[Update] Vietnam on Bloomberg, Reuters, WSJ

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Vietnam’s Stocks Seen Gaining 65% as Rates Fall: Southeast Asia

By Bloomberg News - May 28, 2012 11:09 PM GMT+0700

Vietnamese stocks, Asia’s biggest losers during the past five years, are rising the most in 2012 as the nation’s largest money managers say falling interest rates will reverse the deepest earnings slump in three years.

The benchmark VN Index (VNINDEX) may extend its rally by another 65 percent through 2013 after climbing 24 percent since December, said Samsung Asset Management. Financial and real-estate companies in Asia’s 13th-largest equity market may lead gains, Eastspring Investments said. Dragon Capital, Vietnam’s biggest private stock investor, favors consumer and agricultural shares such as Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Co. and Petrovietnam Fertilizer & Chemical Joint Stock Co., the nation’s largest listed fertilizer maker.

Vietnam is cutting borrowing costs from a three-year high after inflation fell to 8.3 percent this month from 23 percent in August, economic growth slowed to the weakest pace since 2009 and VN Index profits sank 12 percent in the first quarter. The stimulus has spurred Samsung Asset Management to invest in the country’s $40 billion equity market for the first time, while Vietnam mutual funds tracked by EPFR Global lured inflows for 20 straight weeks, the longest stretch for any developing nation.

“The stock market is discounting improving economic and corporate fundamentals ahead,” said Alan Richardson, who helps oversee about $87 billion as a money manager at Samsung Asset in Singapore. His Samsung ASEAN Securities Master Investment Trust has gained about 26 percent annually during the past three years, topping 92 percent of rivals, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Leading Gains

While the VN Index has retreated 11 percent from its 2012 high on May 8 amid a global equity rout sparked by Europe’s debt crisis, the gauge has still outperformed indexes in all 73 markets tracked by Bloomberg this year except Egypt’s EGX30 Index (EGX30) and Venezuela’s IBC Index. (IBVC)

Vietnam’s stock market is classified by MSCI Inc. as a frontier market, which has an average stock-market value of about $29 billion. That’s 94 percent less than in emerging countries designated in MSCI indexes, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Vietnam’s market value of $40 billion is about half that of Walt Disney Co., based in Burbank, California.

The MSCI Frontier Markets Index (MXFM), which includes shares in 25 countries with a combined market value of $369 billion, has slipped 2.5 percent this year. Institutional money managers tracked by EPFR Global and Citigroup Inc. have about $11 billion in frontier-market funds, compared with $654 billion in emerging markets, according to a November report by New York-based Citigroup.
Bond Rally

Vietnam’s stock exchange in Ho Chi Minh City started trading in 2000 with shares of four companies that began as state-controlled businesses. The first private company was listed four years later and a second bourse in Hanoi opened in 2005. The two exchanges now have about 700 stocks. The ruling Communist Party has plans for 254 government-run businesses to sell stakes this year, according to the State Capital Investment Corporation’s website.

Vietnam’s bond market is also signaling higher confidence that policy makers have tamed Asia’s fastest inflation rate.

Five-year government securities in Vietnam have surged this year, sending yields down 287 basis points, or 2.87 percentage points, to 9.68 percent, the biggest drop among 43 countries tracked by Bloomberg. The nation’s currency, the dong, has been little changed at about 20,900 per dollar for the past 15 months, after losing about 18 percent the previous three years.
2011 Retreat

Vietnam’s stocks and bonds retreated in 2011 as the central bank raised interest rates by 6 percentage points to restore confidence in the dong, reduce inflation and curb a 28 percent surge in credit growth. The policy helped slow the economy’s expansion to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year from 6.8 percent at the end of 2010, government data show.

More than 17,700 companies halted production in the first four months of 2012, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Per-share earnings in the VN Index declined to 41 dong at the end of March from 46 dong a year earlier, the biggest drop since the year ended June 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Weaker exports may prolong the country’s economic slowdown. Overseas sales fell to $8.96 billion in April from $9.48 billion in March, government data show. Growth in garment shipments, Vietnam’s biggest export, slowed to 15 percent through April after expanding 33 percent a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from the statistics office.

