A slump in tourism has hit the Ho Chi Minh City's hotel market, which saw a drop in the average rate of reserved rooms in the first six months of the year compared to the previous five years.

Vietnam will send four representatives to compete at the 2015 World Swimming Championships in Kazan, Russia tomorrow, according to deputy chairman and general secretary of the Vietnam Aquatic Sports Association Dinh Viet Hung.

Vietnam's U16 football team defeated U16 Brunei 6-1 in their second Group A match at the Southeast Asian U16 Football Championship in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on July 29.

Vietnamese top female gymnast Phan Thi Ha Thanh has a chance at winning gold at the sixth Senior Art Gymnastics Asian Championships held in Japan on July 31.

Construction and machinery installation jobs are the most dangerous in the country. Together they accounted for 30% of work-related accidents nationwide, according to statistics from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA).

President Truong Tan Sang has called on the nation to make all-out efforts to become an industrialised country as soon as possible.

The agriculture and rural development sector would promote restructuring of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and withdrawal of capital from non-core business in the second half of this year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The scale of Vietnamese businesses have decreased with the average registered capital of a newly-established firm till July this year being VND6.2 billion (US$284,400), reducing 0.2 per cent over the same period last year.

The country's foreign exchange reserves excluding gold have been increasing continuously, reaching US$37 billion by the end of July, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Van Binh said.

The music industry in Ho Chi Minh City has developed recently with not only domestic but also international musicians contributing to the phenomenon.