Vietnam’s PM tries to save nation's largest ethanol plant

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to work with other agencies on developing measures to save an ethanol plant in the central province of Quang Nam.
Located in the Dai Tan commune in Dai Loc district, the Dai Tan ethanol plant, with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons of biofuel per year, is the largest ethanol facility in Vietnam and one of the three largest ethanol plants in Southeast Asia.
Having started operations in 2008, the plant, however, stopped operations in June 2012 due to financial problems. It is a debtor of the Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) and farmers.
On January 21, 2013, the Quang Nam People’s Committee worked with representatives of Techcombank and the Dong Xanh JSC, the operator of the plant, on solutions to resolve the plant’s debt of more than US$5 million.
According to Luu Quang Thai, chairman of Dong Xanh JSC, of the total debt, the most serious portion is that owed to cassava farmers. The plant also owes its workers their salaries for four months, totaling more than US$188,622.
Thai added that his company had sought a big investor to finance a restructuring of the ethanol plant. This investor has acquired a 70% stake in the plant, he said.
Dinh Van Thu, deputy chairman of the committee, affirmed that the province’s priority is paying the debt to farmers and salaries to workers, and he requested that the plant’s bad debt and financial difficulties be resolved no later than March 2013. (February 1, 2013)