TIẾNG VIỆT Vietnam lets 200 Samsung Display engineers from South Korea skip quarantine
The South Korean conglomerate accounts for a quarter of Vietnam’s exports. Photo: trithucvn.net
The South Korean conglomerate accounts for a quarter of Vietnam’s exports. The Southeast Asian country is South Korea’s third-biggest export market, and the fifth-biggest source of South Korea’s imports.
Samsung Display, a supplier for Samsung Electronics and Apple, had earlier asked Vietnam to exempt 700 engineers quarantine, saying they need to prepare for the production of screens for new smartphones, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters this week.
South Korea has Asia’s second-biggest coronavirus outbreak outside China, with 7,979 cases as of Friday, and Vietnam, which has just 44 cases, tightened up entry regulations for South Koreans, including making them undergo quarantine.
But despite the controls, a chartered Asiana Airlines (020560.KS) plane carrying 186 Samsung Display engineers flew from South Korea to Vietnam on Friday, an Asiana spokesman said.
Samsung Display declined to comment.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry representatives were not immediately available for comment.
The airline spokesman said more flights were scheduled to take more Samsung Display engineers to Vietnam but did not provide details.
Vietnam has reported 48 infected cases as of Saturday, with the latest patient is a man, aged 31, in Ho Chi Minh City. He contracted the virus after having close contact with a woman in Binh Thuan province, said the Ministry of Health.
Earlier, the Vietnamese health authority confirmed two more cases. The 46th patient is a 30 year-old woman, residing in Khuong Trung ward in Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan district, who served as a stewardess on a flight from London to Hanoi on March 9.
The 47th patient is a 43-year-old woman who worked as home helper of the 17th patient on Truc Bach street in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh district.
Right after her hostess was confirmed to be infected with the virus on March 5, she was brought to the National Hospital of Tropical Disease No. 2 for quarantine and sample test.
Source: Compiled from Reuters, Vietnamplus, Ministry of Health
