After the bonds are sold in the market, the Government will invest the money in some projects, including the Dung Quat Oil Refinery project, the Vietnam Maritime Corporation’s project to buy transport vessels, and a project to build an electricity power plant in Laos by the Song Da Construction Corporation.

A promising forecast of the launch results is based on the international community’s positive assessments of Vietnam’s socio-economic achievements in the past few years and future prospects of development.

In March, the leading provider of independent credit ratings, research and financial information – Moody’s – upgraded its rating outlook for Vietnam’s Ba3 foreign-currency bonds to “positive” from “stable”. Moody’s reasoned the upgrade to Vietnam’s consecutive successes in its renewal policy and the financial stability of the Government. At the same time, Moody’s said that Vietnam is likely to continue attracting a great volume of foreign direct investment while maintaining a high saving rate.

At the beginning of April 2007, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) re-evaluated Vietnam’s credit risk and upgraded Vietnam’ss status from a grade 5 to a grade 4.

Apart from such positive signs, Vietnam’s out-of-expectation maiden launch of Government bonds worth US$750 million into the international market in 2005 has provided a firm guarantee that the coming issuance will be successful.

The International Finance Magazine termed Vietnam’s Government bonds “the most successful international bond in 2005”. In the first issuance, as many as 255 investors registered, with the biggest order amounting to US$150 million and more than 30 other orders were worth over US$50 million each - a rare occurrence in the field of launching international bonds.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment predicted that in the 2006-2010 period, Vietnam will need a total capitalisation of US$140 billion for development investment, of which US$90 billion will come from the domestic sector and the rest from different foreign capital resources.