Trading volumes have discouraged some investors from buying Vietnam stocks. The 30-day average value of shares changing hands on the Ho Chi Minh Exchange as of May 24 was 1.6 trillion dong ($77 million), data compiled by Bloomberg show. That compares with about $52 million in Dubai and $14 billion on China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Growth Spur

“Liquidity is one of the big issues,” said Andrew Beal, a London-based money manager at Henderson Global Investors who helps oversee about $104 billion and invests in Vietnam through closed-end funds listed overseas.

While the slowdown has been “painful,” Vietnam’s $106 billion economy will probably recover toward the end of this year as the government switches its focus from curbing inflation to spurring growth, said Dominic Scriven, who co-founded Dragon Capital, a Ho Chi Minh City-based money management and securities firm, in 1994.

The government cut corporate income tax for small- and medium-sized companies by 30 percent this month, and Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on May 21 the government will help some companies repay loans.

Interest Rates

The central bank, led by Governor Nguyen Van Binh, has reduced its benchmark refinancing rate by 300 basis points to 12 percent since March and capped some lending rates for smaller businesses at 14 percent this month. Binh said in March that policy makers would cut borrowing costs by 100 basis points in each of the second, third and fourth quarters.

The government has stepped up efforts to bolster lenders and has encouraged takeovers of weaker financial institutions, Fitch Ratings said in a May 11 statement, affirming its B+ foreign-currency credit rating for Vietnam, four levels below investment grade.

Policy makers will probably reduce borrowing costs further this year as inflation falls toward 7 percent, the slowest pace since 2009, said Scriven, who expects corporate earnings to rally about 14 percent this year.

“There’s a steely determination in the government to regain the mandate and confidence of Vietnamese savers, investors and businesses,” said Scriven, whose $415 million Vietnam Enterprise Investments Ltd. fund is the biggest actively-managed stock fund focused on Vietnam, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It returned 14 percent in dollar terms during the past 18 months, beating the VN Index by 14 percentage points, the data show.

Stock Valuations

Earnings at Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietnam Dairy Products, known as Vinamilk, will probably climb 15 percent this year and 35 percent in 2013, according to the average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The dairy producer is valued at 10.8 times reported profit, compared with 29 times for global packaged food and meat companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The stock has returned 2.8 percent this year.

Petrovietnam Fertilizer, based in Ho Chi Minh City, posted a 69 percent surge in unconsolidated net income in the first quarter. The shares, up 45 percent this year, trade for 3.8 times trailing 12-month earnings, versus the 27.1 times average for global peers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Consumer Demand

While the VN Index’s rally has boosted its price-to- reported earnings ratio to 9.8 from 7.2 at the start of this year, the measure is still about 34 percent cheaper than its five-year average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The VN Index has lost 60 percent during the past five years, the most among stock gauges in 17 Asian nations tracked by Bloomberg.

“The level of valuations is quite low compared to international standards,” Ngo The Trieu, who oversees about $1 billion as head of public investment at Eastspring Investments, the Vietnam unit of Prudential Plc’s asset management business.

Long-term investors will benefit from Vietnam’s surging consumer demand and its allure to global manufacturers as a lower-cost alternative to China, according to Dragon Capital’s Scriven. Retail sales increased 22 percent in April, near the 24 percent average growth rate since 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

About 95 percent of Vietnam’s 91 million people are below the age of 65 and the minimum wage is equivalent to about $67 a month, compared with about $230 in Shanghai, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and government statements.
Stock Outperformance

Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), the Espoo, Finland-based mobile-phone maker with about 6 percent of its long-term assets in China, said last month it started building a manufacturing plant in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province and plans to start production of low-cost phones next year.

The VN Index has outperformed the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) by 17 percentage points this year as Vietnam funds tracked by EPFR Global recorded $122 million of inflows, equivalent to 13 percent of their total assets. China funds lured $1 billion during the same period, or 3 percent of assets, the data show.

“In the long-run, we are still very positive on the market” in Vietnam, said Tran Thi Kim Cuong, head of equities at Manulife Asset Management (Vietnam) Co. “We are still buying stocks.”

