Building A Brand Name For Vietnam's Ancient Lai: Over 100 Vietnamese Workers Abandoned For Months

Building a brand name for Vietnam’s ancient Lai
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The once well-known Lai Thieu Orchard, home to thousands of ancient fruit trees in southern Vietnam’s Binh
Duong Province, is on its way to restoring its former glory.
The fruit garden includes thousands of privately-owned fruit tree farms located in Lai Thieu, which now covers Binh
Nham, Hung Dinh, An Thanh, and An Son Wards of Thuan An Town.
After around 20 years of degradation due to its uncompetitive prices compared to imported fruit, Lai Thieu Orchard has
shrunk to only 1,300 hectares, and it now includes 660 hectares of purple mangos teen.
It was this type of fruit that built Lai Thieu Orchard’s reputation years ago.
Efforts to save gardens of ancient trees
Currently, 64 percent of the orchard’s mangos teen trees are 60-100 years old.
Locals in Lai Thieu and tourists who visited years ago must have known or heard of Lai Thieu Orchard.
“All of the streets from neighboring areas leading to Lai Thieu Orchard were packed with bicycles and tourists, especially
around the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar,” said Le Quoc Hung, now chairman of the farmers’
association of Hung Dinh Ward.
“All of the vehicles, most of which were bicycles, were stuck in traffic from Cau Ngang Bridge.
“At the time, I sold entrance tickets at Cau Ngang to enter Lai Thieu Orchard. I could tear off 100 wads each with 100
tickets.”
Although most Lai Thieu locals do not make the majority of their income through their fruit farms, many have preserved
their century-old farms with their ancient fruit trees in order to maintain memories inherited from their ancestors.
Lai Thieu natives consider their fruit gardens to be their ‘flesh and blood,’ said Truong Cong Thac, head of the business
department of Thuan An Town.
As a result, they have not chopped down century-old mangos teen trees.
Preserving the trees merely for memory’s sake is a waste of the economic potential of the land, because the quality of Lai
Thieu mangos teen and other fruits is well-known.
Since there was a time when Lai Thieu mangos teen did not have an exclusive trademark registered, people who grew
other varieties were able to claim that their inferior-quality fruit had been grown there. This marred the fame of Lai Thieu
fruit.
The Lai Thieu brand name
Local residents eventually decided to set up a 12-member team to run a project called, ‘Building and Managing the
Trademark of Lai Thieu Mangos teen.’
The team traveled to other fruit farms in such Mekong Delta provinces as Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, and Tien Giang to learn how
they had built trademarks.
“We drew useful lessons to promote our fruit gardens,” said Nguyen Van Doi, a fruit garden owner in Lai Thieu.
At present, garden owners select each qualified fruit and paste the exclusive logo of Lai Thieu Trademark before they go to
market.
The trademark was approved in June this year to ‘go public’ at markets as an exclusive brand name of Lai Thieu.
With the establishment of the exclusive trademark, consumers are assured of the fruit quality, and the sellers earn better
profits.
“Thanks to the brand name of Lai Thieu Mangos teen, a businessman from Ho Chi Minh City came and ordered 10 metric
tons of mangos teens,” said Vo Khanh Quan, chairman of the farmers’ association of Thuan An.
Lai Thieu farm owners are considering granting authority to an agency to manage its trademark and apply logos to the
fruits.
In addition, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Binh Duong Province plans to organize regular fruit
festivals in Lai Thieu to promote the brand name and the consumption of its fruit.
In addition to the famous purple mangos teens, Lai Thieu Orchard also grows durian, jackfruit, and strawberry.
At the fruit festival last year in Lai Thieu, visitors bought 20 metric tons of Lai Thieu fruits, including 11 metric tons of
mangos teen, according to Vo Thi Anh Xuan, director of the Binh Duong Travel Promotion Center.
Over 100 Vietnamese workers abandoned for

