Vietnam: The Vietnamese finance minister, Vuong Dinh Hue, has announced that the national government will provide capital to help four cement projects to deal with their foreign debts. The four projects were among 16 in the cement sector that had government-guaranteed loans from foreign creditors worth USD1.36bn. The Hoang Mai cement project reported a total debt of USD145m, followed by Tam Diep with a total debt of USD139m, Thai Nguyen at USD59m and Dong Banh at USD45m.
Hue said that the finance ministry would assist with up to three scheduled payments for the four troubled projects, but that if they continued to miss subsequent payments, the plants would have to sell up some of their assets.
The ministry earlier proposed that the Prime Minister should ask the Ministry of Construction to review planning measures in the cement sector and suspend the issuance of guarantees for the new cement projects while waiting for the Prime Minister's decision.