HANOI, July 10 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- Top diary firm Vinamilk <VNM.HM> said its first half gross profit reached 1.15 trillion dong ($64.6 million), 68.6 percent of its target for the whole year.

DAU TU

-- Partly private Lien Viet Bank said it was preparing an application for a licence to list shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange <.VNI>.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

SAIGON GIAI PHONG

-- Vietnam aimed to improve supply and demand of foreign exchange after recent pressure was caused mainly by dollar hoarding by residents and banks, Nguyen Quang Huy, a central bank manager, said.

LAO DONG

-- Prosecutors have pressed charges against 23 people, 20 of them accused of abusing power while executing official assignments related to a project on upgrading the government's information technology infrastructure.

TUOI TRE

-- Vietnam has detected so far 262 people as carrying the H1N1 flu virus but no fatality has been reported, the Health Ministry said.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

-- The summer-autumn rice crop in southern provinces and another crop in the north look very positive, after a bumper winter-spring crop provided record paddy output of more than 18.6 million tonnes, Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said.

-- The government has approved an investment of 1.79 trillion dong ($101 million) to build a road in the central highland province of Kontum connecting to the Ho Chi Minh Highway, using funds from government bonds. (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom)

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