months
Over 100 Vietnamese workers have lived without money and accommodation in Belarus for
months, after their host company failed to arrange these necessities for them.
What makes the store even more tragic is that most of them had to sell their land and house in Vietnam
in order to afford the VND100 million (US$4,800) needed for fees and guarantees for the overseas
working trip.
Without money, 117 migrant workers have to beg for food and other help from overseas Vietnamese
in the European nation.
Pawning passports for daily food in Belarus
Le Van Phong, 20, from Ky Anh District in the central Vietnamese province of Ha Tinh, is one of the
abandoned migrant workers.
After his mother sold their house and land for $4,800, she had to borrow from her relatives so that
Phong could fly back home.
He returned to his hometown on September 11, eight months after he left, and recalled his story and
those of his fellow workers in Belarus.
“In Belarus, I worked for Mobile Center Company for US$500 a month,” said Phong.
“With the income, I reckoned that I could cover the cost of $4,800 after working there for a year, but
finally I had to return after eight months with empty hands.”
Most Vietnamese workers in Belarus have never been paid enough to cover the fee, according to
Phong.
He added that he started working for Mobile Center in late January this year. His February salary was
kept for his return air ticket. He was only paid $365 in late March, which was just enough to buy
cooking tools and other necessities.
“From April to June, I was given a small sum as a salary advance, but it was only enough for food for
several days,” said one of Phong’s co-workers.
On July 12, the 117 Vietnamese stopped working for Mobile Center.
While waiting for the International Manpower and Service Company (Inmasco) – a branch of the
Vietnamese construction corporation CIENCO 1 – to send representatives to settle the issue, the
migrant workers had to visit markets where overseas Vietnamese live and work to beg for food and
temporary jobs.
They were given rice and chicken bones to drag out miserable days in the strange land.
Just a couple of days after they ceased working for Mobile Center, the workers were kicked out of
their motels because the firm had not paid for their rooms.
They then formed groups of 20 and shared small, 14-square-meter rooms.
“It was so miserable since we did not have enough food.
“Our rooms were overcrowded and electricity supply was so intermittent that we could not cook rice.
“Some had to pawn their mobile phones, others pawned their passports for food to survive,” Phong
recalled.
Phong said he pawned his passport for the equivalent of VND6 million ($288).
On July 31, or 19 days after they had stopped working, Inmasco representatives arrived and
‘sponsored’ nearly a kilogram of rice and six eggs for each worker.
Inmasco also gave them two options – either moving to another company in Belarus, or terminating
their contract and go home. Inmasco said that they would try to recover the salaries owed to the
workers from Mobile Center.
Most of the workers had demanded that Mobile Center pay their salary debts.
Nine Vietnamese workers protested in front of the Vietnam Embassy in Belarus, and were detained
and deported home.
It should be noted that being deported home means that the workers have violated their labor contract
with Inmasco, thus their contract becomes invalid.
Phong opted to go home.
During the eight months he was away, his mother had to pay a bank interest rate of VND1 million
($48) a month on the $4,800 loan.
Another migrant worker named VVT, from Nghi Xuan District in Ha Tinh Province, added his
colleagues and him were fined $100 each for being absent from work a day, but were paid nothing if
they worked overtime.
“I was only able to send back home $1,300 to my family after working in Belarus for 15 months,” he
complained.
Answer from Vietnamese partners
Inmasco, in collaboration with a partner named IDC, based in Hanoi, are the Vietnamese companies
that sent the workers to Belarus to work for Mobile Center.
At present, Mobile Center still owes the Vietnamese workers two and a half months in salary, for
May, June, and a part of April, according to Do Hai Phong – deputy manager of the Belarus market
department of Inmasco.
Phong confirmed that Mobile Center had promised to pay off the debts on September 30.
The Migration Department of Belarus also said that Mobile Center owed salary to over 100
Vietnamese workers, meaning they have violated current laws in the European country.
Authorities will revoke Mobile Center’s license soon, according to the department.
Of the 117 workers, 13 have agreed to go home, nine were deported, 75 moved to other companies in
Belarus via Inmasco, 19 are staying illegally in the European country, and one has died.
Infiltrating ‘deforestation factory’ in..

