Vietnam Minister: Mobifone IPO May Go Ahead Later This Year

The planned initial public offering of Vietnam’s state-owned telecommunication company, Mobifone, may go ahead as early as later this year depending on market conditions, Vietnam Vice-Minister for Finance Dang Huy Dong said Thursday.

Vietnam’s government isn’t delaying the IPO and that the company’s advisors have recommended the deal should only proceed when market conditions are conducive for fund-raising, Dang said.

He also said that Vietnam’s pledged foreign direct investment has been picking up recently but will probably be much lower overall this year than 2008.

Between January and October, pledged FDI was US$19 billion compared with US$69 billion for the whole of last year, he added.

However, he said that most of last year’s pledged investment was targeted at the booming real estate sectorand hasn’t been disbursed. In the first ten months of this year, US$8 billion had been disbursed compared with US$9 billion for 2008. Investment in real estate is expected to pick up in the coming months as the sector is recovering fast, Dang said.

“They (real estate investors) will be back,” he added.

Dang dismissed concerns that Vietnam’s weak currency and investors’ difficulties to repatriate profits will have a negative effect on overall FDI.

“Sometimes, the government doesn’t have enough dollars to give them as much as they want to exchange,” he said. “They have to live with that.”

By David Roman, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 64154 045; david.roman@dowjones.com