PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - April 22

HANOI, April 22 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

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FINANCIAL NEWS:

TUOI TRE

-- Dong deposits in Hanoi-based commercial banks are now 4 percent lower than the same period last year while banks in Ho Chi Minh City also lost 9 trillion dong ($564 million) in deposit withdrawals in the past two weeks.

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THANH NIEN

-- The Vietnam Gold Trading Association said it planned to open two gold trading floors in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City by the end of this year to meet increasing demand of individual and institutional investors.

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THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- Vietnam Airlines said its revenues reached 5.9 trillion dong ($371 million) in the first quarter of this year, 25.8 percent of the annual target for 2008.

-- Hoa Binh Securities, with a registered capital of 160 billion dong ($10 million), has joined trading on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange .VNI.

-- Shares in Bao Minh Insurance Corporation BMI.HM, which has moved the listing to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, lost 20 percent to 38,400 dong each on their debut day on Monday.

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ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

VIETNAM NEWS

-- A head-on collision between a bus and a truck killed 15 people in the central highland province of Daklak on Sunday.

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NHAN DAN

-- The Health Ministry has begun a project to spend nearly $100 million to improve health care services to poor people in 14 provinces.

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TUOI TRE

-- Police detained a Vietnamese man last Friday at a border river while he was trafficking 11.25 kg (25 lb) of gold worth 5.4 billion dong to China, a police officer in the northern province of Quang Ninh said. The man was believed to be part of a gold trafficking ring between Vietnam and China.

-- Police arrested a Finnish man in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday as he was wanted by Interpol on suspicion of murdering his wife in March.

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THANH NIEN

-- Many workers have problems withdrawing their salaries via automatic teller machines (ATMs) due to the small number of the ATMs around the Vietnam-Singapore industrial zone in the southern province of Binh Duong.

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THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- The 'blue ear disease' has infected more than 215,000 pigs in 10 provinces in Vietnam and is now spreading in northern provinces, the Agriculture Ministry said.

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