Loans to the agricultural and rural areas in the first nine months increased by 17.6 per cent year-on-year (Photo: Agribank) Hanoi (VNA) -Credit growth of the entire banking system in the last 10 days of Septemberrose 1.14 percent, pushing the total increase in the first nine months of thisyear to 12.16 percent, the latest report from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)showed.
Loans increased by 17.6 percent year-on-year to the agricultural and ruralareas, 17.75 percent to the industrial sector, 19 percent to construction, and 18.1percent to trade and services.
Outstanding loans to small- and medium-sized enterprises by the end of Augustaccounted for 21 percent of the total outstanding loans, up 7.5 percentcompared with the period till December 31 last year.
The high credit growth has helped boost GDP in the first nine months to 6.41percent, much higher than the 5.99 percent increase in the first nine months of2016.
SBV also reported that in the first nine months of 2017, over 300 meetings anddialogues between banks and enterprises were organised to assist enterprises ingetting access to bank loans. Accordingly, banks committed to lendingfirms nearly 570 trillion VND (25.11 billion USD), of which more than 550trillion VND was disbursed for corporate customers.
[Deposit interest rates up as Gov’t seeks low lending rates]
In addition, banks also provided other forms of support, such as reducinglending rates for firms’ old loans totalling nearly 20 trillion VND.
To support the economic growth, the Government has also requested SBV tocontinue the monetary policy in the direction of lowering lending rates, at thesame time raising outstanding credit to 21-22 percent in 2017, based on creditquality and macro stability.
Together with the extension approval, SBV also instructed commercial banks toconduct scrutiny to ensure bank capital went to effective sectors, avoidingnon-performing loans.
The central bank noted that it is ready to supply capital to the economy;however, the terms of lending will remain strict, in accordance with legalregulations and procedures.-VNA
VNA
