State President Nguyen Minh Triet paid a pre lunar New Year visit to the southern province of Binh Duong on February 8.

After three years of WTO (World Trade Organization) accession, Vietnam attracted record FDI (foreign directed investment) capital of more than USD114 billion.

The Prime Minister has decided to provide 4,000 tonnes of rice from the national reserve to Ha Tinh and Binh Dinh provinces which were heavily affected by natural disasters in 2009.

The Spring Festival Thang Long-Hanoi 2010 under the theme “The magnanimity of Thang Long – the spirit of the nation” will be a combination of traditional fold festivals, cultural, sports and tourist activities.

Ho Chi Minh City has opened a VND89.6 billion (US$4.8 million) blood bank said to be the first in Vietnam to meet international standards.

Education is a priority sector in the cooperation programme this year between Vietnam and Laos, says Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Thousands of Vietnamese nationals and international friends attended a special programme at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on February 6 to welcome the traditional Lunar New Year Festival (Tet).

The World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) and the Rainbow International Co. Ltd. on Feb. 6 signed an agreement on the organisation of the eighth stage of this year’s tour in Nha Trang bay of the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sport, and Tourism reported that the number of tourists touring during the Lunar New Year 2010 (Tet holiday) increased sharply. Nearly 100,000 tourists in the city will tour Vietnam and go abroad from the first day to the fourth day of Tet holiday.

The pro-Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has narrowly won the country's presidential election, according to the National Exit Poll.

With goods flying off the shelves more often than not in the pre-Tet period many people take this opportunity to smuggle and trade counterfeit and fake products, which are potentially harmful to consumers’ health.

A delegation from the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has attended the eighth congress of the Communist Party of Peru-Red Fatherland (PCdelP), which reiterated that socialism is the ideal of the party and Marxism-Leninism its ideological foundation.