Today’s English “Businesses work with gov’t to speed up vaccination drives”
Businesses work with gov’t to speed up vaccination drives.
The business community is willing to work with the Government to speed up the mass vaccination program providing there is a policy to support them, speakers said at an online meeting on Friday in HCM City.
During the conference held by the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Đỗ Hồng Hạnh, member of the Việt Nam Textile and Apparel Association, said that some businesses were willing to connect with suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure optimal conditions for supply.
“A policy, however, is needed for the private sector to participate in the drive in order to speed up the process in general,” she noted.
For example, a company could negotiate with suppliers to bring vaccines to the airport for quality testing before payment, or could even negotiate for the transfer of vaccine production technology, she said.
Đỗ Thị Thúy Hương, vice president of the Supporting Industry Association, said: “The principle of the policy is that the State and the Ministry of Health would approve and manage vaccine quality and provide vaccinations for workers.”
The electronics and supporting industries face a risk of disruption in the supply chain as the fourth wave of COVID has hit the “industrial capital” of the northern provinces of Bắc Giang and Bắc Ninh.
She urged the government to allow companies to pay for vaccinations for their own staff.
“The business community should be able to inoculate their workforce in order to reduce the burden on the state budget as part of the effort to accelerate the government’s vaccination drive,” she said.
Most business leaders (in the electronics, textiles, footwear, wood, and dairy sectors) said they were willing to join hands with the Government to find vaccine sources and pay for vaccination costs for workers.
Vũ Đức Giang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, said that businesses in the industry, which has more than 3 million workers, were “impatiently waiting for vaccinations for workers.”
The garment industry has a number of FDI enterprises that have good connections with the governments of the EU and the US, which could facilitate the import of vaccines, according to Giang.
Vũ Tú Thành, regional deputy executive director of the US-ASEAN Business Council, said the FDI business community in Việt Nam, especially pharmaceutical companies that make COVID-19 vaccines from the US and Europe, could help speed up negotiations on purchases of the vaccine.
Refer to:
Vietnam news
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
