PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - Aug 3

Aug 3 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

FINANCIAL NEWS:
THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM
- The banking system's total loans as of July 25 dipped 0.1 percent from the beginning of the year, while this year's accumulative inflation could be 5 percent, the National Financial Supervisory Commission said.
- Vietnam's stock exchanges said they would withdraw the membership of Dong Duong Securities Inc and Hanoi Securities Corp from Aug. 3.

LAO DONG
- The state budget deficit in the first seven months of 2012 was estimated at 82.26 trillion dong ($3.95 billion), the Finance Ministry said.

- Sacombank said it has received shareholders' approval to issue 168.6 million shares.

- BIDV, Vietnam's biggest partly private lender by assets, said it made a net profit of 1.58 trillion dong ($75.85 million) in the first half of this year, up 34 percent from a year ago.

THANH NIEN
- The amount of provisions banks in Vietnam are required to make for their loans is low, which results in the lenders' overlending and bad debts, analysts said.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:
VIETNAM NEWS
- Vietnam needs to fix its pension scheme, otherwise the national pension fund will run deficits from 2020 and totally deplete by 2029, said the International Labour Organisation.

- Customers using mobile phones at petrol stations will be fined up to 5 million dong ($240), the government said.

HANOI MOI
- Vietnam's pepper export in 2012 could reach 110,000-112,000 tonnes if the export price stays above $7,000 per tonne from July to the year end, keeping domestic prices at 140,000 dong per kg, the Vietnam Pepper Association said. Failing to reach the price, farmers would opt to hold on to their stocks, the association said.

TUOI TRE
- Rice businesses have bought paddy equivalent to 249,000 tonnes of milled rice, having completed nearly half the purchase target under an industry plan to stockpile 500,000 tonnes, the Vietnam Food Association said.

THANH NIEN
- China is violating Vietnam's sovereignty on the Paracel and the Spratly archipelagos as it allowed thousands of fishing vessels to work around the islands, the Vietnam Fisheries Association said, requiring an immediate cease of the action.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM
- The steel industry recorded a trade deficit of $3.22 billion in the first six months of 2012, the Vietnam Steel Association said.

- Vietnam will slash corporate income tax for small- and medium-sized businesses by 30 percent, while exempting individual income tax from July 1 until the end of the year, a government decree effective on September 20 said. ($1=20,840 dong) ($1 = 20865.0000 Vietnam dong) (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)