Vietnam offers support for state-owned cement firms

According to figures released by the Ministry of Finance, the Vietnamese government is providing restructuring loans to unprofitable state-owned cement firms, VietNamNet Bridge reports.

Firms, including Song Thao, Thai Nguyen and Ha Long, are being supplied with cash in an effort to prepare the cement sector for part-privatisation. Already, some plants have been transferred to Vicem from other state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the government is understood to want to begin the sell-off, perhaps as early as this year.

Vietnam’s public debt stood at US$86bn in 2014, the last year for which full figures are available. Government-guaranteed foreign loans to SOEs reached US$21bn by the end of 2015.