Banks provide preferential loans to enterprises

Illustrative image. (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Four commercial banks signedagreements to provide loans worth a total of 4.66 trillion VND (200million USD) to 20 companies operating in Ho Chi Minh City-based industrialparks and export processing zones at a meeting connecting banks and businessesheld last week.

The agreement is designed to help companies access credit in atimely manner in the context of increasing capital demand.

Hua Quoc Hung, head of the HCM City Export Processing andIndustrial Zones Authority (Hepza), said demand for funds among businesses wasvery high in this recovery period after the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Companies have high demand for preferential credit torestore and expand production, but access to these sources of capital is stilllimited,” he said.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City Branch, thisyear, 13 banks in the city have registered to participate in the loan programmeand plan to provide credit of 424 trillion VND (18.2 billion USD) at interestrates of less than 4.5% per year for short-term loans and around 9% per yearfor medium and long-term loans, as well as offer other support such as reducinginterest rates on old loans and rolling them over, and increasing creditlimits.

Nguyen Duc Lenh, deputy director of SBV’s HCM City branch, saidthe banking sector in the city had adopted many solutions to help meet thecapital needs of enterprises, co-operatives and business households.

The programme to connect lenders and businesses alone had seennearly 100 trillion VND (4.3 billion USD) disbursed in the first half of theyear to help enterprises, co-operatives and business households reviveproduction and trading, he said.

Hung said that since 2012, Hepza had cooperated with the SBV’s HCMCity branch and a number of commercial banks to organise a programme tofacilitate businesses in accessing financial resources at suitable interestrates.

This also helped banks better understand enterprises in industrialproduction, thereby simplifying lending procedures, he said.

“For their part, commercial banks are also actively approachingsmall and medium sized enterprises to disburse loans in accordance with theGovernment's preferential policies, especially enterprises in priority fields,and those participating in the regional linkage model and value chainlinks," he said./.

VNA