3:26:37 PM | 7/8/2005
The Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), Vietnam's biggest bank in terms of chartered capital, on April 13 signed a business and payment agreement with China Construction Bank Corp. (CCB) for facilitating cross-border trade.
According to the agreement, Agribank's branch in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai and CCB’s Yunnan branch will sign their first deal on border trade cooperation and trial border trade payments via banks between firms of the two countries.
CCB representative said that trade turnover and trade structure and payment modes between the two countries have changed positively while their clients have increased markedly.
Cash payments for border trade presently cannot meet the demands of the two banks' customers; they [clients] prefer to use safer, faster and more convenient payment modes such as non-cash payment via banks.
The cooperation between Agribank and CCB is inevitable, the representative said.
Last December, the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and the Bank of China (BoC) also signed an agreement on payments.
Under the accord, Vietcombank opened its account in Chinese yuan in the BoC Quangxi Branch and in return BoC Quangxi Branch opened its account in Vietnamese dong in Vietcombank, to facilitate payment for their clients doing businesses across the Vietnam-China border.
Payment orders or credit/debit information by businesses having accounts may be handed directly or transferred through SWIFT system or by any other means.
Vietnam - China trade stood at US$4.87 billion in 2003, with China's exports to Vietnam accounting for 64.1 per cent, making China Vietnam's fourth largest trade partner. The figure for 2004 was around US$5 billion, including US$2.73 billion worth of exports from Vietnam to China.
Vietnam and China share a borderline of 1,406.51 km, of which 1,037.19 km is reported along the mainland and the remaining 369.32 km along rivers and streams.
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