Typhoon kills nearly 50 in Vietnam, Cambodia

HOI AN, Vietnam (AFP) – Typhoon Ketsana left a trail of destruction across Southeast Asia Wednesday, killing at least 49 people in Vietnam and Cambodia and churning towards Laos, officials said.

Tens of thousands of people had fled their homes to escape flooding caused by Ketsana, which had already killed 246 when it struck the Philippines over the weekend as a weaker tropical storm. Related article: Philippines destruction

Floodwaters hit swathes of Vietnam including ancient UN World Heritage sites, and aid workers across the region were trying to evacuate stranded people and get supplies to other survivors.

The death toll in Vietnam rose overnight to at least 38 people with another 10 people missing, and could climb higher, said an official from the flood and storm control committee in the central Vietnam city of Danang.

Ketsana made landfall in Vietnam on Tuesday afternoon and weakened in the night to become a tropical depression which had reached the border of Laos early Wednesday, an official from the national storm centre in Hanoi told AFP.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Laos, a government spokesman there said, but Cambodian police and government officials said at least 11 had died in that country's northeastern and central regions.

"At least nine people were crushed last night when their houses fell down," said Chea Cheat, chief of the Red Cross office in central Kampong Thom province.

Chea Cheat added that at least 78 houses in his province were destroyed Tuesday evening and that heavy rain and rising floods were continuing.

International organisations and government officials in Cambodia said they were distributing tents and food while assessing damage across at least five of the country's provinces.

Central Vietnam bore the brunt of the typhoon's impact, with the country's flood and storm control committee saying that 168,585 people in six coastal provinces had been evacuated. Many areas were without power.

In Vietnam, the ancient town of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site close to the South China Sea, was flooded Wednesday morning, AFP reporters observed.

On Tuesday flooding hit parts of Danang as well as Hue, the former capital and another World Heritage site, where residents used small wooden and steel boats to move around.

State-run Vietnam News carried a front-page photograph of houses almost submerged by brown floodwaters in Kon Tum province. Flooding also struck 20,000 hectares (about 50,000 acres) of agricultural land, the storm committee said.

Military helicopters may join the rescue effort, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said late Tuesday.

"We will focus on rescuing those who are isolated," particularly in Kon Tum and Quang Ngai provinces, he said. "We have to immediately evacuate households on the banks of three rivers and areas that may suffer from landslides."

An update on the rescue effort was not immediately available Wednesday.

"We want the defence ministry to send armoured vehicles or trucks that can go in water to help people because we don't have enough boats," the chairman of the People's Committee in Kon Tum said Tuesday night.

"Several people are now sitting on the top of their house or on the top of trees. We cannot reach them."

Vietnam suffers annually from tropical storms and typhoons. At least 41 people died in September 2008 when Typhoon Hagupit struck the country's north.

Source: AP

Vietnam Trade Fair opens in Cambodia

The Vietnam Trade Fair 2009 “Friendship, Cooperation and Development”, the second of its kind, opened at the Mondial National Exhibition Centre in Phnom Penh on September 2.Attending the opening ceremony, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Cham Prasit described the event as a great effort on the part of the Vietnamese Government to boost trade ties between the two countries toward the goal of raising two-way trade to US$2 billion in 2010, as set by Prime Ministers Nguyen Tan Dung and Hun Sen.Deputy PM Cham Prasit said that through trade fairs, trade turnover between the two countries has consistently increased in recent years from US$935 million in 2006 to almost US$1.7 billion in 2008 and is expected to be higher this year.He took this occasion to call on businesses from both countries to accelerate trade and investment for the benefit of the two peoples and nations.As many as 125 Vietnamese businesses are displaying their wares, including industrial products, commodities, foodstuff, cosmetics and garments.During fair, seminars on business and investment opportunities between enterprises of the two countries will also be held.
The fair will run through September 6. (VNA)

Promoting Vietnamese goods at the Cambodian border

Now that demand from Western customers is depressed by the global economic crisis, Vietnamese businesses have been eyeing Cambodia, a neighbouring market to which they have paid little attention in the past.

Fifty Vietnamese businesses joined an ‘export-on-the-spot’ fair on August 23 at the newly-opened Tinh Bien Border Economic Zone (BEZ). The new facility is at a border crossing between Vietnam’s delta province of An Giang and Cambodia’s Takeo province, south of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

The export fair was jointly organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the An Giang province People’s Committee.

