A symposium on Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh’s life, revolutionary cause and thoughts was held in Buenos Aires Friday with the participation of hundreds of Argentinean scholars, politicians, artists and friends of Vietnam.

Parliamentarian Julia Argentina Perie, President of the Argentina-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians Group, expressed her admiration for President Ho Chi Minh, his revolutionary optimism and invaluable thoughts he passed down to younger Vietnamese generations.

She read a poem from the late President’s Diary in Prison that was translated into Spanish by Cuban poet Felix Pita Rodriguez.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina Nguyen Van Dao said Vietnamese people always bear in their heart and mind the image of President Ho Chi Minh not only as a national liberation hero but also a close and beloved leader.

He confirmed that though the President passed away for more than 40 years ago, Vietnamese people are determined to follow his moral example.

Poldi Sosa Schmidt, President of the Argentina-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Institute, highlighted President Ho Chi Minh’s role as one of the greatest world leaders in the 20th century. She described the President’s moral example as the lodestar for Vietnam’s revolution for nearly a century.

Fanny Edelman, Honorary President of the Communist Party of Argentina, recalled her two visits to Vietnam in 1973 and 1976, during which she saw with her own eyes the Vietnamese people’s brave struggle for national liberation and their efforts to reconstruct the country after the war.

The 99-year-old revolutionary said she still remembered a reception given by late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong who told her stories about President Ho Chi Minh.

Political analyst Atilio Boron praised President Ho for his creative use of Marxist-Leninism in the conditions of Vietnam , helping the country – an oppressed nation – to rise up and wrest back independence and freedom from the most powerful forces.

Historian Alejandro Pandra valued President Ho Chi Minh’s strategic visions, saying the late President had been able to foresee the road Vietnam had to take to achieve freedom and development.

The Vietnamese Embassy screened a documentary on President Ho Chi Minh and exhibited a collection of pictures illustrating the Vietnamese land and people.

Ambassador Dao presented the speakers at the symposium the book “A selection of Ho Chi Minh Works” published in Spanish for the first time.

source:tuoitrenews

HANOI - The dong has risen marginally against the dollar over the past week but it felt no big impact Monday from China's move over the weekend to make the yuan more flexible, which has lifted other Asian currencies.

The dong edged up to VND18,940/18,990 per dollar from VND18,950/19,000 a week ago, Vietcombank, Vietnam's largest partly private lender, said in its daily quotations.

Foreign exchange liquidity in Vietnam remained high, with demand and supply well balanced on the domestic market, the central bank said in its weekly report last week.

A dealer at a foreign bank in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial center, said dollar inflows from exports and foreign direct investment were good.

But bankers said demand for dollars would rise in September or October when loans, which have grown strongly this year and are often given for six to nine months, are due for repayment.

"If exports do not pick up, there may be pressure on the foreign exchange market when importers need to buy dollars for repayment," a dealer at a Vietnamese bank said.

Fixings on overnight dollar loans offered by domestic banks were unchanged from last week at 0.43 percent, but two-month lending rates edged up to 1.37 percent from 1.27 percent last Monday, reflecting a higher dollar demand forecast.

Foreign exchange loans by banks in Ho Chi Minh City, mostly in US dollars, at the end of May surged 41.5 percent from May 2009, compared with growth of 0.1 percent in the same period last year against May 2008, the city's statistics reports showed.

Last Wednesday, the central bank asked banks to report their foreign exchange sales and lending to importers for repayment as part of moves to control Vietnam's trade deficit and avoid putting pressure on the exchange rate.

Banks also need to ensure their outstanding foreign exchange loans were less than their foreign currency deposits raised from companies and residents, and must tightly control the credit line and terms of each loan, the central bank said in a statement.

The first dealer said importers were closely watching exchange rate movements

"Any time the rate moves close to the critical ceiling of VND19,100, they will start buying dollars," he said, adding that the exchange rate now looked reasonable.

The central bank set the daily mid-point for Monday's dollar/dong transactions at VND18,544 and banks are allowed to trade 3 percent either side of that, between VND17,988 and VND19,100 per dollar.

source:tuoitrenews

Singer Minh Quan from Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) joined others from ASEAN countries, China, Japan and South Korea in the ASEAN+3 concert in Bangkok, Thailand on Saturday.

The concert was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej coming to the throne and boosting friendship among ASEAN countries and their partners.

Quan performed Vietnam’s folk songs and sang a duet with a Thai singer, Vietnam News Agency reported.

The same day, an art troupe from the Vietnam’s Central Song and Dance Theater gave a performance at the Mei Lan-fang Theater in Beijing, the first performance during their tour of China to celebrate the Vietnam - China Friendship Year and the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

They performed with traditional musical instruments and staged a fashion show of the Vietnamese traditional costumes.

From June 21 to 24, the troupe will perform in China’s central province of Henan.

source:tuoitrenews