Deputy PM Tran Hong Ha receives Chairman, General Director of AstraZeneca Vietnam Nitin Kapoor. (Photo: VNA)

The Deputy Prime Minister highly appreciated AstraZeneca’s valuable and timely support for Vietnam in the fight against COVID-19.

He expressed impression for AstraZeneca's ongoing collaboration activities in Vietnam, particularly in the fields of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, saying that this plays a crucial role in proactively preparing for potential disease outbreaks in the future.

Vietnam backs AstraZeneca's commitments to emission reduction and moving towards carbon neutrality in all its activities, Ha said, stressing that experience in COVID-19 prevention and control showed that the world can only push back and end the pandemic if all countries have equal access to vaccines.

Similarly, the goals related to addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions cannot be achieved if there are countries that stay "outside" these efforts, he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Ha emphasised the close relationship between human health and the "health" of the environment, affirming that restoring and protecting the natural environment is a crucial solution to prevent and reduce the burden of disease-related costs on people and society due to the pollution of water, air and waste.

Technology is a "vaccine" to address climate change, Deputy Prime Minister Ha noted, adding that developing countries like Vietnam greatly need support and access to various solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha (R) receives Chairman and General Director of AstraZeneca Vietnam Nitin Kapoor. (Photo: VNA)

Companies with strong research and development capabilities like AstraZeneca play a important role in achieving climate change goals such as cutting emissions to net zero, and engaging in the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) by joining projects for researching and transferring green fuel production technologies, and developing smart transmission systems and large-scale energy storage devices, he said.

Mentioning AstraZeneca’s project to plant 22.5 million trees, the Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Department of Climate Change under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to work closely with AstraZeneca to effectively perform the project.

He expressed his hope that AstraZeneca will engage in projects related to the roadmap for achieving net zero, and JETP in Vietnam, which serve as experimental and pilot initiatives for global mechanisms.

For his part, Charman of AstraZeneca Vietnam Kapoor briefed the Deputy Prime Minister on several collaboration programmes and projects currently underway in Vietnam to strengthen patients’ access to medicines, develop a sustainable healthcare system, improve public health, and conduct clinical trials for drugs and biopharmaceuticals.

AstraZeneca is collaborating with Vietnamese agencies and partners to implement a reforestation and landscape restoration project worth 50 million USD, which aims to plant 22.5 million trees over 30,500 ha, thus creating conditions for biodiversity development and providing sustainable livelihoods for more than 17,000 households, Charman of AstraZeneca Vietnam Kapoor said.

He noted his hope that the project will serve as a pilot initiative in the action plan of the National Steering Committee for implementing Vietnam's commitments at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), therefore encouraging other organisations and businesses to jointly take actions to respond to climate change.