Boosting export through bonded zone

A bonded zone has been established, to which businesses can bring goods and contact many prospective buyers from Cambodia, from petty merchants to big distributors. The Vietnamese businesses will not have to pay taxes (VAT and export tariff) on their sales, and they can take advantage of simplified export procedures. Meanwhile, Cambodian distributors will be able to take ownership of goods right on the other side of the border.

Many businesses have expressed their interest in this model of selling goods. Vu Quoc Dung, representing the footware maker, Bita, said that the company had sent 100,000 sample pairs of shoes to distributors in Cambodia a month earlier, and now he had come to Tinh Bien to make direct contacts with partners. Phu An Sinh Company is striving to sell frozen and processed food to Cambodia, while Kem Nghia Company aims to sell low-priced beauticians’ tools.

Many enterprises have successfully contacted Cambodian distributors, while Sacombank has helped businesses in payment procedures.

Setting up direct distribution systems

To boost exports to Cambodia, My Hao Cosmetics Company has decided to recruit a Cambodian sales director. My Hao General Director Luong Van Vinh said that because Cambodian people’s income remains low, they are interested in low cost products. This has prompted My Hao to make products suitable to that market.

The Duy Tan Plastics Company has concluded that Vietnam-made household plasticwares can compete well with Thai products in the Cambodian market, said a representative of that firm. The company’s sales in Cambodia have increased steadily. Vinamit, a farm products processor, has also decided to set up a direct distribution network in Cambodia to boost sales instead of selling goods though agents. Nutifo od said that dairy products for old people and for children will be its key products in Cambodian market.

Exports to Cambodia have been increasing so smoothly that export revenues of HCMC businesses to Cambodia in the first seven months of 2009 increased by 44 percent over the same period of 2008, even though the city’s export revenues in general decreased by 13.9 percent. Medicines, fertilizer, steel, construction materials, cosmetics, fruit, seafood and apparel are in particularly high demand.

The HCM City Trade and Investment Promotion Centre has been tasked with coordination of the export offensive. Four big corporations are expected to support the plan’s implementation: the Saigon Trade Corporation, Saigon Co-op, the Saigon Industry Corporation and Saigon Agricultural Corporation. Another large scale Vietnamese products fair is planned to be held soon in the western Cambodian city of Battambang.

Source: Vietnam Net

Vietnamese firm to build fertilizer plant in Cambodia

The Vietnam Five Star International Group on Friday said it will start work on a joint-venture fertilizer plant in Cambodia later this year.
The group will put up 90 percent of the chartered capital in a joint venture with the Investment and Development Joint Stock Company of Cambodia (IDCC) holding the remaining 10 percent.
Construction of the plant, located in Kean Svay District’s Somrongthom Commune, is expected to be completed within 20 months.
Once completed, the US$65-million plant will produce 350,000 tons of fertilizer a year.

Reported by Quang Thuan

A/H1N1 case Number 13

Viet Nam confirmed the country’s thirteenth case of A/H1N1 yesterday.

The latest victims are a mother and the younger sister of a 10-year-old boy who was earlier diagnosed with the virus. All three have been placed in isolation wards at Paediatric Hospital 1 in HCM City.
The parents and brother and sister of the 10-year-old have been isolated and are undergoing tests.
One of the 13 is the first instance of the disease in someone not in transit from an affected country, Dr Phan Van Nghiem of the HCM City Health Department, said.
Dr Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Health Ministry’s Preventive Medicine and Environment Department, said the number of infected people was on the rise throughout the world.
He said there was a sudden increase in the number of affected people in Viet Nam in the past three days, from 5 patients last Friday to 11 at present.
This number includes the first person residing in Viet Nam to test positive for the virus after coming into contact with a family member, who had returned to southern Dong Nai Province from the US.
Nga said more than 22,000 people in 69 countries and territories throughout the world had contracted A/H1N1 flu. As many as 125 people in five countries and territories had died of the virus.
He said that supervision of the flu in Viet Nam had helped uncover and isolate thousands of patients who tested positive for the A/H1N1 virus, preventing the further spread of infection.
"Current treatment and preventative measures are suitable for the disease’s current status," Nga said. —VNS