Cambodia and Vietnam are set to hold a joint commission meeting later this week in Cambodia’s southwestern province of Sihanouk. In a statement released on Monday, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry said the 11th Meeting of the Cambodia-Vietnam Joint Commission for Economic, Cultural, Scientific and Technological Cooperation will be held in Preah Sihanouk Province from Dec. 3-4, 2009. It said that Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Gia Khiem will lead a delegation to attend the meeting. During his stay in Cambodia, Pham Gia Khiem will pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Hun Sen, and sign with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong on the agreed minutes of the meeting.

Vietnam Monday revised its trade deficit for November to USD 1.97 billion from USD1.75 billion announced on Thursday. This means the country’s trade deficit in November widened 23.2% from a month earlier, according to the General Statistics Office. The country’s exports in November were revised down to USD4.7 billion from USD4.8 billion, while imports were revised up to USD6.67 billion from USD6.55 billion, the GSO said, without elaborating. Vietnam’s exports in October were USD5.03 billion and its imports were USD6.63 billion.

Due to the increasing scrap price, Vietnam Steel Corporation intends to adjust up the debar and wire rod price by VND 300,000 per ton (USD 17/t), taking into force from next week. Debar price will rise to VND11.8mln per ton, and wire rod price will climb to VND 12mln per ton. It is said that Vietnam’s square billet import price has hiked, with the increase in costs, Vietnam Steel Corporation has to bring up the price. Some steel mills in northern Vietnam also raise the price. Currently, Vietnam’s square billet import trade price is up by USD10-20 per ton to USD500 per ton (CFR) from two week earlier.

Foreign investors were net buyers of VND117.8 billion (USD 6.37 million) of Vietnamese stocks out of a total VND1.63 trillion traded Monday, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange said. Volume traded totaled 38.5 million shares, with foreigners accounting for 11.7% of that amount, the stock market operator said. In the month to date, foreign investors have been net buyers of VND990.4 billion of Vietnamese stocks.

Vietnam Telecom International (VTI), a subsidiary of the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT), has launched the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system in the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, local news source VOVNews reports. VNPT, along with fellow Vietnamese telcos Viettel, FPT and Saigon Postel, is part of an international consortium installing the 20,000km fibre-optic submarine network directly linking Asia and the US, to meet the region’s growing internet demand. In April 2007 VNPT signed an agreement to take part in the construction of the 1.92Tbps high speed network. AAG’s Vietnam link has an initial capacity of 240Gbps, following investment of around USD40 million from VNPT.

Several businesses from Staffordshire in the UK are on a visit to Vietnam from November 30- December 12 to seek business opportunities in the country. The delegation led by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)’s international trade advisor, Bill Almen will visit Hanoi and HCM City to meet with Vietnamese trade promotion organizations such as the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the online trade and investment information portal (ITPC) and a number of Vietnamese ceramic and porcelain businesses. The UK businesses include Dragon Kilns, E.J Payne Ltd, Hygan Products Limited, Snag R Ltd and TailorMade Software Ltd, which are also involved in the ceramic and porcelain industry.

PetroVietnam and Vinacomin, the country’s 2 biggest exporters, has been asked to sell their foreign exchange earnings to the central bank to help bridge a foreign currency shortfall. The daily Tuoi Tre quoted a directive by Mr Nguyen Tan Dung PM of Vietnam as ordering the 2 groups to immediately sell whenever they have foreign exchange income to the State Bank of Vietnam so that the bank can have foreign currency to intervene in the market. The report said that the government has also asked a number of other unidentified state-run companies to sell foreign currency to the central bank. It is unclear how much foreign currency Vinacomin and PetroVietnam own but statistics showed combined crude oil exports and coal exports in the first 11 months of USD 6.94 billion.