Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai (left) and Prof. Dr. and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Minh Thuy will receive the 2021 Kovalevskaya Award. (Photo: qdnd.vn)
The awardees are Prof., Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Vice President of the University of Science at the Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM); and Prof., Dr. and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Minh Thuy from the Department of Food Technology, College of Agriculture, Can Tho University, reported VNA.
Mai, from the south-central province of Quang Ngai, graduated from the University of Science, VNUHCM with a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Analytical Chemistry; and earned a PhD in Pharmaceutical at Japan’s Toyama University. The 50-year-old lecturer was awarded the professor title in 2020.
She has led 14 ministerial and provincial-level research projects, with one of the most outstanding ones on extracting active substances from plants for the development of new drugs for diabetes, gout and melasma.
She was awarded with Ho Chi Minh City Creative Awards in 2019.
Thuy, from the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, graduated from Thailand’s Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) with a Master’s Degree in Post-harvest Technology in 1992 and earned a PhD in Food Technology at KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in Belgium in 2007.
The 61-year-old lecturer was honoured with the professor title in food technology in 2020. Her research has focused on addressing issues in distribution of agricultural products and provision of support for farmers and agribusinesses hit by natural disasters, fire and epidemics.
The Kovalevskaya Award ceremony is scheduled to be held in Hanoi this May. Three female high school students will also receive Kovalevskaya scholarships, worth 500 USD each, during the event.
The Kovalevskaya Award is named after Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya, and is awarded by the fund of the same name. The fund operates in eight countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The award was first given to Vietnamese female academics in 1985. By 2020, 49 individuals and 20 groups of female scientists had received the award.
Foreign investment in Vietnam continues bouncing back
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s adverse impacts, foreign investors still put their trust in the economy and investment climate of Vietnam in the new normal context, VNA quoted the saying of Director of the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) Do Nhat Hoang.
Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)
A total of 4.42 billion USD of foreign investment was disbursed in the first three months of 2022, up 7.8 percent year on year, the FIA's statistics showed.
The Vietnam Investment Review cited the World Bank as saying that the increased disbursement indicated a strong rebound in foreign investment in the country.
Meanwhile, the FIA held that the Government and relevant agencies’ continual and effective assistance, along with efforts by enterprises to weather the pandemic and adapt to the new context, have helped firms gradually recover, maintain, and expand operations. That’s why the disbursed capital has been rising over the past months.
Though the registered capital in Q1, 8.9 billion USD, is equivalent to just 87.9 percent of the figure in the same period last year, only investment in new projects declined (by 55.5 percent) while the number of new projects still increased (37.6 percent), and the capital poured into existing projects surged 93.3 percent to top 4.06 billion USD.
Foreign investment through capital contribution and share purchase exceeded 1.63 billion USD, more than doubling the figure in Q1 last year.
Savills Vietnam said apart from favourable macro-factors, the State’s timely support plays the decisive role in helping consolidate foreign enterprises’ trust in the country.
Together with economic policies, the quickly implemented mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign has turned Vietnam into one of the six countries with the largest vaccine coverage in the world, a basis for foreign businesses to put their trust in the local market’s recovery, according to Savills Vietnam.
The FIA predicted that the full reopening to international tourists since March 15, the visa exemption for citizens from some countries, and European investors’ shift of capital flows due to the Russia - Ukraine conflict’s impacts will also affect foreign investment attraction in Vietnam in the time ahead.
Foreign investment into industrial parks is likely to increase in 2022, with investors mainly coming from Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and the EU, the FIA Director noted.
Coffee exports record impressive growth in first quarter
Following a sharp increase in both volume and price, coffee has risen to quickly become an export agricultural product with strong growth in the first quarter of the year.
Coffee exports record impressive growth in first quarter (Source: VOV)
Since the beginning of the year to mid-March, the whole country shipped 452,163 tonnes of coffee, raking in more than US$1 billion in export turnover, VOV reported the latest information provided by the General Department of Customs.
In comparison to the same period last year, its export volume grew by more than 22%, whilst turnover expanded by 54.44%.
This growth in turnover was higher than the output, serving to drive the average export value of coffee products up to US$2,23 per tonne, a rise of 26.45%, equivalent to an increase of nearly US$500 per tonne.
Vietnamese coffee export markets have so far expanded to include many continents, with major buyers such as Germany, Belgium, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States.
With this level positive growth, coffee has surpassed the group of fruit and vegetables to rank third in terms of turnover in the agricultural sector after timber and aquatic products. These also make up the three agricultural commodity groups that have reached the "billion dollar" milestone from early this year.
Nearly 1,700 Vietnamese people return home safely from Ukraine
Nearly 1,700 Vietnamese people in Ukraine have been brought home safely on six flights arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in conjunction with relevant ministries, sectors and representative agencies of Vietnam in the country, reported VNA.
Nearly 1,700 Vietnamese people return home safely from Ukraine (Photo: VNA)
About 5,200 Vietnamese people from war areas in Ukraine have so far been evacuated, according to the ministry.
The evacuation has been basically completed
Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)
Currently, only a few Vietnamese people are still in Ukraine for their personal reasons, the ministry said.
Vietnamese representative agencies have kept a close watch on the situation in Ukraine, and actively coordinated with local authorities, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and foreign representative agencies with many citizens in war zones in the European country to help Vietnamese citizens evacuate and return home safely./.