Hanoi (VNA) -A 🐎seminar on promoting ꧂the involvement of pioneering enterprises in natural disaster preventionand control, and response to climate change and epidemics was held in Hanoi on October15.

Co-organised by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry,the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Development’s Vietnam Disaster Management Authority (VNDMA), theevent aimed to respond to International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (October13) in order to review the impacts of natural disasters, climate change andepidemics on Vietnamese businesses, as well as policy impacts on the role ofenterprises in the field. In his opening speech, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP in Vietnam Partrick Haveman said UNDP together with relevant agencies have encouraged technical working and research groups, organisations and business associations to acquire newinitiatives to help businesses improve their resilience to shocks like COVID-19 andmitigate the impacts of disasters and epidemics. Citing the World Bank’s report on the role of the Vietnamesefirms in disaster prevention and climate change response, Head of the VCCI’s LegalAffairs Department Dau Anh Tuan said Vietnam is one of the countries hardesthit by extreme weather. Economic losses caused by natural disasters could amount tonearly 1.5 percent of its annual gross domestic product and could keep risingin the future, he said. Agriculture suffers the most consequences of natural disasters whilenewly-established firms are also the most vulnerable to climate change. However,due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 71 percent of companies reportedyear-on-year decline in revenues this year, Tuan said. According to the official, 63 percent of joint ventures and 49 percent offoreign-invested enterprises have actively joined in efforts to overcome consequences caused by natural disasters.Therefore, the building of a national strategy on disaster prevention and controlas well as the role of business community is needed at present.

VNDMA Deputy General Director Nguyen Van Tien said Vietnam hasbeen one of the five countries hardest hit by climate change over the pastthree decades. Each year, natural disasters leave about 400 dead and missing and cause economic losses of 1-1.5 percent of the GDP.

Since the beginning of this year,calamities have left more than 100 dead and injured, collapsed hundreds of houses anddamaꦦged 8,000 houses across tꦫhe country, he added./.