$2.1 billion bonds to fund government stimulus plan

The Vietnamese government has said it will sell VND36 trillion (US$2.1 billion) worth of bonds next year to help fund stimulus spending after the economy had expanded at its slowest pace in almost a decade.

The bonds will make up part of as much as $6 billion of spending with the rest of the money coming from the exchequer and other sources, according to a statement posted on the government website, that did not provide further details.

The government would spend $1 billion to subsidize commercial bank loans taken by small- and medium-sized companies, Prime

Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a statement Wednesday.

Gross domestic product increased 6.23 percent in 2008, after growing a record 8.5 percent last year, according to the statement. Growth this year has been the slowest since 1999’s 4.77 percent. The government expects growth of 6.5 percent next year.

Bloomberg

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