The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has asked some commercial banks to implement an associated credit programme between investors, contractors, construction material suppliers and banks, in a bid to tackle difficulties for businesses operating in construction and property.

The programme will be executed by commercial entities the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank), the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), the Mekong Housing Bank (MHB), the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), the Vietnam Construction Bank, the Lien Viet Post Bank and the Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB).

Under an official document delivered to the commercials banks, the scope of the programme can be expanded to other fields such as basic construction, and transport and energy projects.

On April 22, the SBV presided over a meeting aimed to collect opinions on the draft credit cooperation agreement between the four economic entities.

In another move, the SBV has approved capital replenishment for commercial banks which join a 30 trillion VND (1.42 billion USD) package for housing support announced last year by the central bank.

Vietinbank topped the receivers of capital replenishment with more than 100 billion VND (4.7 million USD) in March; followed by BIDV with more than 81 billion VND (3.80 million USD); Vietcombank with over 34.6 billion VND (1.62 million USD); Agribank with 24.5 billion VND (1.15 million USD); and MHB with 960 million VND (45,120 USD).

Commercial banks had by March 31 disbursed over 3.12 trillion VND (146.64 million USD) from the housing support package to 3,537 customers.-VNA