1- Vietnam – excellent investment destination in Asia

Some of the  United Arab’leading economic experts have sung the praises of   Vietnam as an investment destination and spoke of their desire to put their money where their mouths are.

According to Head of Alternative Investment at Global Investment House Shailesh Dash, Vietnam has emerged as an excellent investment destination in  Asia  and offers an array of investment opportunities, thus once again attracting the interest of foreign investors. Furthermore, since the start of the new millennium, Vietnam has achieved an annual GDP growth rate of between 7-8 percent. In terms of growth, Vietnam is second only to China in Asia.

Rakesh Patnaik, Head of Real Estate Funds at Global, expressed his eagerness to pump investment into the Vietnam Real Estate Development and Finance Corporation (Refico). The fund holds a 17 percent stake in Refico, one of   Vietnam’s leading real estate companies, which was established in 2003./

(website VietnamPlus/VNA)

2 - Vietnamese enterprise chosen to extract oil in Venezuela

Venezuela’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has permitted PetroVietnam Exploration and Production Corporation (PVEP) and the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (CVP) to form a joint venture, PetroMacareo.

According to Venezuela’s news agency ABN, the join venture will explore and process oil in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt, the world’s largest oil reserve.

CVP, a subsidiary of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), will contribute 60% of the capital to the joint venture, and the remaining sum will be born by PVEP.

PetroMacareo, operating in 25 years, will be able to extract 200,000 barrels of heavy and super heavy oil from Field Junin 2 in the Orinoco belt. The produce will then be processed into light crude oil and fed an oil refinery in Việt Nam.

Last year, the Venezuelan Government approved the establishment of a joint venture between CVP and PetroVietnam.  

(website Chinhphu.vn)

3 -  Banks lend helping hand to small firms

Domestic small- and medium-sized enterprises with charter capital of 20 billion VND or less and less than 500 employees will be eligible to apply for soft loans from the Vietnam International Bank (VIB), guaranteed by the Vietnam Development Bank (VDB).

Under the terms of an agreement signed by the two banks on Feb. 17, VIB will earmark more than 8 trillion VND for the project during 2009, which is soon to be launched across its 106 branches nationwide.

It is estimated that approximately 1,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises across the country will be eligible to benefit from the preferential loans provided by VIB.

The move aims to ease small firms’ access to capital sources in order to maintain their business and production activities in the face of the global financial crisis.

VIB is currently actively working to offer interest rate subsidies for domestic businesses, as required by the government, disbursing more than 2 trillion VND since the beginning of the month.

(website cpv.org.vn)