|
Home  Vietnam Daily Brief Vietnam Daily Brief, 2010 Aug 23 |
|
Vietnam Daily Brief, 2010 Aug 23 |
|
|
|
|
Monday, 23 August 2010 |
Planners strive to save Hanoi's trees
Hanoi (VNA) -- The words of a popular Vietnamese song about Hanoi celebrates the city's tree-lined streets in autumn – "bright yellow celtis, tropical almonds with red leaves standing next to each other; old streets and ancient houses with brown tiled roofs."
Written by late composer Trinh Cong Son, one of the most popular song writers of the 20th century, Nho mua thu Hanoi (Missing
Hanoi in Autumn) has for decades provided an iconic image of the capital.
The words have been imprinted on the minds of every true Hanoian – and those who have visited or long to see the city.
The presence of old trees shading and colouring the capital's streets has inspired dozens of songs about Hanoi .
However, the lack of a master plan for the protection of road-side trees and poor management methods continue to threaten the very fabric of the city.
Nguyen Duc Manh, from State-owned Hanoi Park and Tree Company's Planning and Technique Department, says no specific research has been conducted on street trees, although they make up a major part of the city's green areas.
Associate Professor Dam Thu Trang, dean of the Civil Engineering University's Landscape Architecture Faculty, says tree numbers and locations are recorded in a haphazard way and that "digital technology should have been in place by now."
More than 44,000 trees, belonging to 70 species, shade hundreds of roads and streets in central Hanoi . Many of them are more than a century old.
Andreas Jarfe, an arborist from Germany , says he is amazed by the greenery in Hanoi .
"Street trees in Hanoi are beautiful, old, unique. I know all the names of the trees in Germany but not many here," Jarfe says.
Duong Duc Tien, a biology professor, says many of the city's trees, often overlooked by Hanoians, are rare and valuable.
Despite the continual loss of trees due to urbanisation, their number has risen gradually year by year, says Manh, adding that there were about 42,000 in Hanoi 's nine districts ten years ago.
On average, the city plants between 1,500 and 2,000 new trees a year, and spends about 4 billion VND (210,000 USD) annually maintaining them, Manh says.
To boost survival rates, the municipal People's Committee on July 1 raised the special care period for newly planted trees from two to five years.
Meanwhile, mature and established trees are inspected and pruned monthly or quarterly depending on their condition.
Trang says the effort expended by city officials and the Hanoi Park and Tree Company to maintain Hanoi 's trees is "tremendous".
Despite urbanisation, Pham Van Khanh, deputy director of Hanoi 's Natural Resources and Environment Department, says every effort is made to keep the city green. "Wherever possible, new trees are planted along the city's streets," Khanh says.
However, despite the valiant efforts of the authorities, street trees struggle to survive in the modern age.
"Trees in Hanoi face far greater problems than their cousins in developed parts of the world," Trang says. This is because of the ever-expanding underground infrastructure of the streets, which limits the choice of trees and makes planting difficult.
"I can see Hanoi has a similar problem to Germany but more severe – the trees are struggling because of the shortage of space for root development," Jarfe says.
The narrowness of the many short streets and inadequate coordination among different sectors have also proved a challenge, according to Trang.
The landscape architect said Hanoi 's streets were traditionally lined with one or two species of tree. Now, she said, trees are planted almost haphazardly and are rarely in keeping with the local architecture.
According to a Park and Tree Company report, typically 7 to 15 different tree species now line each of Hanoi 's street, and in some places 18, instead of one or two only to make the street unique as it used to be.
Renowned lyricist Hoang Hiep used to walk along Nguyen Du Street hand-in-hand with his girlfriend. While away from his beloved part of the city, he penned: "Nights full of the fragrance of pulai [sinensix] tree blossom," for the song Nho ve Hanoi (Thinking of Hanoi).
Similarly, Lo Duc street was renowned for its tall dark-trunked thingan trees (hopea odorata), Ly Thuong Kiet street for its flamboyant, Phan Dinh Phung, Le Thanh Tong and Tran Hung Dao streets for their sau trees (dracontomelum), Tran Nhan Tong street for styrax, and Ton Duc Thang Street for African Mahogany (khaya senegalensis).
Despite their love for Vietnam , Trang and Tien admit that Hanoi owes much of its beauty to the efforts of the French a century ago.
Tree planting nowadays is in its infancy, and landscape design leaves much to be desired, Tien says.
Maintaining a city's arboreal integrity comes at a price – each tree planted in a German city costs about 1,000 USD and takes between 15 to 20 years to mature, Jarfe says.
Although costs are lower in Vietnam and rainfall more plentiful, maintaining Hanoi 's 40,000 trees is no mean feat.
"The Park and Tree company has dozens of workers, but they cannot cope," Tien says, adding that the best solution would be for the State to join hands with the public.
It is a view supported by Nguyen Thi Ngan Giang, who lives on Quan Thanh street .
"Green trees have always been part of my street and my life. I would be delighted to help protect them," she says.
Trang says the State should hand over the trees it has planted to local residents, who would then be responsible for their upkeep.
"If the trees belonged to the residents they would do their best to protect them," she says.
Tien believes if that stratagy is adopted, residents would be less likely to nail signs to tree trunks, dump rubbish nearby, or hack away at inconvenient branches.
Whatever city leaders decide to do, Tien hopes with all his heart that urbanisation does not come at the expense of Hanoi 's colourful heritage.-Enditem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HCM City promotes ‘clean' buses
Hanoi (VNA) -- Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has proposed the Finance Ministry exempt import taxes for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)-powered buses to encourage the use of this environmental-friendly means of public transport.
