Tasek Corp Bhd, one of Malaysia’s four large cement producing groups, and Saigon Cement Joint Stock Co have aborted their plan to form a joint venture company to operate a cement manufacturing plant in Vietnam. Tasek said the memorandum of understanding (MOU) dated March 17 2005 it signed with Saigon Cement lapsed on September 16. "Both parties mutually agreed not to extend further to form a joint venture company in Vietnam to set up a grinding plant for the manufacture of cement in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,” Tasek said in a statement to Bursa Malaysia Bhd. In the MOU, both parties agreed to establish a cement manufacturing plant in Ho Chi Minh City. Tasek was to own 51 per cent of the joint venture and Saigon Cement the balance. Published under Cement News