Japanese investors are interested in building and operating deep water ports in Vietnam, said Japanese Deputy Minister of Land-Infrastructure-Transport and Tourism Fujita Takehino in Hanoi on March 10.

Representatives of twenty businesses from Kansai, Japan have paid a three-day visit to Ho Chi Minh City in an effort to seek business opportunities in the country’s largest city.

ABB – the leading power and automation technology group – inaugurated a power product manufacturing plant in the northern province of Bac Ninh’s Tien Son Industrial Zone on March 11.

The government will create the best possible conditions and iron out snags in the mechanism to help businesses, especially State economic groups and corporations, operate efficiently, says Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The Vietnam-Laos Rubber Joint Stock Company broke ground for a rubber latex processing plant in Champasak province on March 10.

Apart from efforts to encourage Vietnamese to use locally-made products, Vietnamese businesses should unite to effectively penetrate the domestic market, according to a workshop held by the VCCI on March 9.

The Trade Remedies Council (TRC) under the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has joined the US law firm Squire Sanders to organize a seminar on anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legal actions against Vietnamese exports, their impacts and countermeasures.

The cheap flight airline Jetstar Pacific announced all of its global branches are applying the same promotion programme for 129 domestic and international routes starting from March 10-15.

A regional seminar on export competition was held in Hanoi on March 10 by the World Bank (WB) and the Development Institute of the Republic of Korea to share knowledge of global awareness of changes in the post-crisis era.

The wholly-Japanese-invested Key Plastics Co. Ltd. in Vietnam opened a factory in Vietnam-Singapore industrial park in the southern province of Binh Duong on March 10 to make products for the medicinal, chemical and cosmetic sectors.

A conference of the Vietnam Business Council was held in Hanoi on March 9 by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in collaboration with the Hanoi Business Association, drawing more than 500 Vietnamese businesses.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has allowed the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) to open its representative office in Yangon, Myanmar.

Italy wants to further strengthen trade ties with Vietnam, said Tomaso Andreatta, President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce (Icham) in Vietnam and chief representative of Intesa SanPaola Bank at a meeting with businesses in Ho Chi Minh City on March 9.

A website that is able to aggregate and organise everything offered by the Vietnamese Internet has been launched by Dot VN, Inc., an innovative Internet and Telecommunications company and the exclusive online global domain name registrar for Vietnam.  

At a meeting with the tourism operators from Chendu and Ho Chi Minh City on March 8, the head of the Chinese Sichuan provincial General Department of Tourism said that a flight route between the two cities will open soon.

It is essential to boost production and exports while reducing the trade deficit and controlling the consumer price index (CPI) in March and the remaining months of this year, said Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and the central province of Quang Ngai will co-organize a second forum for marine trademarks from March 18-19.

A high-quality product fair was held at the An Giang University on March 9 to promote the consumption of Vietnamese products in the Cambodian market.

Ten businesses from Northern Ireland, led by Invest Northern Ireland, will meet with Vietnamese businesses to discuss cooperation opportunities, according to the British Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City.

The government has approved a plan to temporarily stockpile 200,000 tonnes of coffee to stabilize the export price, according to the Vietnam Association of Cacao and Coffee (Vicofa). 

Saigon Co.op will expand its retail network this year to neighbouring Laos or Cambodia, according to Ngoc Chau, a representative of the supermarket chain’s public relations department.

The visa-on-arrival service will be offered at Vietnam’s two major border gates of Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai in an effort to attract more than 4 million foreign visitors to the country this year.

Phu Quoc Island in the southern province of Kien Giang will be turned into a tourism and commercial hub for the country and the region.

The Vietnam Sugar and Paper Expo 2010 opened in Hanoi on March 8, offering chances for enterprises, especially those from India, to enhance cooperation in investment, production and provision of material the industries.

Tuna exports have shown positive signs of recovery since the early months of 2010, according to the Vietnam Seafood Producers and Exporters (VASEP).

The Vietnam Export-Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Vietnam Eximbank) has officially joined GlobePass, an alliance network of financial institutions in the Asia-Pacific region, to raise its prestige and service quality for both domestic and foreign customers.

The success of the 2009 ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) helped raise Vietnam’s tourism status in the region and offered opportunities for the country to promote its tourism potential abroad.

At least 15 percent of the visitors from the US and Australia, travelling to Vietnam by cruise ships, have returned to the country, says the Chairman of Viet Excursion Travel Company, Le Dinh Tuan.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has approved exports of about 100,000 tonnes of barite powder as the country’s production has already met domestic demand.  

The Vietnam Rubber Group will accelerate planting rubber trees in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and South Africa in the near future.