Vietnamese dragon fruit sold in Melbourne, Australia (Source: VNA)
All customers’ feedback on the website of Australia's largest supermarket chain, Woolworths, rated five stars for the frozen dragon fruit from Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the Coles and MCQ supermarket chains are selling fresh Vietnamese dragon fruit all year round.
Director of the HoaAustralia company said dragon fruit is a strategic product of the company to distribute along the coastal cities of Australia, adding that there were times its supply had not met demand.
Under the direction of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia has intensified its activities to promote the fruit in 2020 and 2021.
Since the beginning of 2021, three promotion activities have been held and the export value of Vietnamese dragon fruit to Australia has grown nearly 85 percent on year.
HCM City approves largest-ever relief package
The People’s Council of Ho Chi Minh City has approved the largest-ever relief package worth over 7.3 trillion VND (321.3 million USD) to support people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, reported Vietnam News Agency.
Around 2 million households with more than 6 million people in HCM City need assistance. (Photo: VNA)
Nguyen Thi Le, Chairwoman of the municipal People’s Council, said on September 23 that the package targets more than 7.3 million people of the five groups, regardless of their permanent or temporary residence in the city.
People eligible for the support are members of poor and near-poor households and social policy beneficiaries who are in difficult circumstances; those rendered jobless by the pandemic and their dependents; parents, spouses and children of pensioners, people receiving social allowances due to work capacity loss and social insurance participants who were paid by businesses in August but need financial assistance; and needy migrant workers living in the city. Each of them will receive 1 million VND.
Le affirmed that the package will be rolled out publicly and transparently, with simple procedures.
According to the municipal People’s Committee, around 2 million households with more than 6 million people in the country’s biggest economic centre need assistance, of whom nearly 1 million have lost their jobs.
To ensure equality in the work, residential areas will set up working groups to review the list of beneficiaries.
Nine-month FDI inflows up 4.4 percent despite COVID-19
Despite COVID-19 impacts, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Vietnam during the first nine months of this year rose 4.4 percent year on year to 22.15 billion USD, reported the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
The export revenue of the FDI sector still increased in the January-September period by 22.9 percent to nearly 178 billion USD. (Photo: VNA)
As of September 20, 12.5 billion USD was poured into 1,212 newly-licensed projects, up 20.6 percent in value but the number of projects was down 37.8 percent over the same period last year. Meanwhile, 6.6 billion USD was added into 678 underway projects, a year-on-year rise of 25.6 percent in capital but down 15.8 percent in project number.
Foreign investors also invested nearly 3.2 billion USD to share purchase deals, down 43.8 percent compared to the same period last year.
So far this year, the disbursement of FDI fell 3.5 percent year on year.
Leaders of the Foreign Investment Agency attributed the decreases in the numbers of new and expanded projects to the travel restrictions and long quarantine policy, which made it hard for foreign investors to make surveys for their planned projects. Lockdown and travel restriction measures also affected operations of FDI firms, they added.
Among 18 sectors receiving investment from foreign investors in the first nine months of this year, processing manufacturing took the lead with 11.8 billion USD, accounting for 53.4 percent of the total FDI. It was followed by power production and distribution with over 5.5 billion USD.
Meanwhile, Singapore led 94 countries and territories investing in Vietnam in the period with total investment capital of nearly 6.3 billion USD, followed by the Republic of Korea with over 3.9 billion USD, and Japan with nearly 3.3 billion USD.
The Mekong Delta province of Long An attracted the highest amount of FDI during the period with over 3.6 billion USD, including 3.1 billion USD in a big energy project.
Northern port city of Hai Phong came second with 2.7 billion USD, while Ho Chi Minh City came third with nearly 2.4 billion USD.
The export revenue of the FDI sector still increased in the January-September period by 22.9 percent to nearly 178 billion USD./.