Vietnam govt to service debt for troubled cement projects

The Vietnamese government will provide funds to help four cement projects make foreign debt payments, the finance minister said, including one that state media says is unable to service a loan from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.
The projects were among 16 in the cement sector that had government-guaranteed loans from foreign creditors worth $1.365 billion, Vuong Dinh Hue told reporters on Thursday.

Hue said the ministry would assist with up to three scheduled payments for the four troubled projects. If they continued to fail to pay on their own after that, they would have to start selling assets, he said.

“Up to now, all the four projects haven’t yet failed to make three payments,” he said.

The government allowed state shipbuilder Vinashin to default late last year on a $600 million loan from a consortium of foreign banks because it had not given explicit guarantees.

On Wednesday, state-backed newspaper Tuoi Tre said Dong Banh Cement Joint Stock Co, a subsidiary of state-owned Song Da Group, was asking the government for help in paying $3.4 million back to ANZ.

Hue said Dong Banh had foreign debt worth $45 million. The other three projects in need of government help were Thai Nguyen with $59 million in foreign debt, Tam Diep with $133 million in foreign debt and Hoang Mai with $145 million in foreign debt.

No creditors were named.
Reuters

Tags: Vietnam cement industry, Vietnam cement sector