Hanoi, (VNA) - The following is a brief review of the day’s events as reported bythe Vietnam News Agency.

–National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue had a meeting with GeneralSecretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and ChinesePresident Xi Jinping in Beijing on April 8 as part of his ongoing officialvisit to China.

Xi was the first Chinese leader to host theVietnamese NA leader in the visit, showing the importance that China attaches tobilateral relations as well as to the Vietnamese delegation’s visit. 

– PrimeMinister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception in Hanoi on April 8 for SergeyIvanovich Kudryashov, General Director of Russia’s Zarubezhneft JSC, who is ona working visit to Vietnam to seek cooperation opportunities in oil and gas andenergy.

Kudryashov told the host that the over-40-yearcooperation between Zarubezhneft and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group(Petrovietnam) through the Vietsovpetro and Rusvietpetro joint ventures hasachieved successes in geological exploration, and oil and gas exploitation,thus creating jobs and contributing to each country's budget.

– PrimeMinister Pham Minh Chinh has signed to issue an official dispatch requestingministries, sectors and localities to exert efforts to ensure informationsecurity, given recent increases in cyberattacks, especially the presence ofransomware.

In the document, the Government leader stressedthat as many information systems providing online services to serve people andbusinesses with a large scale and big impact on the society, they need toreceive due attention to be able to ensure information security at the highestlevel.

–Vietnam attaches importance to and wants to further strengthen Vietnam-USrelations, implement high-level agreements between the two sides, and promotefriendship and cooperation with leftist organisations and movements in theUS, a Vietnamese Party official has said.

Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam(CPV) Central Committee's Commission for External Relations Ngo Le Van made thestatement at meetings and working sessions with representatives of left-wingorganisations and movements of the US, including the Communist Party USA, aspart of the commission delegation's working visit to the US on April 4 and 5.

– The European Chamber of Commerce Vietnam (EuroCham) onApril 8 released the Business Confidence Index (BCI) for the first quarter of2024, saying that the index reached 52.8 points - the highest level since 2022.

The index shows that Vietnam's economic growthboosts the optimism of European businesses. It is also evidence of increasedstrong confidence in the Vietnamese economy among Europeanbusinesses operating in the Southeast Asian country.

- Vietnam has so far drawn nearly 500 billion USD inregistered FDI capital after nearly four decades of opening up its economy,with investment quality improvement considered a key task for a newbreakthrough phase ahead, the Ha Noi Moi newspaper assessed in its recentarticle.

According to the General Statistics Office, thetotal FDI in the first quarter of 2024 neared 6.17 billion USD, up 13.4%year-on-year. The first three months also saw 4.63 billion USD worth of FDIdisbursed, an annual rise of 7.1% and the highest for the quarter over the pastfive years.

– The Ministry of National Defence held a ceremony in Hanoion April 8 to hand over the President's and the Defence Minister’s decisions tosend three officers to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions in theCentral African Republic, South Sudan and Abyei.

The officers were deployed to replace theirpredecessors at the missions. Among them, one will serve as a military observerat the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission inthe Central African Republic (MINUSCA), another as a military observer at theUnited Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the only female as alogistics staff officer at the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei(UNISFA).Read full text/.