Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 07:30 GMT+7

Vietnam Morning Monitor: Top leader receives Denmark’s highest honor, remittances to Ho Chi Minh City tops $2.8bn in 3rd quarter

Top Vietnamese leader receives Denmark’s highest-ranked honor. Authorities find 14 more sets of martyrs’ remains at Le Thi Rieng Park. Thirty-four medical facilities across Vietnam now offer organ transplants. Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City reached US$2.835 billion in the third quarter of 2026. And there’s more in today’s morning news round-up.

| POLITICS

-- During a state visit to Denmark by Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President To Lam and his spouse Ngo Phuong Ly, King Frederik X presented the top Vietnamese leader with the Order of the Elephant on Monday morning (local time).

The Order of the Elephant is Denmark’s highest-ranking honor, awarded to members of royal families and foreign heads of state.

-- National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man on Monday met with Prime Minister of Liechtenstein Brigitte Haas at the National Assembly House in Hanoi, during the latter’s official visit to Vietnam.

Admiring Liechtenstein's development achievements, particularly its strong financial sector, high-tech industries and per-capita income among the world's highest, the NA chairman affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to and wants to further strengthen cooperation with Liechtenstein, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

| SOCIETY

-- Authorities found 14 sets of martyrs’ remains at Le Thi Rieng Park in Hoa Hung Ward, Ho Chi Minh City on Monday. Since the search and recovery operation began there on June 23, a total of 778 sets of remains have been recovered, 322 of them accompanied by artifacts.

-- More than 30 years after Vietnam began performing organ transplants, 34 medical facilities across the country now offer the procedure, with nearly 1,400 transplants performed in 2025 alone.

-- Twenty-five officials from the Government Office and various ministries and agencies, which directly advise on and implement semiconductor industry development policies, are attending a two-day training program on semiconductor technology with French and Vietnamese experts in Hanoi on Monday and Tuesday.

The course is organized by the French Embassy and the French Institute in Vietnam in cooperation with the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi as part of an e-government cooperation project run between the French and Vietnamese governments.

| ECONOMY

-- Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City reached $2.835 billion in the third quarter of 2026, up 39.5 percent from the previous quarter and 3.6 percent year on year, Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper reported the State Bank of Vietnam’s Region 2 Branch as saying on Monday afternoon.

This was the first quarter of the year to record positive year-on-year growth, following declines of 16.9 percent in the first quarter and 27.9 percent in the second quarter.

-- Collecting more than VND1 quadrillion ($38.6 billion) in state budget revenue is one of Ho Chi Minh City’s key tasks for 2026, helping fund its target of double-digit economic growth.

According to the Vietnam News Agency, in the final three months of the year, the city needs to collect more than VND333 trillion ($12.8 billion), or around VND110 trillion ($4.2 billion) per month on average. This monthly average is significantly higher than the pace recorded in the first nine months of the year.

-- Quang Tri Province in central Vietnam plans to operate two airports simultaneously from March 2027, when Terminal 2 at Dong Hoi Airport and Quang Tri Airport are scheduled to begin commercial operations.

The two airports are expected to complement each other, with plans to develop a hub for passenger and cargo transit and international charter flights.