To contact the Bloomberg News staff for this story: Michael Patterson in London at mpatterson10@bloomberg.net; K. Oanh Ha in Hanoi at oha3@bloomberg.net; Weiyi Lim in Singapore at wlim26@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Darren Boey at dboey@bloomberg.net

 

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Vietnam Economic Report 2012 announced

29-May-2012 Intellasia | VOV | 7:01 AM

Vietnam’s economic growth rate in 2012 is likely stay at 5.1 percent, the lowest ever since 2000 while the inflation rate will reach 6.2 percent.

According to the Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012, released in Hanoi in May 24, the current growth model is highly dependent on ineffective State-run enterprises, which weakens economic effectiveness, according to the Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012, released in Hanoi on May 24.

Director of Vietnam Centre for Economic and Policy Research (VCEPR), Dr Nguyen Duc Thanh said the basic question of the macro-economy is to deal with bad debts in the commercial bank system and create conditions for the market to restructure the enterprises, with the support of bankruptcy and merger and acquisition procedures.

The report, compiled by the (VEPR), said that Vietnam should have a clear view of the new development model and suitable support mechanisms to successfully reform the economy and overcome challenges posed by restructuring.

It provides analysis and comment on three economic restructuring programmes.

It also focuses on public investment, state-owned enterprises and commercial banks, as well as difficulties and shortcomings during the implementation.

---------- Post added 29-05-2012 at 10:11 AM ----------

HANOI | Mon May 28, 2012 10:44pm EDT

May 29 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

THANH NIEN

- Hanoi-based lender BIDV said it has cut interest rates to 12-13 percent on short-term dong loans for top clients, following the central bank's key rate cuts on Monday.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

- Vietnam will accelerate the privatisation of state-owned enterprises by allowing investment banks to underwrite shares instead of share auctions as present, based on a Finance Ministry project submitted to the government. The ministry aims by 2015 to sell 45 percent of the 659.3 trillion dong ($31.6 billion) worth of state funds currently in SOEs.

- Vietnam's posts and telecoms sectors posted a net revenue of 60.3 trillion dong ($2.9 billion) in the first five months of 2012, a rise of 12.6 percent from the same period last year, government statistics show.

GENERAL NEWS:

TUOI TRE

- Vietnam's police have detained a Philippine citizen suspected of trafficking drugs from Mali, the Police Ministry said. ($1=20,830 dong)

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom)

 

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Lethal drug shortage offers Vietnam death-row prisoners reprieve

HANOI | Mon May 28, 2012 11:37pm EDT

(Reuters) - Hundreds of death-row prisoners in Vietnam have been given a reprieve of sorts due to a shortage of the drug used for lethal injections, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

Death by firing squad was replaced by lethal injections to reduce suffering last July - but police have failed to execute anyone since.

"In the past year, the execution of more than 400 inmates has not been able to go ahead. More than 100 of them have completed all the paperwork," Deputy Police Minister Dang Van Hieu was quoted by Tuesday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as saying.

"Their execution awaits the drug, which is not available yet." He said imports of the unspecified drug "had proved difficult".

The newspaper did not give any suggestion of how the problem could be solved.

The American state of Oklahoma, which executes more prisoners per capita than any other state, said this month it had only one remaining dose of European-made pentobarbital, a key drug used to kill condemned prisoners.

One reason the state had run so low in stocks was because of a ban on the sale of drugs for such purposes by the European Union, which opposes the death penalty.

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

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Vietnam Business Forum opens

On May 29, 2012 at 12:29 pm (GMT+7)

Vietnam Business Forum is scheduled to take place in the capital on May 29 focusing on infrastructure, capital markets, trade and investment, finance, banking and education, according to co-chairman Alain Cany.

He told the press on May 28 that Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) will consist of representatives from the private economic sector consulting with the Government on improving the local business and investment environment.

“We have had working groups in different areas between the private sector and the Government over the last three months. Each will have specific evaluations and outline some recommendations to the Government,” Cany said.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), also co-chairman of the VBF, said the event this year will offer an opportunity to both domestic and foreign business people to talk with the Government.

