The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) plans to sell non-performing loans worth 1.5 trillion VND (71.4 million USD) to the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) this week, the Vietnam Economic Times reports.

BIDV is the third State-owned commercial bank to sell its bad debts to VAMC since early last month. The first one was the Vietnam Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, which sold non-performing loans worth more than 8 trillion VND (380.95 million USD) and the second was the Mekong Housing Bank with 500 billion VND (23.8 million USD).

Permanent Deputy Chairman of VAMC Nguyen Quoc Hung said the company had so far bought around 18 trillion VND (857.14 million USD) worth of bad debts going by book value. Twenty-four credit institutions had registered to sell bad debts worth more than 40 trillion VND (1.9 billion USD) to the firm.

Hung told Dau tu Chung khoan (Securities Investment) newspaper that the VAMC had been classifying the debts into various groups and hopes to begin selling them in 2014. It was also prepared to sell them immediately if it is more profitable for the credit institutions and enterprises.

He said there were many domestic and foreign investors willing to buy debts from the company.

There were many legal obstacles needed to be sorted out, including asset ownership, especially real estate owned by foreign investors, and foreign investors' shareholding ratios at enterprises, he noted.-VNA