Vietnam and Laos have scaled up bilateral relations to the highest level of friendship and cooperation, known as “Great friendship, special solidarity, comprehensive cooperation and strategic cohesion”. It is a new framework between the two former Indochinese countries. The emphasis is on strategic cohesion.

Vietnam’s Party General Secretary To Lam’s state visit early this month to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was not headline news. On the surface, it was a symbolic visit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the LPDR and its strengthened party-to-party relations.

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The University of Stirling in Scotland is leading a £3.5 million ($4.5m) project to support sustainable aquaculture in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

The AquaSoS initiative aims to tackle key challenges like pollution, climate change, and disease through a new digital tool that uses satellite data, water sensors, and lab analysis to provide critical ecosystem insights.

The project is expected to help policymakers, scientists, and industry leaders balance food production with environmental protection. It is one of four projects launched under a £12m program by UK Research and Innovation to enhance sustainable aquaculture practices across Southeast Asia.

The funding is provided by the UK government’s International Science Partnership Fund.

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Thanks to the national government’s investment in infrastructure in the Mekong Delta, localities in the region have achieved outstanding results in economic development over the past few years, returning to the growth trajectory seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021-25, the economy of the Mekong Delta and the country as a whole were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and global conflicts.

2024 was considered a pivotal year for the provinces to complete their development targets for the period.

Outstanding budget revenue

In late 2023, the 23-kilometer My Thuan-Can Tho Expressway was opened to traffic, connecting to Ho Chi Minh City-Trung Luong and Trung Luong-My Thuan expressways.

The 120 kilometers of expressways have shortened the travel time from Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong Delta by two hours. 

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HO CHI MINH – Authorities in the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta are taking proactive measures to prevent saltwater intrusion up rivers during the upcoming dry season that will last until April.

The delta, Việt Nam’s largest producer of rice, fruits and seafood, typically experiences saltwater intrusion from the sea through river mouths during the dry season from December to April.

This year it is forecast to exceed normal levels, according to the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research.

In coastal areas, seawater with a salinity level of four grammes per litre has penetrated deep into major rivers, surpassing the tolerance level of most crops, which is less than one gramme.

In Kiên Giang Province, salinity levels of four grammes have been detected 18-20 kilometres upstream in the Cái Lớn River, a major waterway in Gò Quao District, according to the province’s Centre for Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting.

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The IMF projects Vietnam’s GDP growth at 6.1% for 2024, supported by external demand and government policies, despite risks in exports and the real estate sector.

In its recent September report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) significantly upgraded its 2024 GDP growth forecast for Vietnam to 6.1%, anticipating that the country’s GDP will achieve $468.5 billion by year-end. This optimistic projection stems from several positive indicators such as robust external demand, a resilient inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI), and supportive government policies targeted at economic recovery.

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Hanoi (VNA) – General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and President of Vietnam To Lam held talks with visiting General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith following an official welcome ceremony for the Lao leader in Hanoi on September 10.

The two leaders informed each other about the situation of each Party and country and exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern. They also agreed on orientations, policies and measures to develop the bilateral great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation to a new height.

The Lao leader, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Laos are paying a state visit to Vietnam from September 10-13 as guests of Party General Secretary and President To Lam and his spouse.

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HO CHI MINH CITY — Alibaba plans to build a data center in Vietnam to store data locally in compliance with legal requirements, while it currently relies on government-owned facilities.

The Chinese tech group told Nikkei Asia that for now it rents space for computer servers from telecommunications companies Viettel and VNPT, providing one example of how companies have responded since a contentious law took effect in 2022. Google, Amazon and others fought hard against Vietnam’s plan to force them to keep data in the country, but the policy ultimately went through towards the end of that year.

As a result, businesses have been looking for cross-border options.

Dang Minh Tam, solution architect lead at Alibaba Cloud, said the company uses colocation — a term for renting out space from data center operators — partnering with the two state companies to park client data locally. But it also backs up data at its own server farms located across the region, from Taiwan to Singapore.

Alibaba plans to build a data center in Vietnam to keep pace with demand in one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, Tam said. He said he did not yet know the cost and declined to give a timeline for the project, as the details have not been made public. The cost of building a data center can exceed $1 billion.

