The area of But (Pen) Tower at Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake will be lit up green at 8pm on March 16 in response to Ireland’s “Global Greening” campaign, which aims to observe the Irish national holiday, St Patrick’s Day (March 17).

 Local credit institutions have been praised for combating bad debts last year, challenging other private and state lenders to follow suit.

 To resolve bad debts, Sacombank has just decided to discount two real estate plots it previously put on sale by nearly VND1.812 trillion ($78.78 million).  

 More than 50 of New Zealand’s education institutions will be travelling to Vietnam to showcase their country’s world-class learning environment at the New Zealand Education Fairs in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi on March 23 and 24, respectively.

 Mobile World’s bachhoaxanh.com food store chain is seeing good prospects thanks to the co-operation with Golden Gate, which owns more than 300,000 restaurants across the country. 

 The decision to use all reserve funds to buy back 600,000 treasury stocks may leave Yeah1 (code: YEG) skint of profit.

 Officials vowed to fight against loan sharks who are wrecking thousands of lives across Vietnam.

Hanoi authorities have proposed to pilot a ban on motorbikes on Nguyen Trai or Le Van Luong street. 

 Several festivals were recently held during the ongoing seventh Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.

 Google has recently announced a programme helping Vietnamese startups go global.

Ambassador Nguyen Thi Bich Hue, Vietnamese Permanent Representative to IFAD, has lauded the fund’s support to Vietnam over the years.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The diplomatic sectors of Vietnam and Azerbaijan discussed ways to increase their coordination at a conference in Hanoi yesterday.

Text book selection was on the agenda as the draft revision of the Law on Education was discussed by deputies at the ongoing 32nd session of the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee yesterday.

 Vietnamese violin talent, Nguyen Le, has won the first prize at the “12th International Competition Arthur Grumiaux, Belgium-Brussels 2019".

 Hanoi stood second in Southeast Asia in terms of air pollution just behind Jakarta, according to a 2018 World Air Quality Report jointly conducted by Greenpeace and IQAir AirVisual.

 The Government will soon issue a decision to allow a pilot implementation of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in the country before officially developing laws for the new form of business, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Rediscovering Vietnamese cuisine in a converted French villa proves to be a stimulating and tasty experience. Nguyen My Ha reports.

 Vietnam collected 1.336 million blood units in 2018, of which 98.3 percent were donated by volunteer donors who account for only 1.68 percent of the nation’s population.

 The Vietnam-Myanmar Joint Committee for Bilateral Cooperation held its ninth meeting in Hanoi on March 12, during which its members shared the view that the countries’ comprehensive cooperative partnership is becoming increasingly substantive.

 The Viet Nam Maritime Administration has requested that associations, seaport companies and shipping companies be exempted or allowed to pay reduced service fees for containers stored at seaports for a long time.