Following the latest emergency instructions from the Da Nang Party Secretary, Mr Tran Tho, the city’s relevant agencies made inspection visits on Thursday morning to local restaurants and hotels on Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap streets in order to detect and deal with violations of the State regulations about advertising signboards.

Under the advertising law of Viet Nam 2012, advertising must be expressed in Vietnamese.  If a foreign language is used on the same advert, the size of the foreign language lettering must be less than ³/₄ the size of the Vietnamese letters, and must be placed underneath the Vietnamese letters.

An employee of the Hung Phat Restaurant removing Chinese signboards

The Hung Phat Seafood Restaurant at the intersection between Nguyen Van Thoai and Vo Nguyen Giap streets was a typical example.  Some of the restaurant’s signboards were found to be entirely written in Chinese.  Three other signboards had the Chinese words 75% larger than the Vietnamese ones.  The local inspectors asked the owner of the restaurant to remove all the offending signboards.

Another 10 restaurants and hotels along Vo Nguyen Giap Street were also found to be in violation.  The inspectors met with the offenders to deal with their errors.

The Deputy Head of the Inspection Agency of the city's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Mr Le Tan Hung, said that previously, in December 2013, his agency had coordinated with the PA83 Division of the city’s Police Department and the Advertising Management Centre to impose fines of 10 million VND on local restaurants and hotels for using signboards which were in violation of the regulations.