Hanoi to write off bad debts

Hanoi to write off bad debts

HANOI (DPA): Vietnam has instructed its treasury to write off
or extend the debts of ailing state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
targeted for privatization, officials said Friday.

Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Xuan Gia said
"irretrievable" SOE debts to the state would be written off as a
means of speeding up the struggling privatization process ahead
of the expected year-end opening of the country's first stock
market.

The instruction is part of a sweeping seven-part package aimed
at stimulating an economy which has rapidly lost steam after
heady gains in the early and mid-1990s.

"The government recognizes the need to devise contingencies in
case of harder times ahead," Gia was quoted as saying in the
Vietnam News.

Other plans in the package include facilitating loans to rural
peasants, accelerating the distribution of official development
assistance and the implementation of part-time employment schemes
to avoid huge layoffs.