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.