Việt Nam needs more comprehensive policies to direct remittance to production and business, experts said at a conference late last week.

The Vietnamese business community is known as a group of hard-working and creative people, but linkages among the community’s members and connections between the business community and authorities are not developed enough to internationally integrate and compete.

The director of a bank in HCM City says lenders have no plans as of now to increase loan interest rates, though they find it difficult to cut capital costs since deposit interest rates are tending to increase.

The central province of Ninh Thuận plans to expand its grape cultivation area by 7,900 hectares, of which more than 2,550ha will be safe grape fields, according to the provincial People’s Committee.   

Vietnamese shares are set to rise this week as investor confidence remains high on companies’ quarterly performances and the country’s economic prospects, while a three-day rebound in crude prices is expected to lead energy firms up.

State-owned oil giant PetroVietnam has announced its divestment plan in the next five years, following which it will sell larger stakes in a number of its subsidiaries during the period of 2016-20.

HCM City’s Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) reached VNĐ732. 44 trillion (US$33.2 billion) in the first nine months of the year, up 7.76 per cent against the same period last year, according to the municipal People’s Committee.

For the eighth consecutive year, Viet Nam has been listed among the world’s top 30 attractive emerging retail markets, according to the ranking in the Global Retail Development Index of the US’s AT Kearney Company.

Việt Nam must continue to maintain stability, accelerate restructuring and improve the competitiveness of the economy in the face of ongoing global headwinds, members of a think-tank report.