The Vietnam Seaports Association (VPA) has written to the HCMC government offering to subsidize the tolls that truck drivers must pay on Nguyen Tat Thanh and Huynh Tan Phat streets.

Vietnam's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected grow at 7.2 per cent for 2004, ranking fourth among the countries in East Asia and the Pacific in terms of GDP growth, announced the World Bank Nov. 9.

French telecom giant Alcatel is planning to set up a software development branch in Vietnam in the near future, a company official said at an international telecom trade exhibition in Hanoi Nov. 9.

Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky of Belarus and his wife arrived in Hanoi Nov. 8 marking the beginning of their official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of the Vietnamese prime minister.

Ho Chi Minh City-based urban developer Phu My Hung Corp. has decided to name its headquarters building after its late executive board chairman in commemoration of the former company leaders contributions.

Lawyers for U.S. companies that manufactured the dioxin defoliant Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War filed a 45-page petition with the U.S. Court on Nov. 3, reported the Vietnam News Agency.

Vietnam will introduce tax stamps on mobile phones as of January 1 next year in a drive to tackle the flourishing cell phone smuggling trade, but doubt over the plan's efficiency has already arisen.

After a long, tense night of vote counting, Democrat challenger in the U.S. presidential election John Kerry called President George W. Bush Nov. 3 to concede Ohio and the presidency, reported the Associated Press.

Vietnam and China Nov 1 closed their 9th round of negotiations on land border, agreeing to work together closely to speed up the border demarcation and planting of markers along the two countries' borderline.

Vietnam's WTO entry talks with the U.S. "made progress," but there was still "a large gap" between the two sides, said a Vietnamese official after the country's delegation returned from the U.S. on Nov 1.