Indovina enters Haiphong

Indovina enters Haiphong

HANOI (Reuter): Indovina Bank, a joint venture between Indonesia's Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI) and a Vietnamese partner, will open its first branch outside Vietnam's two main cities in the northern port of Haiphong next Friday.

"Haiphong ranks third in terms of foreign investment and has good city development plans," Phan Dao Vu, deputy manager of Indovina's Hanoi branch, told Reuters yesterday. "We foresee good development in this city."

The government plans special economic zones in Haiphong, the main port in northern Vietnam 105 km (65 miles) east of Hanoi.

BDNI took over the Indonesian share of Indovina a year ago, replacing the collapsed Bank Summa in the 50/50 joint venture with the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of Vietnam. It is one of three Vietnamese joint venture banks. One of the others, VID Public Bank, was the first to move outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City when it opened a branch in the central city of Danang last year.