UPDATE 1-Vietnam Sacombank 9-mth gross profit dips 5 pct

(Adds details, share prices)

HANOI, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Vietnam's Sacombank STB.HM, 10 percent owned by ANZ (ANZ.AX), said gross profit in the first nine months of this year fell 5.4 percent to 952 billion dong ($57.6 million).

Total assets of the Ho Chi Minh City-based Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, Vietnam's sixth-largest lender, reached 65.83 trillion dong at the end of last month, or 1.9 percent more than the end of 2007, the bank said in a statement.

Sacombank did not give a net profit figure nor offer any reason for the decline in gross profit from the same period last year, but its assets at the end of last month already fell from 74.9 trillion dong at the end of June.

The bank made a gross profit of 1,006 billion dong in the first nine months of 2007.

Shares in Sacombank lost 3.35 percent to close at 20,200 dong ($1.22) on Friday, valuing the bank at $624 million.

Sacombank said its deposits reached 56.66 trillion dong at end-September, while it lent 32.18 trillion dong, or 33 percent up from loans of 24.2 trillion dong reported at the end of September 2007.

The central bank has said it aimed to keep Vietnam's annual credit growth at 30 percent this year after a surge of 54 percent in 2007 to help contain inflation.

In August Sacombank said it has scaled back its capital raising plans for this year limiting them to one share issue in September.

The bank, now with a capital base of 5.12 trillion dong, has opened a representative office in China and planned to open a branch in Laos at the end of this year as part of a plan to expand services in Indochina.

Sacombank said it was also planning to open a branch in Cambodia in 2009. ($1=16,518 dong) (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Kim Coghill)