The Ministry of Finance wants to increase environmental protection tax on petrol and oil to ensure sufficient budget collection, as the country has to cut import taxes to fulfil international commitments.

 Vietnamese runners triumphed at the first-ever Vietnam Jungle Marathon held in the Pu Luong Nature Reserve in the central province of Thanh Hoa over the weekend.

 Vietnamese player Nguyen Hoang Thien was ousted from the Singapore F2 Men’s Futures tennis tournament on May 29.

North-South expressway to cost $13.6 billion 

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visited the Vietnamese permanent representative delegation to the UN and met Vietnamese entrepreneurs and intellectuals on May 29 (local time), as part of his official visit to the US.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to visit Vietnam in November 2017 to attend APEC Leaders Meeting marks a new milestone in bilateral relations since the normalisation of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1995.

 The Vietnam National Petrolimex Group (Petrolimex) has sold 14.4 million shares at 750 billion VND (32.9 million USD) to foreign investors since the group listed its shares coded PLX on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) on April 21.

 Some 2.5 million doses of high quality combined measles-rubella vaccine will be used in the expanded national immunisation programme, replacing imported vaccines from India in the next six months of 2017. 

 National Assembly (NA) convened a plenary session in Hanoi on May 29 under the chair of National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

The Vietnamese Party, State and Government always attach importance to relations with Japan, and want to develop these ties practically and comprehensively, said National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc has expressed his wish that the Nasdaq Stock Market would further expand cooperation with and provide stronger assistance for Vietnamese enterprises to list their shares on the US stock market.

Mr. Adam Sitkoff, Managing Director of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Vietnam, talks with VietNamNet’s Dieu Thuy about trade and investment between Vietnam and the US on the occasion of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to the US.

The sand volume left on Tien River and Hau Rivers should be carefully preserved and must not be exploited indiscriminately or sold cheaply, according to Nguyen Huu Thien, an independent researcher on Mekong Delta ecology.

VietNamNet Bridge - The minimum required investment capital of VND1 trillion to open a private university is expected to discourage investors, as it would be difficult to recoup the capital.

VietNamNet Bridge - The Competition Law was passed 13 years ago, but the number of times the law has been cited to fight against monopoly and collusion has been very modest. 

VietNamNet Bridge - The sales of low-cost feature phones decreased by 10 percent in Vietnam in the last year, although they are expected to remain popular for several years. 

 Mr. Teo Seck Chuan, General Director of Seamaster Paint Vietnam, shared his views on the Vietnamese government's performance in its one year in office.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Animal Health Department has declared that all provinces and cities nationwide are free of avian flu, with no new outbreak detected. 

 Viet Nam had to spend more than US$1.5 billion to import animal feed and raw material in the first five months of this year, up 27.5 per cent compared with 2016, despite market difficulties for meat, especially pork.

The money market has been seeing unexpected happenings in the last two weeks. Until two weeks ago, the liquidity of the banking system had been in a state of tension because lending was higher than mobilized capital.