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| The Air Force One of the US President (photo: fhp.state.fl.us). |
VietNamNet Bridge - The APEC week will come in only ten days. Vietnam’s preparation for the event has basically been completed.
Compared to the fifth Asia Europe Economic Meeting (ASEM) two years ago, the number of delegations attending the 14th APEC is smaller but the component and the scale of each delegation is much more complicated. Particularly, some chiefs of state of big economies will also come to Vietnam.
Problems for hotels
According to the organizing board, apart from taking part in the 14th APEC Summit, leaders of five delegations will pay official visits to Vietnam on this occasion, including the US, Russia, China, Japan and Chile.
The biggest problem for organizers is hotels for foreign visitors. Hanoi currently has only eight five-star hotels, while 21 delegations will come to the capital city and all of them want to stay in five-star hotels.
The US delegation has the highest number of delegates, with more than 1,000 people. Apart from a five-star hotel, the biggest one in Hanoi, the US has also leased another four-star hotel but it is still not enough. Finally, they have had to lease rooms at nearly 30 hotels of three to four stars.
This will be the firs time US President Bush will visit Vietnam and attend the 14th APEC Summit. Besides the Air Force One of President Bush, the US will have around 60 other flights to Vietnam to transport necessary equipment serving the US delegation.
The US President will bring with him a bullet-proof car and a satellite communication system abroad.
As the US delegation is very crowded, apart from special cars that Vietnam will provide, the US has leased nearly 300 cars and a large parking area.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also pay his second official visit to Vietnam. The Russian delegation will include 400 members, the second largest delegation after the US.
Apart from the specialized aircraft for the President, Russia will bring seven other specialized aircraft to Vietnam. Special flights from Moscow to Hanoi will carry equipment to serve the President and the Russian delegation during their time in Vietnam.
Russia will also bring to Vietnam a bullet-proof car and satellite communication equipment.
President Putin will stay in a five-star hotel in the hub of Hanoi while members of the Russian delegation will stay in various hotels.
Parking area for specialized aircraft
As many officials and chief executive officers (CEOs) of big groups are coming to Hanoi this time by specialized aircraft, arrangement of parking areas for those aircraft is also a problem.
Initially it was estimated that around 80 specialised aircraft need parking area so the organizing board prepared four airports for them, including Noi Bai in Hanoi, Vinh in Vinh City, central province of Nghe An, Cat Bi in Hai Phong and Da Nang.
However, the number of special aircraft needing parking areas reported on November 2 is only 40, which the Noi Bai Airport can accomodate.
Drivers for APEC
According to a member of the organizing board, hundreds of drivers have been mobilized to serve APEC delegates, including over 300 from the military. The drivers of cars carrying APEC leaders, except for the US and Russia, which have special requirements, are those from the Foreign Ministry.
Military drivers will manage the remaining cars. Those drivers, as they come from the military, are very good at discipline, however, they are not trained in protocol etiquette and are not good at foreign languages. Many of them don’t know much about Hanoi’s roads.
To deal with those problems, they have been convened to study about the above things for more than 3 months.
It is scheduled that more than 1,000 cars will serve the APEC meeting. Apart from some from the Foreign Ministry, the remaining are newly imported ones to serve the event. Those cars, which are mainly Ford Mondeos, Ford Transits, Mercedes-Benz E280 Ks for ministers and Mercedes-Benz E-200s for ladies, will be sold after APEC.
National Meeting Centre
It is not like other international conferences held in Vietnam before, in that this time the government decided to build a new national meeting center for the 14th APEC Summit.
For other conferences, meeting rooms were ready and the organizers only needed to make plans, this time they have to wait untill the construction of the center is complete to make the plan.
The APEC Summit includes two private meetings, which normally are held at two sites. However, they will both take place at the National Meeting Centre this time.
The organizers have arranged the two meeting rooms on different floors, with different decoration styles to make the difference, which are highly appreciated by APEC members.
According to some officials, the first advance parties visited the construction site of the National Meeting Centre in July and at that time this place was still in confusion but in late October, the second advance parties expressed their satisfaction with Vietnam’s preparations. A member of the US advance party was very surprised and expressed admiration as Vietnamese organisers thought of the smallest details that the organizing boards of the previous summit didn’t.
(Source: Tien Phong) | 
