The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) has pledged US$20 million to help Vietnamese small- and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) to purchase new technology and produce commodities for export. The businesses can apply for the NIB loan through the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) on a long-term credit program.
The loan agreement, which is the second loan financed by the NIB in 2004, was signed in Ha Noi by Nguyen Thanh Do, Deputy Director of the Department for External Affairs of the Ministry of Finance and two NIB vice presidents, Bengt Farneman and Soren K. Mortensen.
The fund is derived from donor nations Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. The NIB has funded eight major Vietnamese projects since 1996 such as the Song Hinh Hydro-electric power plant, the Bien Hoa Coffee Factory, and the Bai Bang Paper Company with capital totaling $162 million and this year, Tam Diep Cement Plant in Ninh Binh Province alone received $10 million from the bank.
The NIB has also in the past funded $60 million to electric and coal projects of the Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) and the Viet Nam Coal Corporation and will loan more $40 million to EVN projects in the near future.
