PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - Oct 9

HANOI Oct 9 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

TUOI TRE

-- Malaysia's Hong Leong Bank (HLAA.SI) officially launched its business as a wholy foreign-owned bank in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIET NAM

-- The German government will provide additional aid of $4.2 million to Vietnam through the end of this year, said the German Ambassador to Vietnam.

-- Vietnam is to simplify at least 30 percent of current administrative procedures in the second stage of sweeping administrative reforms, government officials said.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

SAIGON GIAI PHONG

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will attend a trade fair in China's Sichuan province on Oct. 15, the Foreign Ministry said.

HANOI MOI

-- Typhoon Parma is likely to affect the seas between Quang Binh province and Quang Ngai province in the country's central region, meteorologists said.

-- The construction of Vietnam's first nuclear power plant is expected to start in 2014 in the south-central province of Ninh Thuan, officials said.

LAO DONG

-- Vietcombank VCB.HM has the biggest outstanding amount of dollar loans among Vietnamese banks of around $2.5 billion.

-- Coffee association Vicofa expected local prices to ease thanks to fresh supply from the new harvest in the country's coffee belt Central Highlands region in November.

TUOI TRE

-- Border guards from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have found only one body of a Vietnamese worker after searching for nine days since floods swept away nine Vietnamese workers at a hydropower plant construction site in Laos, a Vietnamese official said.

THANH NIEN

-- Vietnam has counted nearly 10,000 people infected with the H1N1 flu virus, 20 of whom have died, the Health Ministry said.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- The government has agreed to lend all $500 million it borrowed from the Asian Development Bank to the state-owned bank BIDV. The bank will use about $250-300 million for loans to state-owned ship builder Vinashin to help this company complete its infrastructure projects. (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom)