The Fitch international rating agency confirmed long-term ratings of Russia in national and foreign currency at the BBB level, the agency said Friday.

The Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel Hanoi and The Nam Hai Resort in Hoi An shared top billing as Asia’s best leisure properties for this year via an online poll by Hong Kong-based travel and trade journal Smart Travel Asia.

Viet Nam successfully realised a ten-year tax reform programme ending in 2010, putting in place a tax system that meets the requirements of a market economy and membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Vietnam is a fertilizer importer which will ship in between 2.4 and 2.6 million tons of fertilizer from abroad this year. However, fertilizer projects in the pipeline will reverse the situation and promise reasonable fertilizer prices for farmers.

For the last many years, Vietnamese goods have been absent from traditional markets. Even Dong Xuan Market, well known as the oldest and biggest wholesale market in Hanoi, has also been mostly distributing Chinese goods since 1986.

Six schoolgirls were drowned at a section of the Hong (Red) River located in Trang Viet Commune in Hanoi’s Me Linh District on Friday afternoon after they had rowed a small boat to pluck flowers in the river.

Direct wage payments to employee bank accounts linked to automatic teller machine cards may be written into law, indicated the Department of Labour-Salary under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The Ministry of Education and Training which has been violently criticized for overloading students with heavy curricula, is considering cutting many lessons in order to ease the burden on students.

Several road construction projects on Phu Quoc Island are behind schedule because of a lack of capital and the weak capacity of company contractors, affecting tourism and investment.

The tourism industry has developed robustly and it has tried to take advantage of Vietnamese landscape and cultural identity to serve tourists. However, unorganized and unfriendly exploitation has unintentionally killed “cultural beauties”.

Big mobile network operators have been rushing to lower the service fees in an effort to increase the number of 3G service subscribers, which remains modest over the last two years since the services were launched into the market.

Import-export and investment are the two most important issues that Government should focus on in the process of integrating into the world economy in the 2011-20 period, according to domestic economic experts.

VietNamNet Bridge – The San Khau Hoc Duong (School Stage) art project brought positive results over its 10 years of implementation, education and culture experts concluded at a meeting recently held in Ha Noi to evaluate the project.

It started with an image in a film: a young and seductive Jane March in a classical silk Chanel style dress traverses the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta and wanders the back streets of Cho Lon, Saigon’s Chinatown.

VietNamNet Bridge – A project to modernise offshore fishing vessels, which was expected to improve productivity and assure fishermen's safety, has been stalled after three years of implementation.

Twenty-three players have been called up for the national team to compete at the upcoming Southeast Asian Women's Football Championships in Laos.

A lot of big foreign retailers are making hectic preparations to expand their operation in Vietnam in order to obtain “bigger pieces of the cake” of the very lucrative market.

US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Francisco Sanchez has confirmed the growing importance of his country’s relations with Vietnam, at a National Day event in Washington, DC.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai is calling for a major shake-up of Vietnam’s inefficient steel industry.

Co-operation lifts rice profits; Key plant-breed plan to cost $8m; Critics doubt viability of housing saving fund; Private helicopter service opens in Vietnam; Vietnam export growth to slow in near future; Agro-forestry, fishery exports top $16bln  

The Bui Xuan Phai – Love for Ha Noi awards were yesterday presented to individuals and organisations who have made great contributions to the capital in the fields of culture, arts and society.

HCM City has kicked off the project to replace all the diesel run buses with green environment-friendly buses by 2015. However, in order to fulfill the plan, experts say it is necessary to offer incentives to green bus developers.

China is ready to remove obstacles and join efforts with Vietnam to step up friendly exchanges and deepen bilateral cooperation to keep bilateral relations on track.

VietNamNet Bridge – At the age of 8, little girl Ngo Thi Kim Thuy contracts oedema, gout, kidney and heart diseases. Dozens of kids in the tomb hamlet in Ward 15, District 8, HCM City also contract fatal diseases.

French poet Madeleine Riffaud, who has been honoured by France as a heroine, remains a strong friend of Vietnam despite her dioxin-related illness. She has always demonstrated a relentless enthusiasm and sentiment toward the Southeast Asian country.