PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - Aug 31

HANOI Aug 31 (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:

VIETNAM NEWS

- Lenders have cut loan rates to as low as 6.8 percent in a bid to achieve their credit growth targets for the year after flat lending growth in the first half of the year, bankers said.

LAO DONG

- Saigon Hanoi Bank said it would lend Binh An Seafood Co more than 220 billion dong ($10.5 million) to settle debts for farmers.

- A major shareholder in Nam Viet Bank (Navibank) Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh said she would sell her entire 4.92 percent stake, or 14.82 million shares, in the bank over a month-long period ending on Sept. 30.

- The amount of fake banknotes collected via the banking system had dropped 13.41 percent in the first half of this year from a year ago, the central bank's issue and treasury department said.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

LAO DONG

- Vietnam's retail sales and service revenues in the first eight months of this year rose 17.9 percent from the year before to an estimated 1,517.7 trillion dong ($72.8 billion), the government's General Statistics Office said.

TUOI TRE

- The Agriculture Ministry's Plant Protection Department will impose tight supervision on grapes and potatoes imported from China after finding the plant protecting chemicals on the checked samples are three to five times higher than the allowed amount, said Hoang Trung, the department's deputy director.

- Pham Thanh Binh, the former chairman of state ship builder Vinashin, lost his appeal on Thursday as the court upheld his 20-year jail term, along with the sentences for other Vinashin officials.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

- Revenues from post and telecommunication sectors in the first eight months of this year rose 6.8 percent from a year ago to an estimated 105 trillion dong ($5.03 billion) with a total of 135.8 million telephone subscribers, the government's General Statistics Office said.

($1=20,850 dong) (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Sunil Nair)