Vietnam, UN officials meet to prepare to set up natural disasters-mitigating forum

Vietnamese and United Nations officials met here on Thursday to prepare to establish a national natural disaster-mitigating forum in Vietnam.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dao Xuan Hoc said the forum is scheduled to be established in August.

The forum will gather Vietnamese policymakers and officials from United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction regularly to discuss measures to mitigate impacts of natural disasters and climate change, said the deputy minister.

Vietnam is listed among the world's most vulnerable to climate change.

If seawater level rises by one meter, about 12 percent of Vietnam's natural areas particularly fertile land in the rice bowl of Mekong Delta will be lost, according to the World Bank's figures.

Vietnam is now the world's second-largest rice exporter behind Thailand.

Source: Xinhua