What you need to know in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Thursday met with Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, President of the Thailand National Legislative Assembly Pornpetch Wichicholchai and attended a Vietnam-Thailand business forum as part of his visit to the Southeast Asian country following the invitation of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

-- Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan on Thursday held a reception for cosmonaut of the former Soviet Union Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko, who made a space flight with Vietnamese astronaut Pham Tuan 35 years ago.  

-- The draft Law on Belief and Religion should institutionalize both the Party’s viewpoints and the 2013 Constitution stating that the right to belief and religious freedom is one of the basic and important human rights, Dao Trong Thi, head of the National Assembly Committee on Culture, Education, Youth and Children, said at a consultation in Hanoi on Thursday.

-- Relevant Vietnamese and Cambodian agencies have closely coordinated to control the situation along their border areas and not to let border issues affect their friendship, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh said on Thursday in response to reporters’ queries about measures to prevent the recurrence of disturbances there at a press conference in Hanoi.

Society

-- About 91.6 percent of over one million contestants have passed the national high school exam held last month by the Ministry of Training and Education, according to official figures.

-- One was killed in the explosion of a waste storage tank at the manufacturing facility of Taiwanese-owned monosodium glutamate manufacturer Vedan in the southern province of Dong Nai on Thursday. The tank exploded when a 34-year-old worker was climbing the 20-meter tall tank to weld it, causing him to fall down and die later, according to the municipal Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

Business

-- With a steady economic growth rate in the first half of 2015, the new Property Business Law and the revised Housing Law, which took effect on July 1, are encouraging the recovery of the property market which has suffered a long period of downturn and stagnation, according to the Vietnam Real Estate Association. Despite an increase in prices, around 4,480 high-class flats were sold in the second quarter, up 80 percent against the same period last year and accounting for about 22 percent of the total transactions in the first six months, as compared with six percent in 2013 and 18 percent in 2014.

-- Only 19 percent of Vietnamese feel satisfied with current economic situations, according to a survey recently conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the World Bank. The survey, released on Thursday, revealed groups that were satisfied with the economic performance were local government and parliamentary bodies, said Dau Anh Tuan, head of the Legal Department of the chamber.