The National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control agreed Thursday that Viet Nam should continue closing borders to foreign tourists at this time, as external COVID-19 transmission risks still remain. 

The National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention
and Control convenes meeting on May 28, 2020. Photo: VGP

The committee also agreed that inbound tourism would only be resumed once the safety conditions are met and Viet Nam may only consider to open door to tourists from countries where the pandemic is put under control.

Viet Nam basically contained the pandemic with the relative low number of COVID-19 patients and has gone 42 consecutive days without new community infection case, allowing the country to ease preventive measures to reboot the economy.

Trinh Thi Thuy, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the ministry has restarted domestic tourism through introduction of a range of promotion programs offering discounts and new products, resulting in positive signals, including high hotel occupancy of even 100%.

In a bid to recover the economy, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc presided over a meeting with businesses on May 9, during which he called on the business circle to take strong actions towards the V-shaped growth of the national economy through the rest of this year.

Along with measures that have been put in place to recover the economy, the Government is still working to lock all external transmission risks and has only allowed foreign investors, experts, skilled workers, business managers, officials, and Vietnamese students learning abroad to enter the nation.

As the pandemic is evolving complicatedly, all entrants to Viet Nam must continue to comply with the current preventive regulations, said representatives from the ministries of health, national defense and public security.