PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - March 7

HANOI, March 7 | Tue Mar 6, 2012

HANOI, March 7 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

LAO DONG

-- Vietnam Century Fund said it will buy 11 million shares of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint Stock Co from March 9 to April 9.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

NHAN DAN

-- A Vietnamese woman was sentenced to five years in jail and another man received a three-year term in prison after a court in the central province of Nghe An found them guilty of distributing documents against the government and the ruling Communist Party in 2010.

LAO DONG

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will attend a nuclear security summit in Seoul on March 26-27, the South Korean ambassador to Hanoi said.

TUOI TRE

-- China has halted imports of poultry and husbandry meat from Vietnam because of fears of disease, the trade ministry said.

-- Three major oil product importers, including PV Oil, have sought Finance Ministry permission to raise fuel retail prices, Director Nguyen Tien Thoa of the ministry's Price Management Department said.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- Vietnam's January-February electricity output rose 12.8 percent from the same period last year to an estimated 16.3 billion kilowatt-hours, the Industry and Trade Ministry said.

-- Vietnam had licensed 8,700 new companies as of Feb. 23, down 1.6 percent from a year earlier, the Planning and Investment Ministry said. (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Chris Lewis)