Banks have fixed the list of shareholders participating in the annual general meeting of shareholders. However, in the context of the complicated covid-19 epidemic, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has enhanced their efforts to fight against Covid-19 in the new situation.
Accordingly, the banks that completed the shareholder list to organise the annual meeting in 2020 including: Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), Kien Long Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Kienlongbank), Sai Gon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank), Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank), Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) and Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank). But Eximbank had to delay the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders because of Covid-19.
On March 3, 2020, Eximbank officially announced that the Board of directors (BOD) of Eximbank passed the Resolution No. 133 on the observance of the instructions of the People’s Committee of HCM City. Eximbank is requested not to hold the meeting at the moment due to the complicated situation of the Covid-19 epidemic. Therefore, Eximbank Extraordinary general Meeting of Shareholders will be rescheduled to another appropriate time.
Previously, on February 29, HCM City People’s Committee had a document saying that in recent years, the city had issued a number of documents on strengthening the prevention measures against the complicated movements of the Covid-19 epidemic. The documents also clearly stated the restriction of large crowds.
At the proposal of Eximbank and the opinion of the Department of Health, based on the instruction number 6 of the prime minister, the HCM City People’s Committee said that in the context that the situation of Covid-19 disease had been complicated, in order to control the risk of infection in the community, Eximbank was requested not to organise an extraordinary shareholder meeting in the present time.
Up to now, Eximbank has not yet held a successful shareholder meeting in 2019 due to a dispute between shareholder groups. Therefore, this year the bank has to hold the shareholders’ meeting twice. According to the previous schedule, Eximbank was expected to hold an extraordinary general Meeting of Shareholders on May 5, 2020, in order to elect an additional Board Member for the term of 2015-2020 and the Annual general Meeting of Shareholders in April 2020. However, on the day of the extraordinary general Meeting of Shareholders, the bank announced the postponement because of Covid-19 epidemic.
In spite of cancelling the extraordinary shareholder meeting, Eximbank still schedules to conduct the 2020 annual shareholder meeting on April 22. ACB, Vietcombank, and Sacombank also schedule to hold the Annual general Meeting of Shareholders in 2020 on April 7 and April 24 respectively.
However, banks’ leaders said it would depend on the situation to conduct the meeting. Banks also set ambitious 2020 profit targets. But there are currently about 926 trillion dong of debts affected by Covid-19 epidemic, accounting for about 14.27 percent of total loans of these 23 credit institutions and accounting for about 11.3 percent of outstanding loans for the whole system.
In March 2020, Kienlongbank plans to hold a meeting in Rach Gia, Kien Giang province. The closing date for the list of shareholders attending the meeting is March 5. However, this bank has not yet finalised the expected date for the annual shareholder meeting in 2020.
Meanwhile, on March 7, when the whole country received information about the seventeenth covid-19 patient, it was also the first general meeting of the banking industry.
Specifically, BIDV conducted the shareholders’ meeting on March 7, but few shareholders attended. Although the number of shareholders came not as expected, the meeting still took place because the attendance ratio was guaranteed, which was nothing special because even though it was a large bank, the state and strategic shareholder ownership ratio was enough and went far beyond the requirements.
However, the State Bank has issued Official Letter No. 02/ CD-NHNN on strengthening prevention and control of covid-19 disease in the new situation.
Accordingly, the SBV required banks to review and suspend programmes and plans for overseas business trips; Not sending officials and workers to work abroad in the current time.
One of the important contents of the Official Telegraph No. 02 is that SBV required credit institutions (CIs) to proactively coordinate with SBV’s branches in the localities to consult with the Provincial Party Committee, the provincial People’s Committee and other local authorities on the organisation of the general Meeting of Shareholders and of members in order to have an appropriate form of organisation or to postpone the time of the organisation, ensuring strict prevention and control of Covid-19 in the context of a complicated developments of the epidemic in accordance with the direction and instructions of local authorities, agencies and branches.
Heads of units directly instruct their units to regularly and fully carry out measures to prevent and control epidemics, including measures such as: Regular disinfection at offices and working places, especially the meeting rooms, where there are many people working in common, places at risk of infection, equipment, labour tools for daily use.
At the same time, SBV requires all officials to uphold their sense of responsibility to the community and strictly and fully comply with the regulations on medical declaration; take initiative in quarantining and immediately reporting to health agencies and working units when signs of suspected infection are detected for timely examination and treatment, without affecting the community or collective work units.
The Governor also asks to organise body temperature checks for officials, workers and visitors to deal with and work before entering agencies and units in forms suitable to the actual conditions; request cases of signs of infection, cough or fever to immediately come to medical establishments for examination and handling; early detection of suspected cases to report immediately to the functional units in the area to support timely treatment.
Industry units must review, consider and postpone programmes and plans to go on business trips abroad, especially to epidemic countries and territories; not sending officials and employees to go on overseas business trips at the present time. It is recommended that officials and employees in the unit should not go abroad including personal work and travel when there are many complicated outbreaks in the world.
