Vietnam's parliament on Wednesday approved plans for an $8 billion rail link from its largest northern port city to the border with China, boosting links between the two communist-ruled countries and making trade easier.

It is one of two railway lines to China that Vietnam plans as part of its ‘Two Corridors, One Belt’ initiative.

Vietnam's National Assembly will on Tuesday approve a bold bureaucratic reform plan that will slash up to a fifth of government bodies, as it tries to cut costs and improve administrative efficiency.

Vietnam will cut one in five public sector jobs and slash billions of dollars from government budgets, after the country's rubber-stamp parliament on Tuesday gave the go-ahead to a radical streamlining drive.