Việt Nam spent more than US$2 billion on importing cotton in the first eight months of 2018 – the biggest amount ever spent by the garment and textile sector.

Businesses will have to show certificates of conformity when they conduct customs procedures to import auto tyres into Việt Nam.

Many provinces and cities have licensed projects worth billions of US dollars through their investment forums this year. But experts say the key issue remains how to push these projects from the planning to the action stage.

Many listed companies have announced reviews of their financial statements for the first half of this year; as usual, the review reports reveal a discrepancy between the internal papers and reviews by auditing companies.

The domestic cement industry achieved impressive results in exports over the first eight months of this year to reach the target for the whole year.

The Ministry of Investment and Planning has issued a warning against borrowing from the Official Development Assistance (ODA) source fearing the country could fall into an “ODA and preferential loan’s trap”. Whether ODA will be the "trap" of the economy in the medium and long term depends on our ability to change ourselves, economist Võ Trí Thành says.

The Government is directing ministries and agencies to raise capital for State-owned commercial banks through the use of dividends or share sales this year.

The VN-Index’s recovery is likely to face difficulties in the first half of September due to the restructuring of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the third quarter, but will still likely surpass the 1,000-point milestone in the second half.

The growth, higher than 8.2 per cent in the same period last year, was mainly fuelled by the crude oil production sector which significantly expanded by 510 per cent and 520 per cent in June and July, respectively compared to last year’s corresponding period.