vietcombank mượn 100 triệu đô từ ý nè

vietcombank mượn 100 triệu đô từ ý nè

Vietcombank Borrows $100 Million From Italy''s Intesa SanPaolo

By Van Nguyen

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, known as Vietcombank, borrowed $100 million from Italy''s Intesa Sanpaolo SpA to expand lending in Vietnam.

Italy''s Export Credit Agency will insure 70 percent of the loan, Pham Quang Dung, Vietcombank''s deputy general director, said today in Hanoi. Vietcombank, the nation''s third biggest, didn''t say how much interest it will pay on the loan.

The Hanoi-based lender is raising funds overseas at a time when the central bank is restricting companies'' access to credit to help tame the fastest inflation in a decade and a half. State Bank of Vietnam has raised interest rates three times this year, and aims to limit credit growth to 30 percent in 2008.

``We see Vietnam''s situation as a short-term problem and we have every confidence that the authorities will handle the current crisis,'''' Ken Lomas, Intesa''s head of trade and structured export finance, told reporters in Hanoi. ``We have chosen to come to Vietnam in this difficult time because we see Vietnam as a long- term friend and business partner.''''

The nation''s economy expanded 6.5 percent in the first half, from 7.9 percent in the same period last year, while inflation accelerated to 26.8 percent in June from a year earlier, according to government data.

Milan-based Intesa, Italy''s second-biggest bank, expects to open a representative office in Vietnam in the third quarter, Lomas said, adding that it would be the company''s only new overseas representative office this year.

Intesa''s Vietnam office will focus on arranging funding for Italian and European businesses in Vietnam, said Tomaso Andreatta, who will head the project.

Vietcombank had assets of 203 trillion dong ($12 billion) as of the end of June, up from 197 trillion dong at the end of last year, according to Dung, the bank''s deputy general director.

Vietcombank, the first of Vietnam''s state-owned lenders to sell shares, delayed its June stock market listing until the third quarter amid a slump in the nation''s benchmark index, Vietcombank Chairman Nguyen Hoa Binh said on June 18.