As Vietnam’s cities and provinces are stepping up plans to realize the smart city dream, foreign tech giants are rushing with new ambitious business plans to seize the opportunities.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on May 27 that Vietnam hopes that Swedish investors and businesses will cooperate with and invest in the Southeast Asian nation.

VOV.VN - The Ministry of Transport is to take responsibility for assisting build-transfer-operate (BOT) road investors facing revenue shortages in order to help them secure investment efficiently as well as avoid non-performing loans and subsequently lessen the adverse impacts on the credit system.

The Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh issued investment licences to six domestically-funded and one foreign-invested project worth some 188 million USD in May.

The Van Don International Airport in the northern Quang Ninh province – Vietnam’s first private airport – welcomed its first international flight on May 27 morning.

The Hanoi Department of Taxation has just announced that hundreds of real estate companies owe a total of VND1.126 trillion ($48.9 million) in tax, administrative fees, and other land-related sums.

Samsung SDS, an IT services arm of the RoK-based Samsung group, said on May 27 that it has signed a strategic cooperation pact with CMC Corporation, one of the leading ICT groups in Vietnam.

A scientific workshop on Vietnam-India development cooperation in energy security was held in Hanoi on May 27.

Improving quality is an urgent and long-term solution to help Vietnamese farm produce make inroads into global markets, according to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong.

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has approved a plan to organise a week of Vietnamese goods in Thailand in October.

Novatek signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ninh Thuan People’s Committee last week in order to develop an integrated energy-generating project using LNG in Vietnam. The signing ceremony occurred within the framework of an official visit by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Russia.

VOV.VN - Ride-hailing startup Grab has branched out into financial services by founding another subsidiary - Grab Financial Group Vietnam.

With e-commerce and automation changing the landscape of the logistics sector dramatically, there will be a focus on re-skilling the existing workforce in technology, which will improve the competitiveness of the logistics industry.

GS Home Shopping, a leading shopping channel operator in the Republic of Korea, announced on May 26 that it has invested 1.2 million USD in Luxstay, a Vietnamese home-sharing platform.

Vietnamese startups need to pay attention to their branding strategy if the aim is to "go global".

Enterprises in Vietnam’s private economic sector have not received land and taxation incentives while they are restrained by institutional regulations, policies and thousands of procedures and formalities.

With increasingly high demand for electricity and the latest 8.36 percent electricity price spike, Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) and other power generation companies have seen profits soar.

Export turnover of wood and wooden products reached nearly US$3.12 billion in the first four months of the year, a year-on-year increase of 18.3 per cent, according to the General Department of Customs.

Management authorities are stepping up preventive measures to stop trade fraud and tax evasion related to Chinese commodities that illegally carry made-in-Vietnam labels due to escalating U.S.-China trade tensions.

VOV.VN - Vietnam remains an attractive destination for private equity investment flow in Southeast Asia, according to the latest issue of Vietnam Private Equity Investment Outlook 2019 released by Grant Thornton.

Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung has had a working session with the Innovation Norway and seven other leading groups and organisations of Norway, seeking cooperation chances with them in urban development and management.

Vietnam and Sweden should cooperate in the environmental protection and sustainable development in the context of the current Fourth Industrial Revolution, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh has said.

International press late last week mentioned the possibility of the US adding Vietnam to the list of the countries it needs to monitor for currency manipulation.

The event targets startups with products or ideas to tackle finance and business challenges facing the Vietnamese and ASEAN economies.

Vietnam’s self-sufficiency for crude oil could come to an end due to exploitation that could turn the country into a net importer of crude oil for the first time, experts warned.

Ho Chi Minh City requires huge investment in infrastructure, and authorities have solicited investment of some 42 billion USD in the five-year period until 2020.

VOV.VN - The involvement of businesses from an Australian-funded pilot project could develop Vietnam’s logistics industry in training human resources and improve their overall occupational skillset.

Leading real estate and retail conglomerate Vingroup plans to earn 140 trillion VND (6 billion USD) in net revenue and 6.5 trillion VND (278.5 million USD) in post-tax profit in 2019.

The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) on May 24 established Viettel High Technology Industries Corporation (VHT), its seventh subsidiary.

Policies to develop the industrial sector will be the key to keeping Vietnam’s out of the middle income trap, experts said at a workshop in Hanoi on May 23.