The remarks were made by Nguyen Van Giau, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, at the ninth Asian Banker Summit 2008, which was held in Hanoi for the first time from March 17-18.
The biggest opportunity is to promote capital attraction, draw experience in management and create good conditions for banks to develop external relations, access the world financial markets, sharpen their competitive edge and expand operations.

Mr Giau said that Vietnam’s admission to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in January 2007 has marked a crucial turning point in the country’s process of international economic integration. Apart from many advantages, there remained many complicated changes in the world market, such as the increase oil, food and gold prices that have had a strong impact on the global economy, including Vietnam. However, thanks to its efforts in recent years Vietnam’s banking system has developed well in both scope and scale. In particular, the State Bank of Vietnam has made great efforts in monitoring monetary policy and stabilizing exchange and interest rates, thus helping to curb inflation and boost macro-economic development, he added.

The summit is Asia’s most significant and prestigious annual event, drawing the participation of more than 500 CEOs, leaders and senior officials from financial institutions, as well as senior regulators, analysts and investors from many foreign countries.

Notably, it was attended by former US Senator Paul Sarbanes - author of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, George Mathewson - former president of Scotland Royal Bank, Kaspar Villiger - former president of Switzerland and director of Swiss Re, Alastair Clark - adviser to the Governor of the Bank of England, and David Eldon - Chairman of the Board of Dubai International Financial Centre Authority and former director of HSBC.

Participants focused their discussions on issues relating to the current development of global financial system and shared experience in the management and development of the sector. They also discussed development and cooperation strategies between banks and risk management in banking systems and made an assessment of the effect of credit risk on banks in the Asia-Pacific region./.(VOV)