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Population
Population
2022:98 million people
2018: 97.4 million people and 15th in the world in terms of population
In 2018, the population of Vietnam was 97,400,000 or 1.26% of the world population, 15th place. The average age is 30.4 years.
Migration
2021: Net outflow over 4 years
Average growth
Son
2018: Average sleep duration 6 hours 51 minute
Smoking
2018: Vietnam - in 12th place in the world in the number of smokers
Economy
Main article: Economy of Vietnam
Information Technology and Communications
Vietnam IT Market
Main Article: Vietnam IT Market
2024: Three of Vietnam's five underwater internet cables have failed. The country has big problems with the Internet
In mid-June 2024, Vietnam confirmed that three of the country's five underwater internet cables had failed. According to Vietnamese state media, local service providers have noted communication interruptions since June 15, and two days later it became obvious that the speed of the Internet connection had dropped significantly.
As a result of the failures, three cables were damaged: the intra-Asian connection (IA) with Singapore, the Asia-Pacific Gateway connection (APG) and the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 connection (AAE-1). Thus, only two Asia-America submarine cables (AAG) and Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SMW-3) provide the country's connection to the outside world. The reason for the disconnection of the cables is still unknown, as well as the estimated timing of the repair. It is known that the repair of underwater cables can take several weeks, since Vietnam does not have enough special vessels capable of solving this problem. While demand for new cables continues to grow, the fleet of vessels to lay and maintain connections is too small and steadily aging.
In 2023, Vietnam already faced similar problems, and then all five underwater cables failed at the same time. This prompted the Secretary General of the Vietnam Internet Association (VIA), Wu Binh, to call on the country to lay additional underwater cables to provide a high-quality internet connection. Vietnam planned to lay four more international telecommunications cables with a capacity of 60 Tbit/s by 2025, and by 2030 the total number of internet cables should reach 15. One of them should be the Vietnam-Singapore cable system (VTS), which will connect Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. The VTS cable is scheduled for commissioning in the second quarter of 2027.[1]
2023: How Vietnam's digitalization is taking place
Vietnam's efforts to digitalize the economy are driving investment activity in a variety of fields, including financial technology, retail, healthcare and payment systems. At the same time, in 2022, the total volume of investments in Vietnamese startups amounted to $634 million, which is 56% less than the record figure of $1.4 billion recorded in 2021. Such data are provided in early April 2023 in a report by the Do Ventures venture fund and the National Innovation Center as part of the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam.
In 2020, the Vietnamese government announced a national digital transformation strategy aimed at increasing the share of the digital economy in gross domestic product to 20% by 2025. As part of this initiative, three new startup support centers were opened in 2021 - in Hanoi, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City. And since 2022, Vietnam has been conducting business innovation research to monitor the development of young companies.
According to GSMA Intelligence statistics, at the beginning of 2023, there were 161.6 million cellular connections in Vietnam. In the period from 2022 to 2023, the growth was approximately 4.7 million, or about 3%. The number of Internet users in the country as of the beginning of 2023 reached 77.93 million, and the penetration rate of web access is 79.1%. The number of users of social networks is estimated at 70 million, which is equivalent to 71% of the total population of the state. Vietnamese telecommunications companies are expected to invest up to $2.5 billion in the rollout and commercialization of 5G technology in 2020-2025.
Despite the significant opportunities that Vietnam's fast-growing digital economy provides, the country's data-related legislation could negatively impact the industry's development. International software and IT service providers may encounter certain problems.[2]
Health care
2024: Ex-Vietnam health minister gets 18 years for $2.25 million bribes
On January 12, 2024, a court in Vietnam sentenced two high-ranking officials in proceedings related to the COVID-19 test kit scandal. Former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long was sentenced to 18 years in prison for taking bribes worth $2.25 million. At the same time, Chu Ngoc Anh, the former Minister of Science and Technology, was sentenced to three years for poor management. Read more here.
2021: Maternity leave
in2020
Duration of guaranteed paid sick leave 6 months or more
Part of the population defecates on the street
Pharmaceutics
Main Article: Vietnam Pharmaceutical Market
Ecology
2021: Among the anti-leaders for clogging the world's oceans with plastic
The United States, which ranks third in the scale of clogging of the world's oceans. Researchers have acknowledged that the US and Britain are taking huge amounts of plastic for burial to other countries and their contribution to clogging the world's oceans is key.]]2019: Plastic waste imports
Education
Libraries
2021: Vietnam - 6,691 public libraries
2019: Number of years of education by citizens over 25
Crime
2024: Vietnam's richest woman sentenced to death for embezzling $12bn
On April 11, 2024, a court Vietnam sentenced to death 67-year-old entrepreneur Truong My Lan in the case of the country's largest fraud in history. The woman was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules. The defendant is charged with embezzlement of more than $12 billion. More. here
Prisons
2019: The minimum age for children to be jailed is 14
2021: Number of prisoners - 123,697
2018: Number of prisoners per 100 thousand citizens
History
2024
Parliament appoints Lyong Quong as Vietnam's president
The Vietnamese parliament appointed a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Lyong Kuong, president, replacing the head of the Communist Party, To Lam, who resigned from this post.
