First bank sells its bad debts to VAMC The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) has signed a contract to sell its bad debts to Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC), becoming the first bank  to sell bad debts to the firm.   In October, VAMC will buy additional VND10 trillion (USD476.19 million) from banks Under the contract, Agribank will sell VND1.723 trillion (USD81.9 million) to VAMC out of its VND2.53 trillion (USD119.04 million) of bad debts after leaving VND800 billion to set up its hedge fund. VAMC will pay Agribank in its self-issued bonds and after that, Agribank’s bad debt will be reduced by 7.56%. Speaking with a DTiNews reporter, Vice Chairman of VAMC, Nguyen Quoc Hung, said that VAMC will continue this process this week by  buying the bad debts of three other banks, including Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank, Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank and Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank. In October, the corporation will buy additional VND10 trillion (USD476.19 million) from banks. Meanwhile, Nam Viet Commercial Joint Stock Bank has asked to work with VAMC in order to sell its bad debts of VND200 billion (USD9.5 million) but it has not yet finished the necessary procedures. Hung said that after selling bad debts to VAMC, banks have to set up hedge funds at the rate of 20% and will use the special bonds paid by VAMC to get the refinanced loans from the State Bank of Vietnam to reduce their bad debt rate. To date, four banks with a bad debt rate of below 3% have registered to sell their bad debts to VAMC, including one state-owned bank. By Nguyen Hien | dtinews.vn