“The forum is very important because of the shift in the management role in the VBF, “he said.

Previously, it is always hosted by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and Ministry of Planning and Investment. However, from now, the management role will be transferred to the private sector and include representatives from 14 organisations and associations both domestically and internationally.

At another press briefing, World Bank Country Director Victoria Kwakwa introduced a mid-term consultative group meeting to be held on June 4-5.

She said the event will rovince [/B]central Vietnam faced with many difficulties in the fight against poverty due to the effects of natural disasters.

The meeting will focus on discussing topics such as natural disaster prevention and social security, she added.-VNA

 

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Vietnam's Bonds Advance on Surplus Funds at Banks

By Bloomberg News - May 29, 2012 2:54 PM GMT+0700

Vietnam’s bonds gained, driving down yields by the most in more than two weeks, on speculation banks have surplus cash to invest in debt. The dong was stable.

Vietnam’s money supply has risen 4.5 percent this year, according to a government statement distributed at a briefing in Hanoi on May 27. Bank lending fell in the first five months, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on a radio broadcast yesterday, without giving a figure.

“Banks have a lot of abundant cash but they can’t lend out to companies for fear of high credit risks,” said Nguyen Tuan Phong, the Hanoi-based fixed-income manager at Bao Viet Fund Management Co., a unit of Vietnam’s biggest insurer. “So they use the funds to buy government bonds.”

Yields on five-year notes declined nine basis points, or 0.09 percentage point, to 9.58 percent, the biggest drop since May 10, according to a daily fixing from banks compiled by Bloomberg.

The overnight interbank deposit rate dropped five basis points to 1.56 percent, the lowest level since June 2009 when Bloomberg started compiling the data.

The dong traded at 20,870 per dollar as of 2:28 p.m. in Hanoi, compared with 20,862 yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The central bank fixed the reference rate at 20,828, unchanged since Dec. 26, according to its website. The currency is allowed to trade as much as 1 percent on either side of the rate.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Diep Ngoc Pham in Hanoi at dpham5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sandy Hendry at shendry@bloomberg.net

 

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Positive Changes in Vietnam’s Economy: Financial Times

30-May-2012 Intellasia | VOV | 7:01 AM

The UK’s Financial Times (FT) has published an article on positive signals in the Vietnamese economy, such as a better consumer price index, falling inflation, and a more consistent monetary policy.

The newspaper said that May 24 data on inflation showed the first single digit increase in almost two years and year-on-year price rises dropped from 10.5 percent in April to 8.5 percent in May.

“Prices have now been flat month-on-month for two months in a row,” said the article.

The FT reported that HSBC thinks cuts in interest rates could come in the next two weeks, which helped prompt a 1.6 percent rally in Vietnamese shares on May 25.

It also mentioned an apparently shrinking trade deficit as exports surged by 22 percent in April, but imports grew just 4.4 percent.

Dragon Capital, a Vietnam-focused investment company, said in a note that Vietnam’s recent economic success is not merely a ‘flash in the pan’, but heralds an economy successfully transforming from a ‘frontier market’ into an ‘emerging’ one.

Vietnam has shone this year on the equity front, up nearly 25 percent. Meanwhile, the dong has risen by nearly one percent.

The paper cited Min-Hwa Hu Kupfer, chair of Vietnam Holding, as saying that the prospects for investors look better as the State Bank of Vietnam is developing a more consistent monetary policy under its new governor, Nguyen Van Binh.

 

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Vietnam-China smuggling surges

May 29, 2012 6:35 pm

By Ben Bland in Mong Cai

Although it looks to be the easiest way to move goods across the narrow river that separates the Vietnamese city of Mong Cai from China, there is surprisingly little traffic on the official border bridge.
[video]http://video.ft.com/v/1555946620001/Smuggling-between-China-and-Vietnam[/video]
Apart from a few Vietnamese tourists returning from China with cheap electronic goods and the odd truck passing through, there is little to suggest that the city is one of the busiest transit points for the extensive trade between these two Communist neighbours, which reached $36bn last year.

