Read what is in the news today, October 2!
Politics
-- Vietnam and Lao signed eight cooperation documents on economy, investment, education, finance, banking, energy and aviation in Hanoi on Tuesday as part of the Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith’s official visit to Vietnam, where he held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc and was received by Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong on the same day.
Society
-- Nguyen Minh Hung, former chairman and general director of Vietnam Pharma JSC (VN Pharma), and Vo Manh Cuong, former director of H&C International Maritime Trading Co., Ltd., were sentenced to 17 years and 20 years in prison, respectively, for “trading fake medicine” by a Ho Chi Minh City court on Tuesday in a high-profile case of fake cancer drugs in Vietnam. Eight other defendants got jail terms of 3-12 years also on the same charge.
-- Vmap, a Google Maps-like platform developed by the Vietnam Post Corporation using a manually collected database of over 23.4 million addresses nationwide, was launched in Hanoi on Tuesday as part of a government-supported “digital Vietnamese knowledge system” project.
-- Sixteen out of 86 French-era villas in Ho Chi Minh City which were reviewed by authorities have been classified as category-1 structures that must be conserved exactly as they are. Forty-nine category-2 villas will only require conservation of their exterior, while the remaining 17 villas are not up for conservation.
Business
-- The State Treasury of Vietnam raised more than VND9.65 trillion (US$415.87 million) via 15 auctions of government bonds at the Hanoi Stock Exchange in September, with up to 86.8 percent of the government bonds offered last month successfully sold.
-- Vietnam’s industry expanded by 9.56 percent in the first nine months of 2019, a four-year record, according to the General Statistics Office. The manufacturing and processing sector led the growth with an expansion of 11.37 percent.
-- The retail prices of petrol in Vietnam were adjusted up by VND666-923 ($0.029-0.04) per liter at 6:00 pm on Tuesday after four consecutive reductions since July 17 due to the average prices of petrol and oil in the world market seeing strong increases in the 15-day period before the price review.
-- After a nine-month investigation into the extent to which aluminum imports from China hurt domestic manufacturers, Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade announced on Tuesday it has decided to slap new anti-dumping tariffs of between 2.49 and 35.58 percent on aluminum products originating from China for a period of five years, starting September 27, 2019.
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