Dec. 5 - The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has submitted a proposal that calls for the land tax re-evaluations of the city's districts starting January 1st.

The city has decided to increase land use taxes due to improved infrastructure. Thanh Nien News reports that property valuations in some districts of the city will more than double next year under a new land valuation system.

If the proposed value system is approved, charges will span from VND110,000 per square meter to VND81 million per square meter.

Nov. 25 - Vietnam's tax department will release the personal tax numbers of three million people by early next year when the Law on Personal Income Tax is implemented beginning January 1.

In the first three months of 2009, 15 million people are expected to register for tax numbers, not including organizations and other people who already have the numbers.

The public is instructed to bring a photocopy of your identity card or passport to register.Tax official, Tran Ngoc Van, told The Vietnam News Agency that the new law will regulate all tax levels for those eligible to pay tax, as well as dependants, such as children, parents, and wives and husbands, who are also required to get their own personal tax numbers.

Nov. 24 - Vietnam and Venezuela have agreed to work together through a US$200 million joint fund in addition to 15 cooperation projects.

The Vietnam president, Nguyen Minh Triet was in Venezuala for two-day visit.“We won’t lack resources. While right now there’s a worldwide crisis of funds, a credit crisis, we’re creating funds and banks and finance mechanisms,” Chavez told AFP.

The first project using the joint fund will be for an energy-saving light bulb factory to produce 74 million bulbs annually. The factory is currently under construction in western Venezuela.

Nov. 17 - Vietnam's National Assembly has approved three laws for new tax rates on consumption, health insurance and civil judgements.

The decision also came with the ruling that will extend the tenure of People’s Councils and People’s Committees.

The Special Consumption Tax Law is applicable starting April 1, 2009 excluding the new taxes on alcohol, including beer that will apply beginning January 1, 2010.

The new law calls for a tax decrease for alcohol, including that for draught, canned and bottled beer, from 50 percent to 45 percent within 2010 and 2012. Come 2013, tax for alcohol will return to 50 percent. The law also allows tobacco products to be taxed at 65 percent.

Oct. 23 - According to a human resources expert, businesses in Vietnam are having a hard time recruiting and retaining skilled workers because of a shortage of qualified labor in the market.

Frederic Laurencon, a human resources expert from a French financial consultancy company AG2R, spoke during a seminar on human resources policies in Hanoi.

He said that 94 percent of businesses in the country are making recruitment of skilled workers their top priority although the turnover rate remains high.

Oct. 21 - Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung called for the opening of direct airline and shipping routes to China's Yangpu port to decrease trade costs, during a visit to China's island province of Hainan.

Mr. Nguyen Tan Dung was in China as a guest of Premier Wen Jiabao.

The Yangpu economic development zone is located around 40 kilometers north of its capital, Haikou. The zone has special economic policies and flexible governmental measures used to attract foreign investors.

Oct. 15 – Vietnam's Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs said that beginning Jan. 1, 2009, monthly minimum salaries for employees in domestic enterprises will rise between VND110,000 to VND180,000 while those for foreign-invested businesses will increase by VND120,000 to VND200,000.

The changes are part of the agency's 2008-2012 salary, social insurance and allowance reform plan, that aims to standardize the minimum salary for all businesses by 2012.

The salary rates were based on GDP growth and consumer price index (CPI) in the first nine months of this year, wage increases in the labor market, enterprises’ pa

Oct. 10 - An official from the Investment Promotion Center for Central Vietnam said that the government’s licensing process needs stricter regulations to prevent inefficient and environment polluting projects.

The director of the Investment Promotion Center for Central Vietnam, Le Huu Quang Huy, told Thanh Nien News that he expects the country to attract US$62 billion worth of FDI this year.

The latest slew of foreign investments to enter the country include the US$6 billion oil refinery project in the southern province of Ba Ria–Vung Tau and a US$9.8 billion steel project in central Ninh Thuan Province.

By Chua Siew Joo

Oct. 8 - All industrial zones in Dong Nai province will be required to install a central wastewater treatment plant by the end of 2008 or face suspension, according to Phan Van Het, deputy director of Resources and Environment Department.

Last September, a Taiwanese firm, Vedan Vietnam, was caught by environment inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for dumping untreated waste water into the Thi Vai River for more than a decade.

Oct. 8 – The State Bank of Vietnam released a new draft regulation that would impose stricter measures for establishing commercial joint-stock banks.

This serves the purpose of regulating the stability of the local banking system.

New banks are now required to have a charter capital of VND3 trillion while existing joint-stock banks must have at least VND1 trillion in charter capital by the year's end.

“ The message is clear. That is, to limit weak banks from joining the local market amid increasing concerns about the spreading global-economic turmoil,” Vo Tri Thanh, director of the Department for Trade Policy and International Economic Integration Studies under the Central Institute for Economic management (CIEM), told Vietnam News.