PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - February 12

HANOI, Feb 12 (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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VIETNAM NEWS

-- Hoang Minh Chinh, former director of the Academy of Philosophy at the Vietnam Institute for Social Sciences, died in Hanoi last Thursday after a long illness. He was 86 years old.

-- Hanoi-based banks hope to see 40 percent growth in profit and outstanding loans this year, industry officials said. Loans totalled 183 trillion dong ($11.4 billion) last year.

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HANOI MOI

-- The Agriculture Ministry expects the number of people in rural areas who have access to clean water will rise to 75 percent of the country's population this year, from around 70 percent now.

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QUAN DOI NHAN DAN

-- New real estate projects are expected to cool an over-heated property market in Vietnam this year, experts said.

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SAIGON GIAI PHONG

-- Farmers in the Mekong Delta have harvested up to 80,000 hectares of early winter-spring rice crop, with prices rising to 3,800-4,000 dong (23.6-24.8 U.S. cents) per kg now from 3,700 dong before the Tet holiday.

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LAO DONG

-- The number of people who suffered food poisoning during the Tet Lunar New Year holiday dropped this year due to better preserved food and cold weather which kept more people indoors, doctors said.

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THANH NIEN

-- More than 200 people were killed in traffic accidents nationwide during the Tet holiday, police said.

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THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the education and training ministry to relocate all universities from Hanoi's city centre to the suburbs to ease congestion.

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