Here are today’s leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong chaired a ceremony marking the Communist Party of Vietnam’s 90th founding anniversary in Hanoi on Monday.

Society

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered competent authorities to quarantine all people who come from all of China’s 31 provinces for 14 days upon their entry into Vietnam to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

-- Hundreds of people flocked to a drugstore on Nguyen Gian Thanh Street in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, which is considered one of the biggest retailers of medicine in the metropolis, on Monday to buy face masks at reasonable prices amid the rising concerns over the novel coronavirus.

-- Two men on a motorcycle were killed after having an accident while trying to pass a truck along Ca Pass in the south-central province of Phu Yen on Monday afternoon.

-- Border guard officers in the north-central province of Ha Tinh confirmed on Monday they had apprehended a Laotian man for smuggling four kilograms of synthetic drugs and 36,000 pills of amphetamine from Laos into Vietnam.

-- Aside from face masks and hand sanitizers, body thermometers have become increasingly sought after in Ho Chi Minh City as residents are taking all possible measures to avoid being infected with the novel coronavirus.

Business

-- Vietnam attracted US$5.33 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in January, up by 2.8 percent compared to the same period in 2019, according to statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

-- The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a conference in Hanoi on Monday to seek ways to promote the trade and production of farm produce, given the complicated development of the acute respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

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