As effects of the VND30-trillion housing loan subsidy package faded out last week, securities firms expect the local market to move in a narrow range with low liquidity this week, with investors expected to reduce trading to wait for more positive news. The market last week traded in thin range given a lack of news, especially in terms of business earnings releases. With investor sentiment leaning... 

Shareholders of PetroVietnam Finance Corporation (PVFC) at its annual general meeting last Saturday approved plans to transform the firm into a commercial joint stock bank and merge with Western Bank. The would-be bank will have a chartered capital of VND9 trillion and total assets of VND100 trillion. The capital consolidation is based on capital and assets of PVFC and Western Bank. Each PVFC share... 

Vietnam’s five-year bond yield fell to the lowest level since 2007 on speculation low funding costs are spurring demand for government securities. The dong dropped. The overnight interbank deposit fixing fell one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 0.99 percent, the lowest in Bloomberg data going back to June 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While deposits rose 5.2 percent in... 

Vietnam’s struggling real estate market is still facing many challenges ahead. Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam general manager Chris Brown said 2013 was expected to remain a buyer’s market with falling prices. Demand for accommodation in Vietnam remained high, with its large, growing population and rising number of mid-income earners offering strong potential, Brown said. However, the market... 

HCM CITY — Despite the continued slowdown in the economy, Vietnam’s nutrition industry saw robust growth in the last 12 months, with local consumers still rating health as a major concern behind the economy and job security, according to a recent report from market-research company Nielsen. The findings were released at a Nielsen’s Health and Nutrition Forum last week in HCM City. The... 

The home loan package worth VND30 trillion aimed at stimulating the frozen property market will be available soon since the Ministry of Construction and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) are completing the final procedures. The construction ministry has drawn up a draft circular on conditions for borrowing loans to buy low-cost or commercial homes of less than 70 square meters each, which are priced... 

Life insurer AIA Vietnam in the first quarter of the year saw the value of new business up 65% versus the same period of 2012 while its annualized new premiums increased 40%. In a statement released last Friday, Stephen Clark, CEO of AIA Vietnam, ascribed these results to an improvement of AIA Vietnam sales agents. Concerning the insurer’s development strategies in 2013 and following years, Clark... 

Fruit sales at home and abroad are rising steadily and a survey indicates farmers in the Mekong Delta sell a mere 2.5% of their fruits directly to exporting businesses. Due to several incidents over preservatives and pesticide residues in foreign fruits, local consumers have been switching to using homegrown fruits, said experts at a review conference in Tien Giang Province last week on a project... 

The local stock market may repeat sideways movements this week as the interest rate cuts announced last week were already priced in and failed to buoy investor sentiment. Viet Dragon Securities Company said the HCMC and Hanoi stock exchanges actually got no macroeconomic news last week. News of the establishment of the Vietnam asset management company and of the VND30-trillion subsidy package for... 

Importers and exporters have urged the State Bank of Vietnam to slash the dollar interest rates further to 5 percent per annum. A senior executive of the central bank once promised to find the way to force the rates to 4-5 percent. A report of the State Bank of Vietnam showed that since late January, the mobilized capital has increased again. By April 23, the deposits had increased by 5.34 percent...