6 sentenced four offenders to a total of 21 years in prison for trafficking nine Vietnamese women to work as prostitutes in Singapore .

The ring's head, Vo Thi Hiep, 46, received eight years. She admitted to meeting a Vietnamese women who immigrated to Singapore known as "pimp Ngan" in the middle of 2009. Hiep and "pimp Ngan" then planned to cheat and take Vietnamese women to Singapore and sell them for Ngan's brothel. For each woman sold, Hiep would be paid 1 million VND (50 USD).

Ngan then hired Ly Thanh Mong, 25, to receive the women that Hiep sold and take care of necessary documents and flights for these women to come to Singapore . Ngan paid Mong 2 million VND (100 USD) per month.

In September 2009, Hiep promised twins Tran Thi Kim Ngoc and Tran Thi Kim Ngan, 19, that she had found a well-paying job for them at a restaurant in Singapore . Ngoc and Ngan, from Tay Ninh province, agreed to go and were then sold to pimp Ngan's brothel.

They were later sent back to Vietnam by Hiep and were required to find more women to send to Singapore .

Later in the month, Ngoc introduced another woman to Hiep. Unlike the others, she did not agree to work as a prostitute and told her family to buy her back for 18 million VND (900 USD). She then denounced Hiep's trafficking ring to local police.

On February 4, police seized Mong and Ngan at Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCM City while they were trying to fly nine women to Singapore .

At the court Mong, Ngoc and Ngan were sentenced to six, four and three years in prison, respectively.

According to the General Department for Anti-crime Police, 140 cases of human trafficking were detected between August and October this year. The majority of the 1,300 victims were women, the department said./.

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Remote North gets new classrooms, toilets

The building of new class and teacher rooms, toilets and the supply of clean water were the tangible result of the Primary Education for Disadvantaged Children, or PEDC, project, a workshop in Hanoi was told on Dec. 6.

Such facilities did not exist at primary schools before the project was launched about seven years ago, said northern mountainous Lao Cai province's Education and Training Department director Truong Kim Minh.

But the project, intended to provide infrastructure at remote schools, would not have been feasible without generous funding.

Contractors spurned such construction work because the harsh, remote terrain made their work less profitable, said director Minh.

"Only a project of the scale of PEDC could finance this type of construction work."

The project has improved the basic facilities in almost 6,400 primary schools in 227 districts.

About 67 percent of its budget is used to improve school infrastructure and flimsy bamboo classrooms have been replaced with solid structures.

These were among the project's major achievements, its director Dang Tu An told the review.

The project has built or renovated 19,861 classrooms; 5,101 teacher rooms; 10,642 toilets; brought 72,089 student desks and chairs; 3487 blackboards and installed 4,762 clean-water systems.

The project also has 13 capacity-building programmes to help change the attitude of officials, teachers and communities to disadvantaged children and provide them with appropriate teaching methods.

Most workshop participants praised the appointment of teacher assistants where minority children were a majority.

It was an important way to motivate children older than six to attend school; encourage student retention and reduce the dropout rate, they said.

Central-coastal Khanh Hoa province Education and Training Department representative Hoang Thi Ly said the project had created more opportunities for disadvantaged children to attend school.

The project's total budget is 243.67 million USD, including a 138.76 million USD World Bank loan and donor grants of 61.54 million USD.

The Vietnam Government provided 43.37 million USD./.

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Imbalances create worker shortages

Vietnam has a huge shortage of human resources to cope with pressing urbanisation and climate change issues, a national conference was told on Dec. 6.

The conference, telecast live in Hanoi , Da Nang and HCM City , agreed that the natural resources and environment sector needed to recruit another 800-1000 people each year.

The current figure, as provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, is about 45,600 workers, including those working at State corporations, industrial parks and localities.

The report says there is an imbalance in human resource structure among different sub-sectors. For example, those involved in land management account for 55 percent of the total number while those involved with water resources and hydro-meteorology stay at a low 1 percent.

