☕Afternoon briefing on August 2

Hanoi (VNA) - The following is a brief review of the day’s events as reported by the Vietnam News Agency on August 2.

– Countries must step up cooperation and dialogue, and strengthen mutual understanding for a common cause of eliminating nuclear threat, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ha Kim Ngoc told a New York conference.

The 10th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was opened at the United Nations headquarters on August 1 after being postponed for more than 2 years because of COVID-19. Read full story

– Vietnam raked in 350 million USD from tuna exports to France in the first seven months of 2022, representing a year-o-year surge of 203%, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

The shipments of the fish to the market was estimated to expand by 510% per month in the period, with processed and canned tuna recording the strongest growth. Read full story

– A workshop was held in the central city of Da Nang on August 2 to kick off the second phase of a project on waste classification at source and waste recycling funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in the locality.

The event was jointly hosted by the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) of Japan. Read full story

– Vietnam’s retail sale of goods and services in July are estimated at 486 trillion VND (20.8 billion USD), up 2.4% m-o-m, and 42.6% y-o-y, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

In the first seven months of 2022, the total retail sales are estimated at 3.2 quadrillion VND, up 16% compared to the same period last year. The revenue from retail sale of commodities in the period is estimated at 2.55 quadrillion VND, up 13.7% y-o-y.Read full story

– About 46.2 trillion VND (nearly 1.98 billion USD) of investment capital sourced from the state budget was disbursed in July, up 22.5% from a year earlier, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

The amount brought the seven-month figure to an estimated 237.6 trillion VND, equivalent to 43.3% of this year’s target and rising 11.9% year on year. Read full story

– A memorial service was held in central Da Nang city on August 2 for Hero of the People’s Armed Forces Kostas Sarantidis - Nguyen Van Lap, a man who held Greek and Vietnamese nationalities and joined the Vietnamese people in the resistance war against the French colonialists.

Representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People’s Army, Military Region 5, the Da Nang administration, along with local people came to pay tribute to the deceased who passed away in Athens on June 25, 2021, at the age of 94. Read full story

– Vietnam has seen strong growth in two years of COVID-19 and an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI), according to an article on the Southeast Asian nation’s development freshly published on Germany’s Junge Welt newspaper.

The author, Gerhard Feldbauer, noted that while western economies are showing signs of recession, Vietnam's economy is developing well. Read full story

– The northern province of Ninh Binh where Hollywood blockbuster 'Kong: Skull Island' was filmed in 2016 was named one of the 12 "coolest movie filming locations" in Asia, according to US magazine Travel Leisure.

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the 190-million-USD film was shot in Trang An limestone complex, Van Long Lagoon and Tam Coc, where limestone karst mountains rise out of the waters./. Read full story