The city authorised the Sai Gon Transportation Mechanical Corporation and the Sai Gon Bus Joint Stock Company to launch a pilot programme using CNG-powered buses.
Under the programme, two buses will be put into operation on a trial basis, according to the municipal transport department.
The city had plans to run 20 CNG buses by the end of this year, but most transport companies have fallen short of the capital required to purchase the vehicles.
"CNG-powered buses are much more expensive than diesel-powered buses, making it difficult for transport companies to afford them in spite of preferential policies such as low-interest loans," said the department's deputy director Duong Hong Thanh.
A CNG-powered bus costs nearly 3 billion VND (153,000 USD) while their diesel-powered counterparts cost just over a third of that.
If transport companies are exempted from import taxes, it will cost them around 1.56 billion VND (79,560 USD) to purchase a CNG-powered bus, he said.
The tax exemption will encourage transport companies to use more CNG-powered buses, which will help reduce environmental pollution while also saving fuel.
"CNG fuel costs about 50 percent less than gasoline or diesel oil while emitting 60 percent less carbon dioxide than other kinds of fuels," he said.
CNG fuel has been used effectively in many other countries, including the Republic of Korea , mainland China , Thailand and Singapore .
There were 754,000 CNG-powered buses in use throughout the world by 2007.-Enditem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Landslide buries seven in Yen Bai
Yen Bai (VNA) -- Landslides destroyed five houses and left seven people missing in the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai's Mu Cang Chai district on August 22 afternoon.
All of the victims were ethnic Mong living in Thao Chu Chay village, said the local Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
Two major bangs preceded the landslide, which blocked the flow of the Han Tau De Stream, said residents working on a farm nearby.
The stream has since been unblocked but efforts to search for the buried victims were unsuccessful.
The district leaders gave each victim's family 3 million VND (160 USD) for burial services. Inhabitants in these areas have been repeatedly warned of the dangers of landslides in the rainy season.-Enditem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coach Chen to return to Vietnam
Hanoi (VNA) -- Coach Chen Yun Fat will return to coach the national women's team, said Nguyen Trong Hy, chairman of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF).
Hy confirmed that after discussions between the VFF, the Chinese Football Federation and Dalian club where Chen is working, the coach agreed to sign a contract to be head manager of the team.
Hy said Chen will sign a renewable two-year contract.
Chen first came to Vietnam in 2007 and led the women's team to a gold medal at the 25th Southeast Asian Games last December.
They also made the final round of the 2010 Asian Women's Football Championship.
His contract ended earlier this year after three years in Vietnam.-Enditem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overseas Vietnamese Association in Switzerland meets
Geneva (VNA) – Nearly 60 representatives of Vietnamese people across Switzerland on August 21 gathered at a meeting convened by the Overseas Vietnamese Association in Switzerland (OVAS) in Belp town, 10km from the capital city of Berne .
The meeting was attended by Vietnamese Ambassador Hoang Van Nha, the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the United Nations, representatives of the World Trade Organisation and other international organisations.
At the gathering, Ambassador Nha informed the participants of socio-economic achievements Vietnam has recorded over the past time, new policies regarding overseas Vietnamese and the outcomes of bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and Switzerland .
Nguyen Khanh Kinh, OVAS chairman, reported on the association’s since its founding in April this year.
He said the association has launched several humanitarian projects in Vietnam to help children with heart diseases have surgeries and poor kids get access to schools.
The association plans to organise a mid-autumn festival for children in September, attend the 1,000 th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi to be held in October and launch a campaign to raise fund for orphans and disabled children this December, he said.
OVAS will also set up new branches in German and French-speaking regions, he added.-Enditem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASEAN nations move to gear up logistics integration
2308hp1
ASEAN nations move to gear up logistics integration
Da Nang (VNA) – Challenges and ways of speeding up the integration of the logistics industry among the ASEAN nations topped the agenda of a semianr in the central city of Da Nang on August 22.
While opening the event in the run-up to the 42 nd ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meetings (AEM), Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) considers liberalisation of logistics one of its top priorities and is currently developing a specific roadmap for this field.
The objective of the roadmap is to accelerate liberalisation and facilitation of logistics sub-sectors until 2013 and turn the ASEAN into a logistics centre in the Asian-Pacific region in the long-term.
Tu said the integration of the logistics industry will help accelerate linkages between production sectors in each country, as well as among the ASEAN member nations, thereby turning the bloc into a united market and a common production space as set in the overall plan on the ASEAN Economic Community.
Experts shared the view that, during the logistics integration process, several regional countries, including Vietnam , are facing challenges, especially the differences in regulations on transport, customs clearance for commodities, administrative procedures and technical standards.
The shortage of managerial personnel in the logistics industry in a number of regional countries is considered the biggest challenge, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO)’s representatives.
To surmount these hurdles, industry insiders suggested the ASEAN nations join hands to build a set of legal standards and strictly observe these norms.
Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Doan Duy Khuong said the VCCI has cooperated with the ASEAN Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the ASEAN Business Advisory Council to map out an ASEAN green land to facilitate the flow of goods and services in the region.
With the application of e-customs declaration procedures, businesses are now able to reduce costs when they spend less time at border gates.
VCCI will work as a bridge for domestic companies operating in logistics, transport and supporting industries to join in projects designed to improve logistics management capacity carried out by experienced partners such as JETRO and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
The Logistics Institute – Asia Pacific estimated global logistics revenues exceeded 1.2 trillion USD a year, equivalent to 16 percent of the world’s GDP.
Vietnam holds a great potential for logistics as its export turnover is forecast to reach 200 billion USD within the next decade.-Enditem
|
|
|
