The securities market is likely to be the most attractive investment channel for investors in the Vietnamese economy this year, analysts say.

Vietnam posted a surprisingly high 21 per cent year-on-year growth in export value in 2017. Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Do Thang Hai talks to chinhphu.vn about how this happened, and what 2018 portends.

For the first time, domestic tax collection hit the VND1 quadrillion (US$43.9 billion) milestone this year, according to statistics of the General Department of Taxation.

 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a project to develop direct air routes between Vietnam and key countries and regions across the world, aiming to promote investment, cultural exchange and international integration. 

VietNamNet Bridge - The Vietnamese drug market, valued at $5.2 billion, is attracting more foreign investors and multinationals.

 The Ministry of Health has announced the top ten events of Vietnam’s medical sector in 2017 as follows:

 The VN-Index broke the 1,000-point threshold on January 3, closing up 0.99 percent  at 1,005.67 points, despite increasing profit-taking pressure towards the end of the session.

 Storm Bolaven has weakened into a tropical pressure system after moving into the waters west of Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago on early January 4, according to the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting. 

 Vietnamese tennis ace Ly Hoang Nam is still inside the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)’s top 500 tennis players in early 2018.

 About 20,000 artefacts were unearthed in Linh Son pagoda, which is located within the Oc Eo archaeological site in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, between August and December 2017.

The investigation police agency of Bac Ninh police department has decided to start criminal proceedings against the case of a recent explosion that killed at least two children and injured nine people on January 3.

 In recent years cooperation between Vietnam and the United Kingdom has flourished. 

 As many as 20,080 traffic accidents were reported in 2017, killing 8,279 people and injuring 17,040 others, according to the National Committee for Traffic Safety. 

 The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World) Co. Ltd. on January 3 officially finished the acquisition of Dien May Tran Anh (Tran Anh Digital), giving it the ownership of an over-90-percent stake at Tran Anh.

The Asia-Pacific Getaway (APG) submarine cable from Vietnam to Singapore, which was crashed on December 23, 2017, will be fixed from January 6-7, according to an Internet services supplier in Vietnam.

Police in Dien Bien has announced that its Drug Crime Investigation Office on January 3 arrested two persons transporting 489 bricks of heroin, weighing 171kg and worth $3 million.

 Viet Nam maintained a trade surplus of about US$2.7 billion this year, the same figure as 2016, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

 The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has outlined three scenarios for inflation in 2018, with the consumer price index (CPI) in all circumstances staying below 4 per cent, the target set by the National Assembly.

The HCM City Department of Agriculture and Rural Development plans to set up 10 safe farm produce markets that will open every weekend to bring together producers and buyers of clean agricultural products.

Viet Nam gained its highest ever seafood export value of US$8.32 billion in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 18 per cent, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.