Vietnam is expected to complete equitization of state commercial banks by 2010, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Monday.

Under the country's roadmap for reforming its banking system, all state-owned commercial banks, except for the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam, will be equitized with a certain amount of shares to be retained by the state. Foreign investors, altogether, are allowed to keep a maximum of 30 percent of a bank's shares.

Early this year, the Vietnamese government allowed the country's biggest state commercial bank, the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), to go public within the year, becoming the first bank to undergo equitization. The state plans to hold 51 percent of its shares.

The government has also instructed Vietcombank, which was established in 1963 with chartered capital of more than 3,033 billion Vietnamese dong (nearly 190.8 million US dollars), to expand its services into such new areas as financial investment and insurance, gradually becoming Vietnam's leading financial group.

Now, Vietnam is home to a central bank (the State Bank of Vietnam), a policy bank, five state-owned commercial banks, 36 commercial joint stock banks, four joint-venture banks, 28 branches of foreign banks, five finance companies and nine finance leasing firms.

Source: Xinhua