Vietnamese semiconductor maker Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) has announced the opening of a new office in Ho Chi Minh City. The office would expand its existing facility and strengthen efforts in integrated circuit design and software development, the company said. The larger facility would enable the company hire more employees from Vietnam’s talented engineering pool, it added. The new centre also marked a milestone of the company changing its name from AMCC to AppliedMicro to reflect a new focus on greater energy efficiency and lower costs for its high performance connectivity and processing products, it said.

The 15^th Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Transport Ministers Meeting and the 28^th ASEAN Senior Transport Officials Meeting will be held in Vietnam from Dec. 7 to 11, according to the website of the Ministry of Transport of Vietnam on Thursday. The meetings will review the implementation of the ASEAN Charter and discuss the overall plan for the ASEAN Economic Community.  Delegates will also discuss ways to enhance transport cooperation among member countries of the bloc and to build the ASEAN Transport Strategy for the 2011-2015 period. Apart from meetings among transport ministers and senior transport officials of ten member countries of ASEAN, there will be ministerial-level conferences between ASEAN member countries and other dialogue countries.

The Vietnam Report Company on Nov. 25 announced the list of 500 biggest Vietnamese businesses (VNR500) selected from more than 10,000 businesses across the country. Topping the list are the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, the Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation and the Vietnam Electricity Group. The company’s evaluation is based on revenue, profit, total assets, growth rate and size of workforce. This is the third year that Vietnam Report has announced the list to honor achievements made by such businesses. Vietnam Report cited FPT, the Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank and the Vietnam Steel Group as the top three among 500 biggest private businesses. Vietnam Report’s survey shows that the State economic sector continues to hold sway in terms of revenue (46.4%) over the leading businesses each estimated at more than USD1 billion in the key fields of finance and banking, gold, silver and jewelry, real estate, steel, seafood and telecommunications.

A total of 250 domestic and overseas pharmaceuticals and medical equipment companies will showcase their products at the 2009 Vietnam Medi- Pharm Expo in Hanoi from Dec. 2-5. With more than 300 stands, the exhibition, the 16th of its kind, will display a wide range of oriental and patent medicines, vaccines, supplementary foodstuffs and medical equipment manufactured by companies from France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the US, India, the Republic of Korea, China, Taiwan and Malaysia. The expo will enable local and foreign businesses to find out more about advanced Vietnamese and international pharmaceutical services and products and to seek out business opportunities and new partners.

Construction of a cement plant started in Hoi Son commune, Anh Son district, in the central province of Nghe An, on Nov. 25. The project will be carried out with an investment of 800 billion VND (44.4 million USD) by the PetroVietnam Construction Corporation and the September 12 Oil and Gas Cement Joint Stock Company. The project aims to replace vertical shaft kiln technology with rotary kiln technology to reduce particulates in the region’s air and boost the capacity of the old cement plant to 550,000 tons a year from the current 90,000 tons. Once operational in the first quarter of 2011, the plant is expected to meet the demand for cement in the region, as well as to build the Luang Prabang hydro-power plant in Laos.