Statistics of commercial banks showed that despite a decline in dollar deposits, their dollar lending increased significantly in the first quarter of this year.
During this period, the foreign currency lending growth rate in some banks was even higher than 10 per cent.
Currently, enterprises prefer to borrow foreign currency due to its low interest rates. The lending interest rates for short-term US dollar loans are now roughly 2.5 to four percent, while the rates for short-term loans in dong are some seven to nine percent.
Financial experts, however, have warned enterprises to be more cautious about the low-cost capital source as the value of the dollar has been appreciating significantly against the dong and there are risks of more pressure on the US dollar/dong exchange rate from now until the end of the year due to the global market volatility and domestic inflation./.