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Chong dies
On July 19, 2024, the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Chong, died. News of his death began to spread actively on July 18 - then Vietnamese media reported that the Secretary General was retiring for health reasons. His duties are performed by President To Lam.
The reign of Nguyen Fu Chong will be remembered for a few things. First, the economic growth of Vietnam, which was observed even during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Secondly, a large-scale anti-corruption campaign. Since 2016, more than 139,000 party members have been disciplined, including 40 members of the CPV Central Committee.
Thirdly, "bamboo diplomacy" - Nguyen Phu Chong was an active supporter of this concept. He implies that Vietnam's foreign policy should have "strong roots but flexible branches."
We are talking about constructive ties with all players in the international arena, the absence of ideological attitudes in such interaction and obtaining benefits in accordance with national interests.
It was thanks to the chosen strategy that key global players visited Hanoi in less than a year - American leader Joe Biden in September 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping in December 2023 and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2024. By not choosing sides and balancing between these countries, Vietnam gains political and economic advantages.
To Lam is elected the new president of Vietnam. He repeatedly visited Russia
On May 22, 2024, the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam elected Army General To Lam (Tô Lâm) as president of the country. Prior to that, he served as Minister of Public Safety. Read more here.
2023
Wo Van Thuong elected the new president of Vietnam
On February 23, 2023, the Vietnamese National Assembly appointed Wo Wang Thuong as Vietnam's new president, a major reshuffle in the country's top leadership amid a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign. He became the youngest president in Vietnam's political history. Read more here.
President Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigns
In January 2023, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned.
1976
Main article: Russian Foreign Policy
1975
1971: US sprays 77m litres of Agent Orange poison causing cancer over 14% of Vietnam
According to the US Department of Defense, from 1962 to 1971, as part of the Ranch Hand rainforest and vegetation destruction program, Americans sprayed 77 million liters of "agent orange" in South Vietnam, including 44 million liters containing dioxin.
The purpose of the spraying was to destroy the jungle vegetation, which made it easier to detect units of the North Vietnamese army and partisans of the NFOYUV. This is one of the most famous cases of the use of scorched earth tactics and the use of chemical weapons in human history. At the same time, the Air Force command insisted that they were "harmless to humans and wildlife."
The poison contained significant concentrations of dioxin, a mutagen that causes cancer and genetic mutations in people and other living things in contact with them.
Dioxin is a persistent substance, entering the human body with water and food, it causes various diseases of the liver and blood, massive congenital deformities of newborns and disorders of the normal course of pregnancy.
In total, at least 14% of Vietnam has been exposed to this poison.
In August 1961, U.S. President D. Kennedy authorized the use of chemicals to destroy vegetation in South Vietnam. Initially, for experimental purposes, South Vietnamese aircraft led by the US military used defoliant spraying over small forests in the Saigon region (now Ho Chi Minh City). In 1963, a more extensive area on the Kamau Peninsula (the current territory of Kamau Province) was treated with defoliants. With successful results, the American command began a massive use of defoliants.
The most actively used orange formulation (against forests) and blue (against crops of rice and other crops). For better spraying of chemicals, kerosene or diesel fuel was added to them.
According to the Vietnamese Society of Victims of Dioxin, of the three million Vietnamese victims of the chemical, by 2008 over a million people under the age of 18 had become disabled with hereditary diseases. Vietnamese victims were denied compensation for damage caused to life and health by exposure to the chemical.
Subsequently, it turned out that the Orange Agent led to serious diseases in a large number of American and South Vietnamese soldiers, as well as the local Vietnamese population.
The large-scale use of chemicals by American troops led to severe consequences. Mangrove forests (500 thousand hectares) were almost completely destroyed, 60% (about 1 million hectares) of jungle and 30% (more than 100 thousand hectares) of lowland forests were affected. Since 1960, the yield of rubber plantations has decreased by 75%. American troops destroyed from 40 to 100% of plantations of bananas, rice, sweet potatoes, papaya, tomatoes, 70% of coconut plantations, 60% of hevea, 110 thousand hectares of casuarina plantations.
As a result of the use of chemicals, the environmental balance of Vietnam has seriously changed. In the affected areas, out of 150 species of birds, 18 remained, amphibians and insects almost completely disappeared, the number of fish in rivers decreased and their composition changed. The microbiological composition of the soils was disturbed, plants were poisoned. The number of species of woody-shrub species of moist rainforest has sharply decreased: in the affected areas there are isolated species of trees and several species of spiny grasses that are not suitable for feeding cattle [5].
Changes in the fauna of Vietnam led to the displacement of one species of black rats by other species that are carriers of the plague in South and Southeast Asia. In the species composition of ticks, ticks-carriers of dangerous diseases appeared. Similar changes occurred in the species composition of mosquitoes: malaria mosquitoes appeared instead of harmless endemic mosquitoes.
The spraying of poison also took place over the territories of other countries of the Indochina Peninsula (Cambodia, Laos and Thailand).