Vietnam top news 2003
  1. Police raided headquarters of Dong Nam Associates and Dong Nam company Ltd, confiscated thousands of mobile phones, watches and computers. 2 January. The charge was smuggling and false book keeping to avoid taxes. There's no mobile phone distributor in Vietnam without tax cheating.
  2. Snow fell in three districts of Ha Giang province, 3 Jan.
  3. Government Decree on 15 Jan increased the basic salary for civil servants from 210,000 VND to 290,000 VND/month. It is estimate that 6 million servants are listed on the state's payroll.
  4. Strong measures to restore the traffic rules (new Decision 13 replacing 36CP) bring instant results. Vehicles violating traffic rules will be confiscated for 15 days. A number of traffic jams disappeared in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The success may incourage the Government to ban registration of new motorbikes. However, the cars and trucks started to become the culprits for traffic jams.
  5. Fidel Castro visited Vietnam 21 February.
  6. HCM court started the trial of Nam Cam mafia gang in Feb. The trial ended 5 Jun with 6 dead sentences.
  7. New Flu-like deseasse Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrom (SARS) spread among staff of French Hospital. The first patient came from Hong Kong, was tranferred back to Hong Kong and died. The second victim was the staff of the hospital. By 19 March international labs identified the virus.
  8. Vietnamese students organized antiwar demonstration before US Embassy right on the afternoon of 20 March. During previous US wars there were no self-organized demonstrations. Police tried to restrict but students kept on coming everyday.
  9. Secretary General Nong Duc Manh visited China 7 April, India 29 April.
  10. WHO declared that Vietnam kept SARS under control, 28 April.
  11. National assembly started the summer session 3 May.
  12. Explosion and fire destroyed a bus (Soviet Hai Au) in Bac Ninh province on 2 May injuring 70 passengers and stand-by people of whom 19 died of burns.
  13. National Assembly voted against applying luxury tax to motorbikes proposed by Minister of Finance, 26 May.
  14. Border patrol stopped a car from Laos on the road 9 to find 128 packs of heroin (60kg), May.
  15. Police searched a warehouse in Quy Nhon and found 12000 sets of CKD chinese motorbikes smuggled into the country under the tag of IKD. It has been a good business of producing motor parts in China, stamping "Made in Vietnam" and smuggling into Vietnam to enjoy lower import duty per unit.
  16. Indonesian President Megawati visited Vietnam 25-27 June. Agreement on continental shelf demarcation, visa exemption for normal passports were signed, effective 4 Dec 2003.
  17. From 1 July electronic goods with >=40% of ASEAN content enjoy AFTA import duty of <=20% instead of 40%.
  18. S-Fone, a CDMA cell phone networked inagurated after two year delay. S-Fone, shared between Saigon Postel and Korean SLD is the first joint venture in mobile phone network. 1 July.
  19. 1 July VDC started ADSL service. The monthly fee is 200,000 dongs + MB charge/month, the ceiling for the connection is set at 1 million dongs/month unlimited use.
  20. 1 July VNPT officially kicked off the Internet Phone business. However, no service providers could issue their Net phone cards due to lack of permission.
  21. In August Hanoi Municipality banned registration of new motorbikes in four central districts, effective 1 September 2003, which created a wave of "last minute" registrations.
  22. Miss Vietnam Mai Phuong disappeared from home in Haiphong only to reappear later saying she spent a vacation week in Tuan Chau without having informed her parents. Her parents got panic and informed police about her "missing". Sep.
  23. Head of HCM police criminal unit fired his gun at a Karaoke bar and at the toll gate when he was asked to pay. This followed a series of revealations about corrupted police forces taking bribes from mafia (Nam Cam) and truck drivers (Dau giay barrier). Sep.
  24. Archaeological excavation at the areas for the construction of new National Assembly building found the old Thang Long architecture from Ly, Tran, Le dynasties and millions of artifacts.
  25. 10 Oct. National Assembly started autumn meeting, focusing on revised Land Law, Salary reform, national budget. The budget for 2004 is estimated at 153 trillion dongs vs. forcasted expenditure of 188 trillion. The deficit is planned at <=5% GDP.
  26. 25 Oct. engineering corps installed a floating bridge at Khuyen Luong, south of Hanoi, to ease the flow of the trucks on the shaking Chuong Duong bridge. Poor planners forced all the traffic to go through Chuong Duong bridge, causing kilometer long traffic jams every day. Long Bien bridge has been left without maintainance so that it's no longer suitable for motorbike traffic.
  27. National Assembly approved the creation of three new provinces. Dak Lak is divided to Dak Lak and Dak Nong. Lai Chau is divided to Lai Chau and Dien Bien. Can Tho is divided to Can Tho City and Hau Giang province. Hanoi created two new urban districts: Gia Lam and Hoang Mai.
  28. Singapore unilaterally exempts entry visas for Vietnamese tourists from 10 Nov 2003.
  29. Defence Minister, Gen. Pham Van Tra visited US on an official visit, met Donald Rumsfeld.
  30. US Navy frigate USS Vandegrift FFG 48 docked Saigon port 19 Nov 2003, the first US Navy ship in almost 30 years.
  31. 2 Dec. Supreme court gave La Thi Kim Oanh a death sentence and 3 years in prison each to former two vice minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
  32. Vietnam hosts the South East Asia Sport Games SEAGAMES 22, from 5-12 December 2003. Vietnam won 158 gold medals. The women football team got a gold 2:1 against Mianmar while the men's team lost the final to Thailand 2:1.
  33. Dec 17 State bank release coins of 500, 1000 and 5000 VND and paper (plastic) banknotes of 50,000 and 500,000 to circulation. The coins were widrawen from circulation 20 years ago due to hyper inflation.
  34. Dec 24 Standing committee of National Assembly did not approve the draft revised ordinance on the income tax for high income people which would have raised the non-tax barier income from 3 million/month to 4 million dongs/month. The most dispute surrounded the income tax of 28% of the income from property sale from current zero or indirect taxes (land use transfer tax). More than 50% of property sale is informal, i.e. no taxes at all.
  35. Vietnam economy performed well in 2003, with GDP growth of 7.2%. Export reached 18.9 billion USD. Next year GDP target is set at 8%.

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