Vinaconex to sell stakes in cement plants to foreign investors

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Viet Nam Construction and Import-Export Corp., a state-owned construction company, plans to sell an additional 20% stake in two cement plants to overseas investors to help fund expansion.
The company will sell the stake “to foreign strategic partners who commit to retaining the stake for at least three years and support us in terms of technology, finance, personnel and market expansion,” Phan Vu Anh, a spokesman for Vinaconex, as the company is known, said by telephone from Hanoi Monday.
Vinaconex spent VND4.7 trillion (US$294 million) to build the plants in Quang Ninh and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces, according to a statement on the Hanoi-based company's website.
The plants had a combined capacity of 2.3 million metric tons a year, Anh said.
International investors already owned about 10% of the plants, he said, declining to name them.
”The corporation has many big projects using cement from theplants, and producing cement is still profit-making,'' he said.
The production capacity in Viet Nam could exceed demand in five years, he said.
Vinaconex plans to list its shares on the Hanoi Securities Trading Center this year, according to its website. (Bloomberg)