Under State management, the sector is a newly merged group of seven sub-sectors—land, water resources, geology, environment, hydro-meteorology and climate change, mapping and maritime.

The ministry says these sub-sectors mostly deal with complex and sensitive issues related directly to the rights of people and enterprises.

"While human resources are needed to accomplish the sector's strategies, they are not sufficient to ensure their quality in the future," said the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen at the conference.

"There are many shortcomings in training and using the sector's human resources," he added.

According to the ministry's report, most training institutions focus on technology and techniques rather than management's understanding of specific sectors.

Some topics have not been added into training programmes resulting in staff shortages at central and local levels. In addition, there are few cadres trained in advanced science and technology.

The reports also find that co-operation on education and training with other countries remains spontaneous - the country does not yet have an effective way of attracting more young applicants to natural resources and environment courses.

Speaking at the conference, UNDP Country Director Setsuko Yamazaki suggested Vietnam turn the climate change challenges into an opportunity by opting for "green growth" and investing in human resources.

"In order to achieve green growth, the country requires a cross-sectoral and cross-ministerial approach to the human resource development plan," she said.

The 800 or so viewers at the telecast, including representatives of international organisations and central bodies, agreed with five measures for human resource development and training.

They include focusing on training under a modern approach and international integration. There would be policies to encourage students to learn about hydro-meteorology, mapping and mineral geology.

More investment will be poured into developing natural resources and environment training institutions to have more laboratories and libraries. The country hopes to build at least three universities with international standard, specialised facilities by 2020.

The conference's discussions were expected to help the ministry finalise the draft strategy on human resources development and training from now to 2020./.

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ASEAN youth ship visits Tuoi Tre on green mission

Thirty youths from the Ship for South East Asia Youth Program (SSEAPP) paid a visit to Tuoi Tre Monday

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Thirty youths from the Ship for South East Asia Youth Program (SSEAPP) paid a visit to Tuoi Tre Monday during which they took part in an interactive session on how to save the Earth from pollution.

The youth representatives suggested saving home electricity, limiting plastic bags, classifying and recycling garbage, and avoiding polluting products.

Participants from Japan, Thailand, and Singapore took turns recounting their home experience in recycling rubbish, using eco-friendly bags, limiting air-conditioner use, and resorting to public transports.

Save the Earth because it is the only home we have, they urged.

Robert Michael Nidea from the Philippines was happy to get to know more about youths from other countries. It is so exciting to have the opportunity to explore the Vietnamese culture first-hand, he told Tuoi Tre.

At the same time, other members were busy visiting universities and Youth Union clubs around the city.

On the evening of the same day, the participants were picked up by their host families to begin their home stay experience as a practical way to understand Vietnamese customs and culture first-hand.

SSEAYP is a young leadership training program between Japan and ten ASEAN countries that has been in operation since 1999. Starting from October every year, the ships set sail from Japan to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and arrive in Vietnam in early December.

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Draft law on advertising debated

HA NOI – A draft law on advertising that proposed abolishing licences for outdoor advertising in a bid to further develop the industry has sparked concern from management agencies.

The law drawn up by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is expected to help the sector overcome shortcomings such as overlapping management and limitations that are not suitable with the country's current development.

Statistics from the ministry showed that the outdoor activities accounted for around 10 per cen of the industry's total turnover while those of the advertisements on TV, radio, presses and internet was 80 per cent.

It stipulates that firms could advertise without applying for a licence on boards, banners and electronic screens in public places, on public transport and on movable objects.

Accordingly, placese used for advertisements would have apply for permission from provincial construction, natural resources and the environment as well as culture departments.

Relevant agencies would carry out spot-checks at a later date to eliminate forms and content that violated regulations.

Advertising firms would have to take responsibility for their content under the law.

However, some said eliminating licences would cause disorder and management difficulties. – VNS

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