Century-old trees deep in the jungle of Quang Nam Province have been illegally chopped down for years to make
timber for luxury furniture and construction projects in Vietnam.
Over 250 thick wood planks, at least 2.5m by 0.8m, have recently been found on the banks of the Thu Bon River in the
province, which is located in the central region.
The planks of precious wood, which were around 10cm thick, were prepared to be rafted downriver when the floodwater
rises.
The remote wood-gathering site is in mountainous Que Lam Commune of Nong Son District.
A Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper journalist discovered the deforestation taking place in the area, but local authorities failed
to detect it. They only arrived once the huge tree trunks had been split in half.
A local named Nam said, “You can buy a plank bed of any size here, the bigger and thicker, the more expensive.
“Here, a bed of hardwood planks is priced around VND20-24 million (US$962-1,200), but the price rises by half if it is
transported to Da Nang City.”
A plank bed worth VND16 million ($770) is normally sold for VND24 million ($1,200) in Da Nang, which is around
50km away, Nam said.
Entering the jungle
From the nearest highway, it took the Tuoi Trejournalist four hours on a motorbike and another four hours of hiking
through the forest to reach Khe May (May Stream), which serves as the border of Phuoc Son and Nong Son Districts in
Quang Nam.
The journalist was disguised as a geologist so he could reach the illegal loggers in the jungle.
A motorbike taxi driver agreed to take the journalist, but only since he was acting as a geologist. “It’s OK to take you
there. If you were a journalist with a camera, I wouldn’t dare take you, even if you paid me with gold,” said the driver.
“A journalist who shows up at the illegal logging site would have no way to leave, and we, the motorbike taxi drivers, may
not make it out safely,” he added.
Although Khe May is a dense forest, the tracks have been smoothed out by the wheels of trucks, as well as wagons pulled
by buffalos.
The path was lined with many motorbikes without license plates. The bikes had been modified to carry the heavy loads of
the illegal loggers.
Huts were seen along the streams on the way to Khe May. These are where the loggers sleep at night.
Moving upstream, it was easy to see numerous planks of wood lying underwater.
The planks were gathered in piles of 90 pieces, as high as the roof of a normal house.
The area looked like a factory or a port, with the pieces of wood about to be shipped away.
A local told Tuoi Tre that when the waters in May Stream rise, the wood pieces will be bound together in rafts and floated
down to cities to be sold.
The rafts float on the inflated inner tubes of tires.

Reaction from authorities
After discovering the piles of wood planks at Khe May, local authorities from Nong Son District raided the area, and are
planning to transport the wood to their warehouses.
Le Trung Tho, a forest management staff member of the district, admitted that the wood was discovered about ten days
ago, and authorities checked the areas where big trees were being chopped down.
They have not assessed the total loss and the area destroyed.
“We are very surprised at the large volume of big trees being chopped down. The trees were not very far from the path of
patrolling local forest management forces,” he said.
Phan Tuan, head of the forest management department of Quang Nam Province, confessed that is a large-scale case of
deforestation.
Police and relevant authorities are investigating to collect further evidence for the case.
Dak Lak Province in the Central Highlands region has also suffered great damage from deforestation by illegal loggers.
Within the five years from 2009, authorities in Dak Lak have uncovered over 10,000 cases of deforestation, or five cases a
day, on average.
Within this period, 26,471 hectares of forest have been damaged in Dak Lak.

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Building A Brand Name For Vietnam's Ancient Lai: Over 100 Vietnamese Workers Abandoned For Months

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Building a brand name for Vietnam’s ancient Lai

Over 100 Vietnamese workers abandoned for

Infiltrating ‘deforestation factory’ in..

The rafts float on the inflated inner tubes of tires.

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