Vietnam’s textile and garment industry has long faced an imbalance between production stages. The two stages at the beginning and end of the chain, yarn and sewing, have a very large scale of development, while weaving and dyeing have remained industry bottlenecks for years. Some localities refuse textile and dyeing projects, saying that the textile and dyeing industry causes pollution, although investors say they will use modern processing technology that will not have a negative impact on the environment. Not only with the issue of textile dyeing, the shift of investment into the supply shortage of the Vietnamese textile and garment industry is still not as expected. Up to 90% of textile and garment raw materials of enterprises in HCM City were dependent on imports (mainly from China), while only 10% was local supply.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Retail sales and services revenue in the first four months of this year totaled 2.06 quadrillion VND (81.06 billion VND), up 8.5% year-on-year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said. In April alone, the value was 522.1 trillion VND, a rise of 9% from the same period last year, with food and foodstuff sales up 10.3%, household utensils 12.9%, garment 12.7%, lodging and catering services 19.1%, and tourism 57.6%. In the four months, retail sales reached some 1.59 quadrillion VND, up 7.1% year-on-year (up 4.4% if the price factor is excluded).

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam’s import-export revenue reached 238.88 billion USD in the first four months of this year, with trade surplus reaching 8.4 billion USD, higher than the 7.66 billion USD recorded in the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). April exports were estimated at 30.94 billion USD, up 10.6% over the same period last year, pushing the total results in the first four months of this year to 123.64 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 15%. In April, Vietnam imported 30.26 billion USD worth of products, a rise of 19.9% year on year, pushing the total import value in the January-April period to 115.24 billion USD, up 15.4% over the same period last year.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory (May 7, 1954), reporters of the Vietnam News Agency in Paris visited 99-year-old Geneviève de Galard, the only female flight nurse of the French force in the historic 56-day campaign. During the campaign, Geneviève participated in several emergency flights to bring injured soldiers out of the battlefield. On March 28, the Dakota plane that took her to Dien Bien Phu to pick up wounded soldiers broke down, unable to take off and then destroyed by artillery shells, leaving her stranded in Dien Bien Phu.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Performances of intangible cultural heritage recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) entertained the audience in Hai Phong city on May 5 evening. The northern city and several other localities have two UNESCO-recognised heritage, namely Ca tru (ceremonial singing) and Practices related to Vietnamese beliefs in the Mother Goddesses of Three Realms. Inscribed in 2009 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, Ca tru is a complex form of sung poetry found in the north of Vietnam using lyrics written in traditional Vietnamese poetic forms. It has 56 different musical forms or melodies. Meanwhile, the practices in the Mother Goddesses of Three Realms (heaven, water, and mountains and forests), inscribed in 2016 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, aim to meet spiritual needs and everyday wishes of Vietnamese people.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The new head coach of Vietnam’s national football team and U23 team, Kim Sang-sik from the Republic of Korea (RoK) arrived in Hanoi on May 5 for the signing of a contract with the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) scheduled on May 6. According to the contract, Kim Sang-sik, a former coach of the Republic of Korea’s multi-time champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, will take on the head-coach position of those teams from May 2024 to March 2026.

Source: Vietnam News Agency