The reason is clear to the naked eye. Just a few hundred metres away, in both directions, dozens of barges are landing every few minutes to ship contraband through the numerous illegal crossing points dotted along the river for miles in either direction.

In the past few years, Mong Cai has emerged as an international smuggling nexus, funnelling illegal goods from around the world to feed China’s soaring demand for everything from women to banned electronic waste products to tiger penis for use in traditional medicine. This illegal trade is extensive and well-organised and, remarkably, much of it takes place in plain sight.

The surge in smuggling mirrors the fast-developing trade relationship between the two countries. Vietnam exported $11bn of mostly raw materials to its northern neighbour last year and imported $25bn of finished goods, making China its biggest trading partner. These figures do not take into account the large quantities of smuggled goods, for which no reliable estimates exist.

There are many trade hubs along the Vietnam-China border but Mong Cai is one of the busiest. The physical ease of transporting goods across the river border, the city’s proximity to the Vietnamese port of Haiphong and the lack of local policing have made it attractive to organised criminals.

Although apparently tolerated by officials in Mong Cai, the situation in the city of 100,000 is causing growing international concern. As far away as Washington, London and The Hague, officials fear that the city’s lax border controls are being exploited by international criminal organisations and sabotaging efforts to fight environmental crime and people trafficking.

“The smuggling problem at Mong Cai seems to be getting worse,” says a western diplomat in Hanoi, who has travelled to the city to look into the problem. “We have no idea how much money they’re making but it must be huge and this can’t possibly be going on without the knowledge of the authorities.”

The UN Organisation on Drugs and Crime says it is “very concerned about lax border controls at Mong Cai” where the open trade of illicit goods is benefiting organised criminal groups.

The local government claims that this trade is merely “transhipment” as most of these products do not originate in Vietnam. But western diplomats and international law enforcement officials say that transit countries such as Vietnam have a key role to play in breaking up international smuggling syndicates. And they believe the Vietnamese government is failing to tackle the problem.

Mong Cai has the feel of a 21st-century wild west. Residents say rival gangs armed with automatic weapons and grenades regularly clash with each other and the authorities.

“Mong Cai has developed very rapidly over the last 10 years because of trade,” says Vy Thi Lai, who sells Chinese-made shoes at the central market. “But there are many young people stealing, fighting and killing, using guns over small conflicts. It’s normal here.”

Much of the illegal trade is being driven by growing Chinese demand. Vietnamese women are wanted to work in the sex trade or as wives in a country suffering from a shortage of women of marriageable age. Exotic animals are highly prized, either as meat, as pets or for traditional medicine. Electronic waste such as old computer screens can be scavenged profitably for spare parts in China, albeit with adverse health and environmental consequences.

International law enforcement officials and diplomats say that security has been beefed up at China’s main ports in recent years, prompting smugglers to move contraband through the notoriously permeable Vietnamese port of Haiphong and then on to Mong Cai, 230km to the north. From here, it can easily be taken across the Ka Long river, which separates the city from China’s Guangxi province, without any official checks.

Observers of the smuggling trade say that as many as 1,500 vehicles traffic goods every day through the busiest unofficial crossings in Mong Cai, each paying border officials $10-$20 in bribes for right of passage.

Unofficial and illegal trade in Mong Cai accounts for as much as 98 per cent of all cross-border traffic, says Scott Roberton, who heads the Vietnam office of the Wildlife Conservation Society, an international NGO that has been researching the problem since 2009 and recently presented its findings to the Vietnamese government.

The suspicion that corruption and collusion are fuelling illegal trade at Mong Cai is deeply embarrassing for the authoritarian, Communist governments of China and Vietnam. Neither country’s foreign ministry responded to requests for comment.

Nguyen Tien Dung, vice-chairman of the Mong Cai government, denies that smuggling is a big problem.

“On the Vietnamese side, everything is checked by customs at many points along the river,” he says. “What checks the Chinese do is their business, not ours.”

 

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Vietnam’s PV Oil Seeks Gasoil, Gasoline for June, July Delivery

PV Oil Corp. is seeking to buy gasoil and gasoline for June and July loading, the company said in a document e-mailed to potential suppliers.

