PetroVietnam Finance lends Vinacafe Buon Ma Thuot $42.2 million

PetroVietnam Finance Co., a unit of Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, will lend coffee company Vinacafe Buon Ma Thuot Co. up to VND750 billion (US$42.2 million) to fund development of a plantation.

Vinacafe would use the money to buy urea and other products from PetroVietnam Fertilizer & Chemical Joint-Stock Co., the country’s biggest-fertilizer producer, the lender said in an e-mailed statement Friday. “We offer Vinacafe an interest rate of 6 percent for this one-year loan as it is part of the government loan subsidy program,” PetroVietnam CEO Tong Quoc Truong said in a phone interview. “This is a very good rate compared with the lowest rate of 10 percent we have offered to others.” Vietnamese lenders gave VND255 trillion ($14.3 billion) in loans to businesses between February 1 and April 23, after the government started a subsidy program to bolster the slowing economy. Source: Bloomberg