Hanoi - A Chinese Navy warship will visit Vietnam next week, only the second such visit since Vietnam and China normalized relations in 1991, Vietnam's government spokesman confirmed Thursday.

The Chinese Navy training vessel Zheng He, which carries more than 400 military personnel, will dock at the port of Danang from November 18-22.

The "friendly visit" of the Chinese warship to Vietnam, government spokesman Le Dung told a press conference in Hanoi, will "help to promote friendship and cooperation between the two ministries of defence as well as the two peoples."

Hanoi - Authorities in the central province of Quang Ngai have destroyed more than one ton of illegally harvested blowfish, a local official said Tuesday.

"We decided to destroy them in order to avoid people selling them in the market," said Tran Trung, the chief of the secretariat of Pho Thanh commune, where the blowfish was destroyed.

Trung said that the fish, which had been frozen for transportation to markets and restaurants, was confiscated from fishermen at the port town of Sa Hung Fishing.

Local authorities had previously destroyed some 450 kilograms of the fish at the same port.

Hanoi - The US dollar is trading higher against the Vietnam dong on the country's black market since the State Bank of Vietnam expanded the currency's official trading band to 3 per cent, bank experts said Tuesday.

"The rising dollar stems from people's fear that foreign investors will withdraw capital from Vietnam," said Dao Trong Khanh, chief executive officer of Tien Phong Bank. "The decision by the State Bank to raise interest on dollar accounts also contributes to the psychology, as people think that banks are lacking dollars."

Hanoi - Vietnam is considering allowing some local heads of People's Committees to be directly elected by citizens, but it is not yet clear how far the reforms might go, Vietnamese political experts said Monday.

Vietnam's National Assembly is debating a pilot project to choose 500 localities, known in Vietnam as communes, where residents will directly elect chairmen of People's Committees, the main governing body.

The Assembly will vote on the proposal on November 15.

Hanoi- The head of the Hanoi chapter of the Communist Party has apologized for controversial comments he made while visiting people in flooded areas on Sunday, a senior Hanoi Party official confirmed Thursday.

On Sunday, Hanoi Party boss Pham Quang Nghi told a reporter from the news website VietnamNet that while out checking the situation on the ground, "I found that unlike in the old days, people rely a lot on the state. They just wait for the government to supply this, support that, they don't try their best to do it themselves."

Hanoi- Vietnamese businesses are having trouble getting loans from banks despite the State Bank's decision to cut the benchmark rate from 13 per cent to 12 per cent effective November 5, executives said Wednesday.

"We find it really hard to ask for loans from banks at this time," said Truong Thai Son, of Hoang Quan Real Estate in Ho Chi Minh City. "We have to cancel or delay about
30 to 50 per cent of our planned projects due to lack of cash."