The list of 16 finalists in the Fintech Challenge Vietnam (FCV) – the first-ever financial technology contest in the country has been officially announced, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Vietnam on March 20. 

 The VN-Index failed to hit the threshold 1,160 points after the stock market experienced loads of selling transactions late on March 20.

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan will attend the 138th Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly (IPU-138) and related meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, from March 24-25 and pay an official visit to the Netherlands from March 26-28.

The US’s recent ruling to impose unprecedentedly high import duties on frozen Tra fish fillets from Vietnam shows a level of unfairness and is not in line with the usual antidumping law provisions, said VASEP Secretary General Truong Dinh Hoe.

 Vietnam will organize the sixth Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS-6) Summit and the 10th Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV-10) Development Triangle Summit in Hanoi from March 29-31.

 Vietnam is likely to surpass the United States to become the Republic of Korea’s second biggest importer by 2020, thanks to a bilateral free trade agreement, according to a report released by the Korea International Trade Association on March 20.

 The Vietnam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control said the country has successfully bidden anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs with prices 15-17 percent lower than those of similar drugs in use, bringing more hopes to local HIV/AIDS patients.

 President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Moon Jae-in will pay a state visit to Vietnam from March 22-24, which is expected to be a chance for the two countries to further enhance their relations.

In a high-ceiling room on the second floor of the Viet Nam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi, a young curator has been briefing a group of over 20 tour operators on an oil painting titled “A Ploughing Day”, painted in 1960 

Each city and province in Vietnam is known for its local produce and specialities – Hanoi is famous for its pho, bun bo from the central city of Hue and original nem nuong Cai Rang from the southern province of Can Tho.

VietNamNet Bridge - Born in 1994, many of these entrepreneurs are young but have already become rivals of prominent businesspeople. 

Spotify has officially joined the Vietnamese market. The world’s largest digital music service, Spotify has been warned about challenges it could face in Vietnam where people are used to free music services.

Scientists and natural resource management agencies will no longer have to pay for optical images for forest inventory and surveys after the Vietnam DataCube, a satellite database, is put into operation. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Many in the Vietnamese entrepreneurial community believe the arrival of Amazon, the e-commerce giant, will be a ‘threat’, not an ‘opportunity’.

On January 1, 2018, the 2017 amended Criminal Code with stricter provisions and heavier sanctions on wildlife crime took effect. 

VietNamNet Bridge - The special machine, which helps young patients with myasthenia exercise muscles of their limbs, also contains games that can be played. 

Over the last thirteen months, the volume of foreign investment injected into Vietnam-based financial institutions (FIs) not only bolstered M&A in the finance-banking sector, but also sped up the restructuring process at FIs.

 Due to robust economic growth, the country’s unemployment rate, especially among higher-education people, last quarter decreased significantly compared to the previous quarter and the same period in 2016.

 Apart from co-working spaces which have already taken root in Vietnam, the market is now expected to receive the co-living trend—a new trend of sharing living space.

Today, the position of each nation does not only depend on the richness of its historical and cultural traditions. The leading factor now is its economic potential, including two sides, wealthy people and a strong country.