Project to improve Vietnamese people's stature 'frozen' due to funding

Speaking with Thanh Nien yesterday, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh said that right after the 2015 Lunar New Year, the Ministry will have a meeting with a number of related ministries and branches to jointly resolve difficulties in implementing the overall project on physical development and stature of Vietnamese people in the 2011-2030 period.
(Project 641).

>> Vietnamese people are suffering from... exercise hunger
>> Vietnam U.23 team needs to be rejuvenated
>> Proposal to legalize sports lottery and football betting in Vietnam

The project has no scientific research or evidence between nutritional characteristics and culinary cultural habits of Vietnamese people - Photo: Bach Duong

As we have analyzed in previous issues, Project 641 was born in the beginning of the second quarter of 2011, but due to many objective obstacles and internal difficulties, it is still in a state of "inactivity".

Not only is there no scientific research or argument between nutritional characteristics and culinary culture and exercise habits, the scientific basis of the project is also incomplete and lacks uniformity in assessing factors affecting the physical development and stature of Vietnamese people. We have in our hands documents on height and stature statistics of Vietnamese youth from a number of ministries and branches, but each document gives a very different number. This proves that there is no connection between agencies, but "everyone does their own thing".

Some activities related to the project have been implemented but only superficially because there is no clear direction on resource mobilization. The project coordination board operates concurrently, while the industry leaders are too busy with their own industry work, so the time spent on the project is very limited. One of the 5 funding sources will come from sports betting, but it is unknown when the betting project will become a reality.

Thanh Nien reporters explained all the above problems in a conversation with Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh, Head of the Coordination Board of Project 641. Mr. Hoang Tuan Anh admitted that the implementation of the project is facing many difficulties: “The physical strength and stature of Vietnamese people are very problematic. Compared to Japan or Korea, in 10 years, their height increased very quickly, while in the same period of time, the height of Vietnamese people only increased by a mere 1 cm. The stature and physical condition of each person depends on 4 basic factors: genes, nutrition, living environment and training. However, due to the characteristics of the country having gone through many years of war, for a very long time, the conditions for implementing the above factors were more or less affected.

Therefore, the general objective of the project is very clear: Developing the physical strength and stature of Vietnamese people in the next 20 years to improve the quality of human resources, serving the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country, gradually improving the quality of the race and increasing the healthy life expectancy of Vietnamese people. However, if these two factors are not improved from now until 2020 and the vision to 2030, it will greatly affect the human resources serving all areas of social life in the future.

According to Minister Hoang Tuan Anh, the Ministry of Health is launching a number of programs related to the project, as is the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, but "we are most stuck with the funding issue." "Project 641 is extremely important, so it requires strong participation from the state, many ministries and the whole society in many different fields. The sports industry alone cannot handle the massive workload of the project," said Mr. Hoang Tuan Anh, affirming: "Right after the Lunar New Year 2014, we will conduct a meeting with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to discuss and resolve the difficulties at each stage. Funding is needed for the project to operate in both breadth and depth."

During this meeting, the sports sector will propose that the Ministry of Finance take the lead in coordinating with relevant ministries to issue a joint circular guiding the management and use of funds to implement Project 641. It is expected that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will also propose that the Ministry of Finance consider allowing the project's coordination board to establish an investment company to develop the physical strength and stature of Vietnamese people, helping to mobilize, manage and use budget and non-budgetary resources.

Lan Phuong

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/de-an-nang-tam-voc-nguoi-viet-nam-bat-dong-vi-kinh-phi-1851297355.htm