Concerned agencies in many Vietnamese provinces and cities are inspecting and punishing many restaurants and other eateries that use signboards with contents written entirely in Chinese, which violates applicable regulations.

>> Central Vietnam hub ready to punish eateries, hotels hanging Chinese signs In north-central Ha Tinh province, on the short road linking Ky Long and Ky Lien communes, Tuoi Tre reporters found about 40 signs of various sizes, many of which contain Chinese words only.

Owners of restaurants that use such signs told Tuoi Tre that many Chinese are working and living in the area and they have become regular clients of these eateries. Nguyen Loc Hang, head of the Culture and Information Department of Ky Anh District, said, “We have first handled cases in which signboards are written entirely in Chinese, as this is a serious violation of current regulations.” The Vietnamese law mandates that any sign must be presented in Vietnamese, and whenever foreign languages are used, they must be placed below the Vietnamese equivalents. The department will later deal with other signs on which the sizes of Chinese letters are equal to or bigger than those of Vietnamese equivalents, Hang said. In northern Hai Phong city, numerous signboards with Chinese words violating the foresaid regulation were seen on many streets, especially Van Cao in Hai An District and Quang Trung in Hong Bang District.   Pham Van Luan, chief inspector of the city Department of Culture, Information and Tourism told Tuoi Tre that the agency once handled such violations in late 2013 and forced owners of violating signs to remove them. However, the situation has repeated recently and the department are strengthening their examination and punishing violators, Luan said “Currently, the highest fine for violations on regulations on signboards is VND10 million (US$470) for individual violators, and VND20 million for organizations,” he added. Such violations have also been seen in some other localities including south-central Binh Thuan province and central Da Nang City, where local authorities have been dealing with violators.

At the 15th conference of the Da Nang City Party Committee held on Wednesday, Party Committee Secretary Tran Tho said, “It is unacceptable for such hospitality businesses to create a ‘Chinatown’ in the city.”

He directed concerned agencies to immediately inspect and strictly penalize all signboard regulation violators.