Vietnam and its bankers have revived the idea of launching a debut Eurobond following the completion four months ago of a package to reschedule some $900m in commercial debt - or London Club - arrears. But a failure to reach final agreement with commercial creditors - mostly Japanese banks -on the final shape of the package means the launch is unlikely to take place before 1997. Nomura and Merrill Lynch were originally appointed to co-lead the issue, with Deutsche Morgan Grenfell as senior co-lead, in August 1995, raising expectations that Vietnam would launch a $100m-$150m issue.

The idea was shelved in April, with the government conceding that it would need to clear London Club arrears, but in the past few weeks Nomura and Merrill are understood to have approached the Vietnamese finance ministry. (The first approaches apparently came after the ruling Communist Party's five-year Congress in early July.) ...  Read