The company is unit of state-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, or PetroVietnam. Details of the tender are as follow:

---------------------------------------------------------------
Product:    Gasoil, or diesel, with sulfur content
            of 0.25 percent or 0.05 percent
Quantity:   2 cargoes, each of 7,000 to 9,000 cubic meters
            (about 44,000 to 56,600 barrels)
Dates:      FOB June 12 to June 16; June 20 to June 24
Port:       Haiphong
---------------------------------------------------------------
Product:    Gasoline, 92-RON
Quantity:   2 cargoes, each of 7,000 to 9,000 cubic meters
Dates:      C&F June 29 to July 3; C&F July 1 to July 5
Port:       Vungtau; and Nha Be, Ho Chi Minh City
---------------------------------------------------------------
Offers due: May 31, 2 p.m. local time
Validity:   June 1, 7 p.m. local time
---------------------------------------------------------------

To contact the reporter on this story: Yee Kai Pin in Singapore at kyee13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net

 

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PRESS DIGEST - Vietnam newspapers - May 30

HANOI | Tue May 29, 2012 10:12pm EDT

May 30 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in the official Vietnamese press on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

- Ocean Group Co said its consolidated net profit in the first quarter dropped 33 percent from a year ago to 38.6 billion dong ($1.85 million).

NHAN DAN

- Vietnam's top mining group Vinacomin said it planned to raise 3 trillion dong ($144 million) this year through a corporate bond on domestic markets, with terms of up to seven years and a floating coupon. The group will use proceeds for investment and production projects.

DAU TU

- Ho Chi Minh City-based ABBank said it would raise its registered capital to 5 trillion dong ($240 million) by the year end, using its convertible bonds and also via a bonus share issue.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

NHAN DAN

- A former deputy chief executive of Hanoi-based lender BIDV has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for abusing power, based on the verdict of the Hanoi People's Court.

HANOI MOI

- The Agriculture Ministry said it would spend 4 trillion dong ($192 million) from state budget from this July to support farmers in rice plantation, part of a national campaign to save at least 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) of rice production.

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

- Rice exporters have signed deals to ship 300,000 tonnes in May, bringing the accumulated sale volume since the start of 2012 to 4.7 million tonnes, industry reports showed.

- Vietnam could fall short of more than 100,000 tonnes of sugar between now and the start of the 2012/13 sugar crushing season as demand is estimated at nearly 600,000 tonnes and supply could only reach 483,000 tonnes, the agriculture ministry said. ($1 = 20850 Vietnam dong)

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Anand Basu)

 

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Interbank average interest rates keep falling

30-May-2012 Intellasia | | 11:13 AM

In its report on banking operations for the week between May 21 and 25, 2012, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) said that in week, the total trading value in the interbank market in local currency reached approximately 117.36 trillion dong, averaging at about 23.472 trillion dong per day while that in US dollar reached 56.361 trillion dong, an average of 11.272 trillion dong per day.

Transactions in the interbank market occurred mainly in short terms such as overnight and one week. The total transaction volume for short terms in dong reached about 86.071 trillion dong, equalling to 73 percent of the total trading value in dong and short term transactions in US dollar reached approximately 40.889 trillion dong, or 73 percent of the total trading value in US dollar.

In the week, the average interest rates for transactions in dong decreased in almost terms, of which, overnight, two-week and 12-month terms saw a decrease of between 0.15 percent (1-week term) and 0.88 percent (12-month term).

For 3-week and 1-month terms, the average interest rates fell 2.39 percent and 1.05 percent respectively, 3-months and 6-months saw a strong fall of 3.02 percent and 3.45 percent per annum (p.a.).

Meanwhile, for 2-month term, the average interest rate rose by 1.39 percent p.a.

In week, there were no transactions for 9-month and above 12-month terms.

Regarding transactions in US dollar, the average interest rate for terms of one week, two weeks, one month and 12 months slipped slightly from the previous week, with a fall of between 0.07 percent (1-week term) and 0.9 percent (12-month term)

The average interest rates increased in remaining terms by 0.03 percent (6-month term) and 0.53 percent (3-week term). In week, there were no transactions for terms of 9-months and 12-months.