“Vietnam is a very [high] potential market,” Tam said in an interview. “There’s a lot of space to grow.”

One reason companies like Alibaba might want to build their own servers, in addition to cost considerations, is to ensure greater security and control over their information.

Liability can be an issue when multiple companies are involved in managing the same data, said Leif Schneider, counsel at law firm Luther.

Contracts must be clear “so you always know who bears what risk and responsibility,” he said at a cloud and data center conference in Ho Chi Minh City last week.

Local companies, meanwhile, share Alibaba’s bullish outlook on the market.

Viettel IDC, run by Vietnam’s military, told Nikkei that its customers from Alibaba to Microsoft are demanding environmental, social and governance (ESG) improvements.

It calls its approach “ESGT,” with the added use of technology. For example, tech can be used to track and optimize water use, which is used to keep computers cool and can rack up big costs. Viettel does not currently use much renewable energy but is aiming to make renewables count for 30% of its power consumption by 2030, said technical department manager Nguyen Dinh Tuan.

“We need to prepare for the data center boom,” he said in an interview. “We need to prepare for the sustainability trend.”

Viettel projects the Southeast Asian country’s data center market will expand 15% a year for the foreseeable future, and likely more if a big cloud company like Alibaba invests there.

The expansion is fueled in part by the data localization rules, which Hanoi admits violate its free trade agreements, but which ease the one-party state’s ability to access data. The rules have been a boon for cloud providers that already have server farms in Vietnam, including gaming unicorn VNG and IT company CMC, which said it will construct at least two data centers in the next few years, potentially doubling its capacity.

Vietnam should look to Malaysia and Thailand, whose markets really took off once international players entered the competition, said Evolution Data Centers CEO Darren Webb.

“The countries that try to protect their domestic markets, that doesn’t work,” he said at the industry conference. “The pie doesn’t get bigger.”

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The head of Vietnam’s parliament has resigned over unspecified “violations and shortcomings”, the ruling Communist Party has said, as a major anticorruption campaign in the Southeast Asian country continues.

The party’s Central Committee held an extraordinary session on Friday and approved the resignation of Vuong Dinh Hue as the chairman of the 15th National Assembly, according to state media outlet VnExpress.

“Comrade Vuong Dinh Hue’s violations and shortcomings have caused negative public opinion, affecting the reputation of the party, state and him personally,” the committee said in a statement.

There was no immediate announcement about his replacement.

Pham Thai Ha, the deputy head of the office of the National Assembly and assistant to Hue, was arrested four days back, VnExpress reported.

Hue, a 67-year-old top lawmaker who rose to the chairmanship of the parliament in March 2021, has been a longtime figure in Vietnamese politics, also serving as deputy prime minister from 2016 to 2020.

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Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen has said that his country would not negotiate with Vietnam over the planned Funan Techo canal, despite concerns about its environmental and geopolitical impacts.

A group of Vietnamese experts suggested last week that Hanoi should ask Phnom Penh to delay the project for further discussions.

Former prime minister Hun Sen, who is now the president of the Senate and still retains much power, told a business banquet that construction of the 180 km (112 mile) canal will go ahead as planned this year, emphasizing the project was of national interest.

The Funan Techo canal, officially known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project, will connect the Cambodian coastal province of Kep on the Gulf of Thailand with the inland provinces of Kandal and Takeo and the capital Phnom Penh via a tributary of the Mekong River.

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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — A Vietnamese delegation’s visit to China last week has underscored increasingly close economic ties between the territorial rivals, which analysts say is posing a challenge to the dominance of South Korean investment in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue led the high-level delegation from April 7 to 12 and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Hue proposed the two countries create a new push for trade development and “connect Vietnam to China’s large development strategies.”

He also met with the heads of many large Chinese companies that want to participate in Vietnam’s infrastructure construction.

China is Vietnam’s largest trade partner and on the way to becoming its biggest foreign direct investor.

A representative of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or KCCI, in Vietnam last week told Nikkei Asia that Chinese companies are pushing back South Korean firms as China steps up investment in Vietnam.

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