Hanoi - Vietnam's once-sizzling inflation rate slowed for the second straight month in October, but Vietnamese economists said Monday the government should not yet declare victory.

"I am not reassured by the low inflation figure from October, because it doesn't prove that the government's tight monetary policy has succeeded," said Tran Duc Nguyen, an economist and informal government adviser.

Vietnam's consumer price index fell 0.2 per cent in October after rising 0.2 per cent in September. The figures bolstered a trend that has seen inflation fall since hitting a month-on-month high of 3.9 percent in May.

Overall, prices have risen 26.7 per cent since last October.

Hanoi - A fire Monday at Ho Chi Minh City's airport caused authorities to close its domestic terminal, but no one was injured, firefighters said.

"The blaze at Tan Son Nhat Airport started on the ground floor of the terminal building," said Lt Col Nguyen Van Bang, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Fire Department. "It took us more than 2 hours to extinguish it."

Authorities closed the airport's domestic terminal for 24 hours, beginning at 5 am Monday. The closure will be extended if the damage cannot be repaired.

All passengers at the domestic terminals were moved to the international terminal to continue their flights.

Hanoi- Vietnam's trade deficit in the first ten months of the year hit a record 16.3 billion dollars, up 77 per cent from a year earlier, local media report on Friday.

While the country's exports did rise, with total revenues of 53.8 billion dollars, up 36.7 per cent year-on-year, it spent 70.1 billion dollars on imports, up 42.6 per cent over the same period last year.

These preliminary figures were issued by the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Hanoi - Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with Chinese leaders Wednesday in Beijing to discuss borders and seek to strengthen often-strained ties with China, government officials said.

Dung, his wife and a high-ranking government delegation arrived in Beijing Tuesday for his first official visit to China and the seventh Asia-Europe Meeting, which is to be held Friday and Saturday.

Hanoi - Vietnam is isolated from losses linked to toxic US subprime mortgage loans but the global economic crisis they have unleashed is hitting its export markets, government officials said Wednesday.

The Trade and Industry Ministry projected the country would earn 15.7 billion dollars from exports in the fourth quarter, or roughly 5 billion dollars for each remaining month of the year. That figure represents a drop from the recent monthly average of more than 6 billion dollars as demand for key exports drops.

Producers and exporters are reporting that prices of exports such as rubber, coffee, pepper, rice and seafood are falling.

Hanoi- While the global financial crisis has driven investors around the world to buy dollars in a flight to quality, depositors in Vietnam have been doing the opposite recently, shifting money from dollars into Vietnamese dong, bank officers said Monday.

For years, Vietnamese have preferred to save money in dollar-denominated accounts as a hedge against inflation and declines in the value of the dong. But that has begun to change.