HCMC – Sovico Group and the HCMC Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank) have joined hands with the Government in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic by donating VND60 billion to Vietnam’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign via the Ministry of Health on May 21.
The donation handover ceremony saw the participation of Nguyen Thanh Long, Minister of Health, and Nguyen Thi Hong, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam.
At the ceremony, Pham Quoc Thanh, general director of HDBank, offered the VND60-billion donation to the Health Minister.
Aside from these two units, many major Vietnamese banks such as Vietcombank, VietinBank, BIDV, Agribank, and Vietnam’s major conglomerate Vingroup have made a significant contribution to the campaign, raising the total donation to VND160 billion and four million doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
Apart from implementing its goal toward sustainable growth, Sovico Group has carried out community activities aimed at spreading the message that sustainable development and corporate social responsibility must go hand in hand and bring about practical values among the community. Earlier, Sovico Group became the United Nations’ strategic partner in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.
As for HDBank, it has been active in community service to assist the country’s efforts to combat the pandemic. Since the pandemic hit the country early last year, the bank spent VND24 trillion to support customers who were small and medium businesses, VND10 trillion on helping super small enterprises, household businesses and individual customers to expand their business, apply hi-tech, clean agriculture and renewable energy solutions to their businesses.
The bank also organized many social security programs, such as offering donations to the Government to cope with diseases, saline intrusion and drought, presenting 1,000 hospital beds to the HCMC health sector and donating VND1.5 billion to Hai Duong Province which was hit the hardest in the previous coronavirus wave.
In related news, chairman of the National Assembly (NA) Vuong Dinh Hue has issued Resolution No.1271 of the NA’s Standing Committee, approving using VND12.1 trillion of the 2020 State budget’s savings to purchase Covid-19 vaccines.
Under the resolution, the NA’s Standing Committee urged ministries and agencies to facilitate the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines to ensure the safety of the local residents.
Besides this, the Ministry of Health decided to allocate over 1.68 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine through the COVAX Facility to ministries, agencies, hospitals and centers for disease control in 63 provinces and cities during the third phase of the Covid-19 inoculation.
Of the amount of the vaccine, the ministry will give 688,000 doses to the northern region, 203,000 to the central region, 81,000 doses to the Central Highlands and 460,000 to the southern part. Further, the police force will receive 50,000 doses and the military force will get 89,000 doses.
