VietNamNet Bridge – Analysts and economists remain doubtful about public figures on the banking system’s bad-debt ratio released at official conferences, saying they have not been verified by reliable agencies or organizations.

The State Bank of Vietnam on October 29 released a report saying that the bad debt ratio of credit institutions by the end of September had decreased to 3.88 percent. It was 4.17 percent by the end of June and then fell to 3.9 percent by the end of August.

Just one day before the report was released, Pham Huy Hung, a National Assembly’s Deputy, said at the ongoing National Assembly’s session that the official statistics about bad debts are “inaccurate”, saying that the reported figures are lower than the actual figures.

Hung proposed to audit all finance reports to discover reliable figures about bad debts, saying that only when physicians discover how serious the illness is, will they be able to make proper prescriptions.

Bankers, however, disagree with the statements that commercial banks report wrong figures in an attempt to conceal their problems.

Pham Quang Dung, deputy general director of Vietcombank, one of the largest Vietnamese banks, said the bank always follows State Bank’s regulations on debt classification and provisioning against risks, saying that the figures reported by Vietcombank are always “reliable”.

“The standards stipulated in the Circular No 09 and 02 are being applied in Vietnam and all the credit institutions must follow the legal documents,” Dung said.

Nguyen Van Thang, chair of VietinBank, also a large state owned bank, in an interview to the local press, commented that Hung’s conclusion was “groundless”.

He went on to say that the banks’ finance reports all must be audited by independent auditing institutions. Meanwhile, the state owned banks’ finance reports are audited by the State Audit as well, once every two years, and public banks must have new audits every three years.

Thang has just replaced Hung, how left his post as the chair of the board of directors of VietinBank.

Nguoi lao dong’s reporters asked Hung on the sidelines of the ongoing National Assembly’s session why he did not say the banks’ figures about bad debts were unreliable when he was a banker.

He said in the past he could not make such a comment as the head of a commercial bank because of several reasons. However, now as a National Assembly Deputy, it is his responsibility to warning about risks.

Hung’s proposal to have finance reports audited again has faced strong opposition from bankers.

Dung of Vietcombank said the total auditing of finance reports is not really necessary, because re-auditing will only show the same results.