The pandemic has stagnated VAMC s bad debt trading and handling activities

Since June 2021, many activities related to debt trading of VAMC have been delayed due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Accordingly, as of October 31, 2021, VAMC has purchased debt at market value with a total purchase price of VND1,922 billion, equal to 38.44% of the debt purchase plan at market value in 2021.

However, VAMC said that this result was made in the first five months of 2021. Since June 2021, the pandemic and implementation of social distancing has led to the purchase, sale and settlement of debts of the VAMC not achieving specific results.

Since the beginning of June 2021, VAMC’s activities have been surveying debts, collateral assets, working with customers/credit institutions; posting notice of seizure/announcement of asset auction; implement the seizure of collateral; property valuation and auction; lawsuits, judgment enforcement, etc., especially in the central areas of VAMC’s debt settlement, Ho Chi Minh City and the southern provinces, were almost completely stalled.

In addition, due to social distancing, the process of implementing steps in the face-to-face auction process faces many difficulties, especially there are some auction organizations that list and announcing auctions, implement bidding, announcing prices not in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Auction (the Department of Judicial Support – the Ministry of Justice had to issue a document to rectify this activity) leading to credit institutions not being able to carry out the sale, thereby they do not sell bad debt by agreement method to VAMC.

The coordination between VAMC and credit institutions in debt trading and settlement activities currently only stops at accessing information and preparing for the next steps after the pandemic is under control.

VAMC said that there are debts that VAMC has contacted and negotiated with credit institutions before June 2021 and is expected to buy debt at market value in the third and fourth quarters of 2021, but so far VAMC has not been able to buy debt successfully because credit institutions have not been able to carry out debt auction procedures.

According to VAMC, the macroeconomic context and the “health” of businesses that are negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic have also greatly affected the search for customers to buy bad debt. In addition, the downsizing of production and business scale and the decrease in revenue have greatly affected the debt repayment sources of customers who in the past VAMC applied the debt settlement plan in the form of debt restructuring and urging debt recovery.

The recovery of money from asset auctions and debt sales also took longer than the original plan, some partners have raised problems, learning to buy debts and assets of VAMC has also delayed the implementation of the plan to buy debts and assets.

Currently, VAMC said that it is having to review and re-evaluate business plans, investment projects of customers, as well as plans to handle purchased debts to suit the current situation.

As of September 30, 2021, VAMC has handled VND18,358 billion, equal to 61% of the debt collection plan in 2021. Although VAMC has applied many measures to recover debts, it was heavily affected due to the Covid-19 pandemic, borrowers did not secure the expected source of debt repayment.

In addition, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the State Bank of Vietnam has issued a policy to restructure debt repayment terms and maintain debt groups to support credit institutions to remove difficulties and reduce pressure on bad debt growth and make provision for risks. However, according to VAMC, in terms of bad debt handling of VAMC, the restructuring of the debt repayment term by credit institutions, keeping the debt group unchanged will reduce the need to deal with bad debts through debt trading with VAMC.